(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York rejected for a second time on Wednesday former President Donald Trump’s attempt to have the United States government be substituted for him as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll and refused to stop a deposition by Trump scheduled for next week.
“Completing those depositions — which already have been delayed for years — would impose no undue burden on Mr. Trump,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said. “The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong.”
Trump is scheduled to sit for a deposition Oct. 19.
“We are pleased that Judge Kaplan agreed with our position not to stay discovery in this case,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said.
Trump had asked to put the case on pause while a different court resolves a matter that could ultimately make it go away.
Trump claimed a decision last month by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he was an employee of the federal government meant the United States could substitute for him as the defendant. The government cannot be sued for defamation.
Kaplan said Trump’s view was premature since the appellate court left open the question of whether Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he denied Carroll’s rape claim and, allegedly, defamed her by degrading her appearance.
The 2nd Circuit asked the D.C. Court of Appeals, whose law governs the scope of conduct by government employees, to weigh in.
“How the question ultimately will be resolved remains unknown. In the meantime, substitution would be premature,” Kaplan said.
An attorney for Trump, Alina Habba, said in a statement, “We look forward to establishing on the record that this case is, and always has been, entirely without merit.”
(WASHINGTON) — Will Americans see President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket again in 2024?
Biden, sitting down with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday night, said he won’t be making a decision on running for reelection until after the midterms — but insisted that he could defeat former President Donald Trump if they were to face off a second time.
“I believe I can beat Donald Trump again,” Biden said.
Biden, who turns 80 next month, said he intends on running for reelection. But polling has shown that many Democrats are looking elsewhere for a nominee.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post survey found just 35% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents favor Biden to be their candidate in 2024. More than half of these voters, 56%, want the party to pick someone else.
Questioned about concerns about his age, Biden said to look at his record and invited Tapper to join him for morning workouts.
“Name me a president in recent history who’s gotten as much done as I have in the first two years,” Biden said.
“It’s a matter of can you do the job,” he said. “I believe I can do the job.”
Trump also has been teasing another White House run, but has yet to formally declare his candidacy. In a head-to-head matchup, the ABC News poll found Biden and Trump to be essentially tied with 48% of Americans backing Biden and 46% backing Trump.
But first, Democrats have to make it through the midterms — a cycle historically unkind to the party in power. Forecasts from FiveThirtyEight show Republicans slightly favored to win back majority control of the House and Democrats slightly favored to maintain their advantage in the Senate.
Biden addressed hot-button topics like the economy and scrutiny of his son Hunter Biden in the interview with CNN.
Biden admits ‘slight’ recession is a possibility
Republicans have zeroed in on the administration’s handling of the economy, placing blame on Biden for the worst inflation in decades. Amid high prices, the Federal Reserve has implemented several interest rate hikes in hopes of bringing down costs but at the risk of causing a recession.
Biden at first downplayed recession fears, telling Tapper “no” when asked if Americans should prepare for a downturn. But then he slightly amended his answer, saying a recession is “possible.”
“Every six months they look down the next six months and say what’s going to happen. It hasn’t happened yet,” the president said. “I don’t think there will be a recession. If it is, it will be a very slight recession.”
Biden touted his administration’s work on the economy, citing the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act.
“It’s possible,” Biden said of a recession. “I don’t anticipate it.”
Biden responds to Hunter Biden reports
House Republicans are promising a congressional investigation of Hunter Biden if they retake the chamber this cycle.
Biden’s son is under scrutiny amid reports that federal prosecutors believe they have enough evidence to charge him with tax crimes and lying on a federal form when purchasing a gun. Sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News that federal agents believe there is enough to charge Hunter Biden with tax violations and with illegally obtaining a firearm.
The president came to his son’s defense, saying he’s “confident” Hunter Biden is being straightforward about what happened.
“First of all, I’m proud of my son,” Biden said. “This is a kid who got — not a kid, he’s a grown man — he got hooked on, like many families have had happened, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that and established a new life.”
Biden continued, “I didn’t know anything about it, but turns out that when he made [the] application to purchase a gun, what happened was — I guess you get asked the question are you on drugs or use drugs, he said no. And he wrote about saying no in his book. I have great confidence in my son.”
