Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump last week announced a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela,” ratcheting up the pressure on Nicolás Maduro’s regime as 15,000 U.S. troops and 11 warships stand ready in nearby waters — and leaving questions over the scope of the apparent escalation.

A naval blockade is considered an act of war under international law. But Trump’s reference to “sanctioned” tankers indicated U.S. operations would continue as a law enforcement crackdown by the U.S. Coast Guard, which seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast last week and another over the weekend.

A Coast Guard interdiction is not a military operation; it is a court-authorized enforcement of U.S. sanctions.

According to retired Marine Corps Col. Steve Ganyard, a former State Department official and an ABC News contributor, the president’s orders, announced on his social media platform, amount to a legal quarantine — and not a blockade — because the post references only legally sanctioned tankers.

But Trump also referred to the Venezuelan regime as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), which could implicate any oil tanker that enters Venezuelan waters.

It wasn’t clear how the administration could designate the government as terrorists — or whether Trump was making reference to Cartel de los Soles, which the administration designated as a terror organization and has said is headed by Maduro.

What impact could a quarantine or blockade have?

Trump’s post last week “leaves more questions than answers,” said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What exactly are we going to do? How are we going to do it?”

“None of that is really detailed,” he said.

Whether the escalated pressure will target sanctioned vessels — or all vessels — remains an open question, but both approaches would impact Maduro, Seigle said.

“If you cut off all oil exports, and the associated revenues — and that’s a big if –then I think in a matter of weeks, the regime in Caracas would face extreme pressure,” he said.

If the U.S. continues to target only sanctioned tankers, “then I think that it could be a more prolonged runway for the regime to try to work something out, find a compromise, or even plan a deliberate exit.”

The U.S. says it has killed more than 100 people in the 25 strikes it says it has carried out on alleged drug smuggling boats since September.

Experts have pointed to President John F. Kennedy’s quarantine of Cuba in 1962 as an analogue to Trump’s approach — with unknown possibilities inviting risk.

“What if a ship doesn’t stop? This was the debate in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Seigle said. “It’s all fun and games if they pull over and let [themselves] get boarded.”

“What if they don’t? Are you opening fire? Are you sinking ships?”

The announced blockade, though, “looks like it’s a relatively low-risk military operation” designed “to prevent” such a “quagmire,” Seigle said.

“Because if it goes smoothly and they’re able to cut off a lot of Maduro’s oil revenue, then they have a reasonable chance of getting the political outcome that they want, which is Maduro fleeing.”

Yet Trump on Wednesday wouldn’t offer a comment when asked if he sought regime change in Venezuela. Instead, he repeated a claim he said was a premise for blocking tankers.

“You remember, they took all of our energy rights,” he said of Venezuela. “They took all of our oil from not that long ago, and we want it back. But they took it. They illegally took it.”

Trump did not specify which period of nationalizations undertaken by the Venezuelan governments aggrieved the U.S. in his view.

An international arbitration court in 2013 ordered Caracas to pay $8.7 billion to U.S. firm ConocoPhillips, penalizing Venezuela for expropriation of crude assets in 2007 which it found to be unlawful.

Operating in the shadows
The U.S. has sanctioned hundreds of oil tankers around the world which it says are part of an illicit network often called the “shadow fleet.”

27 of those designated tankers are operating in Venezuelan waters, according to Seigle.

Venezuela, Russia, and Iran “share that sanctioned fleet,” he added, and Venezuela’s slice is the smallest of the three.

A full quarter of China’s oil imports are produced by those sanctioned countries, Seigle said, leaving the country with “an outsized concern.”

“This is going to raise eyebrows and maybe raise concerns in Beijing among strategic planners that are responsible for making sure that they have enough oil,” he said.

Sanctioned tankers represent less than a fifth of the oil exported from Venezuela, according to Seigle.

“But I think it can have outsized effects in a number of important areas, including whether and for how long Maduro can hold out in a leadership position in Caracas, and also with regard to Venezuela’s biggest oil customer, which is China.”

Why call Maduro’s regime terrorists?

|As a part of Trump’s lengthy post on social media, the president also said the “Venezuelan regime” was an FTO, which the State Department designated it as in November.