(WASHINGTON) — Pennsylvania is unlikely to have results on election night this November, the state’s top election official said Tuesday, because of a law limiting when mail votes can be processed.
That means voters may again have to wait to learn who wins key races in the battleground state, where the vote count in 2020’s presidential election lasted for days.
“We must again ask for patience,” Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, told reporters over Zoom.
“Official results will be available within a few days,” she said, predicting that unofficial results also wouldn’t be available on Nov. 8. “This delay does not mean anything nefarious is happening. It simply means that the process is working as it is designed to work in Pennsylvania and that election officials are doing their job to count every vote.”
Chapman attributed the expected delay to the state’s General Assembly deciding not to pass legislation allowing counties to begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day.
As it stands, processing cannot begin until 7 a.m. that day.
News organizations often declare a winner before an official count is issued, based on a detailed analysis of the partial results. But in the 2020 presidential race, it still took four days for ABC News to call Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, a reflection both of how thin the margins tend to be in the longtime purple state and the increased use of mail ballots.
In another election season change, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated an appellate judge’s ruling that had required Pennsylvania counties to count undated ballots, though state rules require voters to date their mail-in envelopes.
But Chapman is still allowing undated ballots to be counted, saying in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon that the Supreme Court ruling “was not based on the merits of the issue and does not affect the prior decision of the Commonwealth Court in any way.”
According to Chapman, more than one million mail-in ballots have been requested, with roughly 5% having been returned. An overwhelming majority of voters requesting mail-in ballots are Democrats, she said. During the last midterm elections, in 2018, roughly 5 million total Pennsylvanians voted.
The state is taking a stronger stance on voter intimidation, Chapman told reporters, and will require county officials to report any intimidation that occurs at drop boxes. The boxes have been baselessly criticized by some Republicans for fostering fraud.
Chapman cited instances in which sheriff’s deputies in Berks County have asked voters at drop boxes if they are returning their own ballot or someone else’s (Pennsylvania law forbids people to return another person’s ballot except in certain circumstances).
“My concern is that when there is law enforcement present, when there is questioning of voters at drop boxes, there could be potential for voter intimidation,” she said. “A lot of voters might not even decide to show up and return their ballot because of that concern.”
Asked whether she worries that Doug Mastriano — the Republican gubernatorial candidate who led the effort to challenge Pennsylvania’s election results in 2020 and has organized a vast poll watcher recruitment effort this fall — may leverage this year’s expected vote count delay to question the results of his own race, Chapman declined to say.
“I don’t comment on what one candidate says or does,” she said, “but my job is to ensure that every eligible voter in Pennsylvania is registered to vote, can cast their ballot and have it counted.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said he does not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would use a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukraine.
“I think it’s irresponsible for him to talk about it, the idea that a world leader of one of the largest nuclear powers in the world says he may use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview with the network.
“The whole point I was making was it could lead to just a horrible outcome. And not because anybody intends to turn it into a world war or anything, but just once you use a nuclear weapon, the mistakes that can be made, the miscalculations, who knows what would happen,” Biden continued.
When asked if the United States had considered what would happen if Putin did use a nuclear weapon and what the “red line” for his administration would be, Biden said it would be irresponsible of him to discuss specifics but made it clear that the Pentagon did not have to be asked to game out potential outcomes.
“He, in fact, cannot continue with impunity to talk about the use of a tactical nuclear weapon as if that’s a rational thing to do. The mistakes get made. And the miscalculation could occur, no one can be sure what would happen and could end in Armageddon,” Biden added later on in CNN’s interview.
Biden was questioned on whether he thought Putin was a rational actor and made it clear that he thought Putin was “a rational actor who miscalculated significantly.”
“I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated,” Biden said.
Following a large explosion on the Kirch Strait Bridge last Saturday, Russia, who has blamed Ukraine for the attack, has retaliated with a wave of powerful attacks across Ukraine with missile strikes on Kyiv and around the nation, killing at least 19 and injuring hundreds more.
Biden said he has “no intention” of meeting with Putin at the G20 taking place next month in Indonesia.
“He’s acted brutally, he’s acted brutally. I think he’s committed war crimes. And so I don’t, I don’t see any rationale to meet with him now,” said Biden.
But he did include a caveat with that statement.
“If he came to me at the G20 and wanted to talk about the release of Griner, I’d meet with him,” said Biden. “We’ve taken a position. I just did a G-7 meeting this morning … I’m not about to, nor is anyone else prepared to, negotiate with Russia about them staying in Ukraine, keeping any part of Ukraine.”
“But look, he’s acted brutally, he’s acted brutally. I think he’s committed war crimes,” Biden continued. “I don’t see any rationale to meet with him now.”
(WASHINGTON) — Officially four weeks out from Election Day, the 2022 midterm cycle is entering a final sprint as both parties wrestle for control of Congress.
Midterm elections have long been considered a referendum on the president’s party and voters now have their first nationwide chance to react to the first two years of President Joe Biden’s leadership.
The most recent ABC News polling, from September, shows Biden’s approval rating is underwater, with just 39% of Americans approving of his job performance while 53% disapprove.
But Democrats are looking to capitalize on a string of legislative victories this summer and a controversial Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights, while Republicans look to blame the administration for high inflation and what they say is a problem dealing with crime.
Early voting is already underway in more than a dozen states, with several more to start early voting sometime this week.
What’s at stake
Biden’s legislative agenda and ability to confirm judges and other nominees hang in the balance as campaigns near the finish line.
The midterms could very well change the power balance of Congress, where Democrats enjoy a narrow majority in the House and a one-vote advantage in the evenly split Senate thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ role as tie-breaker.
All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs this November, and while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed optimism about retaining control of the chamber, the latest forecast from FiveThirtyEight shows Republicans are slightly favored to win the House.
In the Senate, there are 35 seats on the ballot this November. Republicans need to flip just one seat to take back the chamber, but FiveThirtyEight’s model shows Democrats currently slightly favored to hold onto their majority.
If Republicans take back either chamber, they can thwart much of Biden’s agenda for the last two years of his term — something Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have already vowed to do. Biden himself has warned of a “difficult two years” if the GOP regains congressional control.
Latest forecasts
According to FiveThirtyEight, Republicans have an 80% chance of holding between 209 and 242 seats in the House — where a dozen or so toss-up races could make the difference between a GOP and Democratic majority.
As for the Senate, FiveThirtyEight shows Democrats having about a two-in-three chance of holding onto control. The party’s odds for retaining power have increased since late July, when the model showed both Democrats and Republicans with about a 50-50 chance of winning majority control.
The four likeliest tipping-point states in this year’s midterms are Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast.
Georgia, which flipped blue for Biden in 2020, has been the center of the political universe this past week as controversy has plagued Republican nominee Herschel Walker in his race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Senate debates highlight key issues for both parties
Meanwhile, debate season is in full-swing as candidates in battleground states take the stage to hammer out their differences.
Republicans are focusing their messaging on southern border security, the economy and crime while Democrats point to abortion rights and election denialism as major inflection points for voters this election cycle.
In Ohio’s Senate race, Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance clashed at a debate on Monday night over abortion access — with Ryan saying he wants to codify Roe v. Wade while alleging Vance once called rape an “inconvenience.” Vance denied saying that and falsely claimed a 10-year-old girl from Indiana who sought an abortion would’ve “never been raped in the first place” if Ryan had done his job on crime and immigration.
Also looming large over some debates have been Biden and former President Donald Trump.
A handful of Democrats in tight races have distanced themselves from the Biden administration on certain issues, including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who in a debate last week against Republican Blake Masters called the situation at the southern border a “mess,” and Ryan, who during Ohio’s Senate debate on Monday also distanced himself from Biden when it came to inflation and the border.
Meanwhile, North Carolina GOP Senate nominee Ted Budd embraced his relationship with the former president, touting himself as an “America-first candidate” in his Friday debate against Democrat Cheri Beasley. Vance, during Monday’s debate in Ohio, also declined to separate himself from Trump, who previously joked that Vance badly wanted his support.
More debates are scheduled this week in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.
(WASHINGTON) — Two leading Republican senators traveled to Carrollton, Georgia, on Tuesday to support the state’s GOP Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, who has been embroiled in controversy after denying a report claiming that in 2009 he paid for an abortion for a woman who said she’s also the mother of one of his children.
Both Florida Sen. Rick Scott — chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a major financial backer of Walker’s campaign — and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton spoke at a stop Tuesday on Walker’s “Unite Georgia Bus Tour,” though they made little more than veiled references to the woman’s abortion claim against Walker, who has campaigned as staunchly anti-abortion.
“I know we’re in the time in a political campaign when people get tired of television ads and the lies they tell about Herschel Walker,” Cotton said. “But let me promise you: The most important advertisement that Herschel Walker can have for the next 28 days is all of you — talking to your friends and your family and your neighbors and your coworkers and saying simply, ‘I’m for Herschel.'”
After the event, the senators — who were not joined by Walker — did not answer questions from reporters about if they had spoken to the candidate regarding the abortion allegations. Scott reiterated that “he’s denied the allegations.”
“Warnock and the Democrats want to make this about Herschel Walker’s yesterdays. Herschel Walker wants to make this about Georgia’s tomorrows,” Cotton said.
He and Scott spent most of their time on the stump applauding Walker’s positions on crime, inflation and border security, among other issues. They criticized Walker’s opponent, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, as a “rubber stamp” for President Joe Biden and Democratic policies.
“You want to vote for a man who believes America is a great country, a man who has overcome great adversity, a man who wants to bring the people of Georgia together and a man who believes our best days can be ahead of us. Well, then you should vote for the next U.S. senator from the great state of Georgia: Herschel Walker,” Scott said.
“If you like paying more for everything, you should vote for Warnock. Because he and Joe Biden did that. If you like paying double for gas, vote for Warnock, because he and Joe Biden did that,” Scott said.
Warnock — who has tried to highlight his bipartisan record in Congress — commented on the abortion claim against Walker on Thursday. He said at a campaign event that “what we’re hearing about my opponent is disturbing. I think the people of Georgia have a real choice about who they think is ready to represent them in the United States Senate.”
At Tuesday’s even with Cotton and Scott, Walker briefly touched on the claim, which he cast as a politically motivated “October surprise” in the final weeks of the race.
“Don’t let them be campaigning, come campaigning for you. They’re campaigning for your vote … They’ll do whatever it takes,” Walker said.
Scott, the head of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, said last week he was standing by Walker and pointed to Walker’s denial of the unnamed woman’s claim to The Daily Beast that he reimbursed her for an abortion more than a decade ago.
The woman, who described herself as an ex-girlfriend, told The Daily Beast that she has documents supporting her allegation: a receipt from an abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt with an image of a $700 check that she said was signed by Walker sent within a week of the abortion and also a “get well” card that she said was signed by Walker.
ABC News has not independently verified the reporting.
Walker has repeatedly denied paying the woman for an abortion, including in a Tuesday interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis.
He has not, however, disputed that he and the woman share a young son together and his campaign provided an NBC News reporter with some text messages between the woman and his wife that appear to show she has been in touch with them for years.
Walker said this summer that he has four children, including another son with his ex-wife.
After Walker denied the initial Daily Beast story, Scott said the NRSC would continue to back Walker and he argued that Democrats will “lie, cheat, and smear” because Walker was “winning” his race against Warnock.
“Herschel has denied these allegations and the NRSC and Republicans stand with him, and Georgians will stand with him too,” Scott said in a statement last week.
In a radio interview on Thursday, Walker again denied the abortion allegation but acknowledged past troubles that he said he overcame through his faith: “I wasn’t perfect. I had my problem with mental health. And I was, I’ve been, I hate to say I’ve been born again — but I have a new life.”
Walker is locked in a tight race against Warnock. The winner could decide control of the now 50-50 Senate.
Currently, Walker is trailing Warnock in the polls by about 3.5%, according to FiveThirtyEight.
(WASHINGTON) — Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly gay White House press secretary, marked National Coming Out Day on Tuesday with a personal story — sharing in a series of tweets and then remarks to reporters how “coming out wasn’t an easy thing to do.”
On Twitter, Jean-Pierre wrote that she was proud to share her own story even though for her “traditional and conservative” family, being gay “wasn’t something that you mentioned out loud or celebrated.”
But Jean-Pierre, who was born in Martinique in the Caribbean and then raised in New York, said her family grew to accept her.
“They saw that who I loved didn’t change who I was as a person,” she said at Tuesday’s press briefing, echoing her tweets and noting that she wanted to mark her own identity “particularly as we continue to see a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country.”
“The beauty of America is its freedoms and the promise that you can achieve your dreams, no matter your race, sex, country of origin, sexual orientation or gender identity,” she said. “This is something we continue to strive toward and fight for.”
In May 2021, when she was serving as a deputy press secretary, Jean-Pierre became the first openly gay person to brief reporters on behalf of the president while stepping in for her predecessor, Jen Psaki.
Jean-Pierre — who has a daughter with partner Suzanne Malveaux, a CNN correspondent — became the first openly gay White House press secretary nearly a year later when she took the helm from Psaki on May 13.
On #NationalComingOutDay, I’m proud to share my coming out story. Like so many in the LGBTQ+ community, coming out wasn’t an easy thing to do. My family was traditional and conservative. Being gay in my family wasn’t something that you mentioned out loud or celebrated.
A week earlier, she appeared behind the podium with Psaki to speak about the opportunity when the White House announced her promotion.
“This is a historic moment and it’s not lost on me. I understand how important it is for so many people out there, so many different communities that I stand on their shoulders, and I have been throughout my career,” Jean-Pierre said at the time.
Psaki noted the significance then as well, saying Jean-Pierre set an example.
“She will be the first Black woman, the first out LGBTQ+ person to serve in this role, which is amazing because representation matters,” Psaki said.
In an interview with ABC News’ Gio Benitez this summer, Jean-Pierre said her coming out story traced back to her teen years: “When I was 16 years old, I realized that I was different — and I kind of knew,” she said.
That was when she came out to her mom.
“You could see her head spinning,” Jean-Pierre said then.
“She saw me … having a totally different life,” she said of her mother.
“Years down the road” with the birth of her daughter, “almost everything changed” — for the better — with their relationship, she said.
Jean-Pierre has since used her platform as President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman to criticize policies that she says target LGBTQ people, such as a Florida ban on teachers discussing gender and sexuality in younger classrooms, which critics called the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“This is discrimination, plain and simple. It’s part of a disturbing and dangerous nationwide trend of right-wing politicians cynically targeting LGBTQI+ students, educators, and individuals to score political points,” Jean-Pierre wrote in a White House statement in July.
She added then that teachers who identify as LGBTQ are “being told to take down family photos of their husbands and wives—cherished family photos like the ones on my own desk.”
Jean-Pierre ended her series of tweets on Tuesday, for National Coming Out Day, with a message of reassurance to other LGBTQ people.
“Don’t feel discouraged if you come out and your family doesn’t embrace you right away,” she wrote. “Love always wins!”
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to avoid intervening in the government’s ongoing documents dispute with Donald Trump, asserting that the former president is not entitled to have the court put the materials before an independent arbiter.
Trump had asked the court to put more than 100 documents with classification markings back in the hands of the special master appointed to review the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ said in their latest filing that Trump “has no plausible claims of ownership or privilege in the documents bearing classification markings” and said that he has never represented in court that he declassified any of the documents — “much less supported such a representation with competent evidence.”
A federal appeals court last month excluded those documents from the special master’s review and restored the government’s access to them as federal prosecutors decide whether any criminal charges are warranted.
“Most notably, applicant has not even attempted to explain how he is irreparably injured by the court of appeals’ partial stay, which simply prevents disclosure of the documents bearing classification markings in the special-master review during the pendency of the government’s expedited appeal,” the DOJ’s Tuesday filing stated.
The department said Trump “has no basis to demand special master review” of any classified documents.
Trump’s application was made to the Supreme Court’s Clarence Thomas, the justice for the 11th Circuit. Thomas could rule on his own or refer the matter to the full court.
In the next 48 hours, the Trump team will file a reply to the DOJ’s brief. Then the court could act at any time, though it has not yet shown any indication that it sees this issue as an “emergency” in the way that Trump does.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court justices appeared deeply conflicted on Tuesday over the treatment of pregnant pigs, the prices consumers pay at the grocery store and California’s attempt to shape the pork industry with a ban on meat from mother sows kept in too narrowly confined spaces.
An oral argument in the case, National Pork Producers v. Ross, was scheduled for 70 minutes — but stretched to nearly double that as a consequential debate played out, pitting California voters’ moral views against a critical national industry that feeds millions of Americans every year.
At issue is California’s Proposition 12, passed in 2018, which would ban the sale of all pork from mother pigs housed in cages or crowded group pens with less than 24-square-feet each — the amount of room needed for an animal to turn around. Animal welfare advocates have called the confinement “cruelty.”
The nation’s $20-billion pork industry wants the justices to strike down the legislation, contending its example would empower other states to enforce their regulations and values nationwide.
“If Proposition 12 is lawful,” warned attorney Timothy Bishop, representing the National Pork Producers Council, “Oregon can condition imports on workers being paid the minimum wage. And Texas can condition sales on the producer employing only lawful U.S. residents. And at that point, we have truly abandoned the framers’ idea of a national market.”
While 63% of California voters approved Prop 12, it would have the biggest impact elsewhere: the Golden State consumes 13% of U.S. pork, the largest market in the country, but produces just 1%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Farmers in heavy pork-producing states like Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina say it will cost billions of dollars to retool their operations to comply with California’s law, resulting in less efficient production and, in turn, higher store prices for consumers.
“Even if it’s only $0.25 a pound or something, that adds up quite a bit over time,” economist Barry Goodwin, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in the pork industry, told ABC News.
The Biden administration has taken the side of pork farmers, concerned, they say, that a single state should not be allowed to upend a major American industry.
The Constitution’s so-called “dormant” commerce clause has been widely interpreted to prohibit states from passing laws that would have an excessive impact on interstate trade or the economic interests of other states.
The Supreme Court’s view of the clause will be key to the fate of Prop 12. Several of the justices indicated Tuesday that they shared the pork-producing industry’s concerns.
Justice Samuel Alito suggested he worried about the law setting off a tit-for-tat among states. “Could a state say, ‘We’re really concerned about water shortages, so we’re going to prohibit … the sale within our borders of any almonds where the trees are irrigated’?” Alito asked.
“If it’s focused on the sale within their borders,” replied California Solicitor General Michael Mongan, “I think that the logical conclusion of our position is that they could do that.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised hypotheticals, too: “What about a law that says, ‘You can’t sell fruit in our state if it’s produced — handled — by people who are not in the country legally’? Is that state law permissible?”
Justice Elena Kagan, noting we “live in a divided country,” worried about “balkanization.”
“Do we want to live in a world where we’re constantly at each other’s throats and, you know, Texas is at war with California and California at war with Texas?” she said.
Chief Justice John Roberts focused on what he saw as the role “morality” plays in California’s regulatory approach.
“I think people in some states, maybe the ones that produce a lot of pork, in Iowa or North Carolina or Indiana, may think there’s a moral value in providing a low-cost source of protein to people, maybe particularly at times of rising food prices,” Roberts said. “But under your analysis, it’s California’s view of morality that prevails over the views of people in other states because of the market power that they have.”
At the same time, many of the justices seemed to agree that states should have broad leeway in taking steps to protect the health and safety of residents as they see fit. California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 12, in part, based on arguments that confinement of pigs is harmful to human health.
“I know you’re going to tell me there’s no scientific proof, but there is certainly a reasonable basis for these people to think this,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“We don’t think there’s a reasonable basis,” Bishop, the pork industry attorney, replied.
Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed most inclined to side with California. “Californians … voted for this law,” he said. “They don’t wish to have California be complicit, even indirectly, in livestock practices that they find abhorrent, wherever they occur, in California or anywhere else. Why isn’t that a correct understanding of California’s asserted moral interest and why isn’t that an in-state moral interest?”
The justices could narrowly decide the case by simply allowing the pork producers’ legal challenge to move forward and go to trial in lower courts, saying little else and stopping short of a conclusion on the legality of California’s law.
The high court could, alternatively, take a more sweeping approach and clarify a test for when and how a state law violates the Constitution’s commerce clause, perhaps deciding the fate of Prop 12 outright.
During Tuesday’s arguments, several of the justices appeared to feel out a middle ground.
“Why can’t California solve for its morality issue in a different way,” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, “[and] simply allow California to express its morality interest through a less burdensome means, like segregating Iowa’s pork when it comes in, putting a big label over it that says ‘this is immorally produced’ or whatever — and that won’t hurt Iowa as much? Why can’t we say that that’s the way this should be?”
As the court took up the case, there were already signs market forces and consumer preferences have been nudging producers toward what animal advocates consider more ethical practices.
“They need more farmers doing it this way to meet the demand,” Ruth Jovaag, co-owner of the Jovaag Family Farm in Austin, Minnesota, previously told ABC News. “There’s not enough supply.”
The Jovaag Family Farm is part of the Niman Ranch network of family farmers who specialize in certified “humanely-raised” pigs and other animals. They abandoned gestation stalls, or crates, years ago and now give pregnant sows more than 60-square-feet each, piles of comfortable hay and fresh air and sunlight.
Mike Boerboom, a third-generation hog farmer who raises thousands of sows in confinement every year, hopes the justices will conclude that Californians have gone too far.
“We produce a lot of food to feed the rest of the country,” he told ABC. “It’s California today,” he added, “but are there going to be more mandates that come potentially from every other state? That’s the fear.”
(WASHINGTON) — Biden administration officials on Tuesday previewed the Department of Education’s much anticipated student loan forgiveness application process, which they said would be “easy,” “straightforward” and resistant to fraud.
But the officials did not signal when the loan cancellation applications would be available online beyond saying it would be sometime in October. That is a delay from an earlier timeline that the forms would be released by early October.
In a call with reporters organized by the White House, senior administration officials said that they expect it will take “a matter of weeks” after someone applies for them to receive loan forgiveness.
Still, the officials reiterated that eligible borrowers should apply by mid-November to ensure their loan amounts are canceled before repayments resume on Jan. 1, 2023, after a nearly three-year pause during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We hope and expect to deliver student debt relief to millions of Americans before the loan repayments restart,” one official said on the call.
The government has urged people to double-check their contact information online to ensure they receive timely updates when the application is ready.
Student loan forgiveness ap… by ABC News Politics
Under the forgiveness plan, people who made less than $125,000 in the 2020 or 2021 tax year — or less than $250,000 as a couple — will be eligible to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt or up to $20,000 for people with Pell grants, for low-income families.
The program, which President Joe Biden announced in August, is expected to apply to 43 million Americans — and 20 million could have their debt completely wiped out, the White House estimates.
The debt cancellation, which is also being challenged in court, is expected to cost around $400 billion, the Congressional Budget Office has said, though the administration disputes this assessment.
On Tuesday, administration officials said that once the application is released, eligible borrowers will fill out a “simple” two-part form that will be available in both English and Spanish, via computers and mobile devices, and accessible to borrowers with disabilities. The White House also released a sample version of that form.
Borrowers will not need to log in with a preexisting aid ID or upload any documents to the link, the officials said. They will have to provide their first and last names, Social Security number, date of birth, phone number, email address and income based on their 2020 or 2021 taxes.
At the bottom of the form, borrowers must review and sign a certification statement under penalty of perjury, which the administration officials stressed was one part of their defense against fraud.
“This is a multi-step process for preventing fraud,” one administration official said, adding that “all borrowers who apply will have to attest under penalty of perjury, which is enforceable with hefty fines and jail time, that they meet the income cutoff.”
The officials said there were “strict fraud prevention measures in place” for the loan forgiveness but declined to detail all of them.
A borrower will not have to mark whether or not they received a Pell grant, the officials said. The DOE already has borrowers’ loan information.
According to the White House, applicants who have a federal loan and are likely to “exceed” the income cutoff will be required to submit additional information to confirm that they meet the income requirement. The government will reach out to borrowers directly in the cases where they need more information.
The officials told reporters that steps have been taken to ensure the government can meet the volume of expected demand for the loan forgiveness.
“We’ve been working very hard with our existing contractors to make sure that they have the capacity that’s necessary to serve the public,” one official said. “We’ve also brought in additional support for web traffic and web volume. So we are aware of how big this project is that we’re working on and how important it is for 40 million borrowers and their families and communities and how much excitement there’s going to be.”
Asked about the recent decision to scale back some parts of the loan cancellation program — specifically regarding Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL), which are handled by private banks — an administration official on the call did not dispute that the change was made to help protect the overall policy from pending lawsuits.
“Our guiding principle here is that we are trying to reach as many borrowers as possible and to do that as quickly and easily as possible,” the official said.
The official said the government was assessing other options for borrowers of Perkins loans and FFELs.
The loan forgiveness application will be available through December 2023.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