Trump and State officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have repeatedly said Maduro is a narco-terrorist and the head of a narco-terrorist organization, adding that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

Trump is likely referring to the designation of the Cartel de los Soles when he points to the “Venezuelan Regime” in his post.

The State Department alleges in its designation that Maduro and other high-ranking officials head the Cartel de los Soles and have “corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary.”

Maduro’s government categorically denies the existence of the cartel.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in November that the designation of Maduro as a terrorist gives the U.S. more military options in its anti-trafficking operation and public pressure campaign on the Venezuelan president.

The FTO designation “brings a whole bunch of new options to the United States,” Hegseth said. “It gives more tools to our department to give options to the president.”

Legal experts have told ABC that the designation does not in itself constitute an authorization of force. But administration officials have consistently pointed to these designations publicly when disclosing strikes on alleged drug traffickers.

Notably, while the Maduro regime has been targeted as a foreign terrorist organization, the country of Venezuela has not yet been placed on the official “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list.

Only Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba are currently listed as state sponsors of terrorism.

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(WASHINGTON) — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation on Monday that would direct the Senate to initiate legal action to hold the Justice Department accountable for failing to release the complete files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by Friday’s deadline, which was mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Schumer’s announcement came after Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie announced on Sunday that they are pursuing “inherent contempt” charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for not complying with the law to release the complete Epstein files.

If the effort passes, it could lead to Bondi’s arrest — though the pair is expected to introduce the resolution as “privileged” once the House returns in January, which would force a vote within two legislative days on the House floor, and it’s unclear if this effort would even be successful when it comes up for a vote.

“The law Congress passed is crystal clear: release the Epstein files in full so Americans can see the truth,” Schumer said in a statement. “Instead, the Trump Department of Justice dumped redactions and withheld the evidence — that breaks the law. Today, I am introducing a resolution to force the Senate to take legal action and compel this administration to comply.”

The DOJ faced a Friday deadline imposed by Congress and signed into law by the president to release a massive cache of records gathered during government investigations into the sex offender, who died in jail in 2019.

The Justice Department released thousands of files — ranging from investigative documents to grand jury testimony to snapshots taken by Epstein and his friends — but said it would fail to fully release all the files by the deadline. The law contains exceptions to protect victims and other circumstances, but critics say the DOJ is not following the letter and spirit of the law.

Schumer called the DOJ’s partial release on Friday a “blatant cover-up.”

“Pam Bondi and [Deputy Attorney General] Todd Blanche are shielding Donald Trump from accountability, and the Senate has a duty to act,” Schumer said.

Schumer is expected to force consideration of this bill on the Senate floor in January when the Senate returns from its holiday break. The bill would likely require unanimous consent to pass.

It is unclear if it would have that support, but the Senate unanimously passed the Epstein Transparency Act, which compelled the release of the Epstein documents.

On Sunday, Khanna and Massie, the co-authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, announced their intent to pursue inherent contempt proceedings.

The inherent contempt power permits Congress to rely on its own constitutional authority to detain and imprison a “contemnor” — someone held in contempt — until the individual complies with congressional demands like a subpoena or a monetary fine, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The power directs the Sergeant at Arms to arrest the individual who refuses to comply with a subpoena or fine, however, once the witness complies with the subpoena, they are released.

Notably, the resolution would not require passage in the Senate to be enforced.

“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie said on “CBS News’ Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Khanna, who also appeared on the same program on Sunday, reiterated that inherent contempt is the right path at this point.

“We only need only need the House for inherent contempt, and we’re building a bipartisan coalition, and it would fine Pam Bondi for every day that she’s not releasing these documents. I’ll tell you why, I’ve talked to the survivors, why this is such a slap in the face,” Khanna said.

On NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Blanche said he wasn’t taking Massie and Khanna’s threats seriously because he said he believes they are in compliance with the law. Specifically regarding threats of legal action against the department, Blanche said, “Bring it on.”

A statement released Monday morning by attorneys representing a group of Epstein survivors said omissions in the files by either redactions or unreleased pages amounted to a failure.

“We are told that there are hundreds of thousands of pages of documents still unreleased,” the statement said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Heading into the new year, Senate Democrats are raising concerns about the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to handle the upcoming tax filing season, amid changes in leadership and to the workforce in the first year of the Trump administration.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary and acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent obtained first by ABC News, the group of 17 senators, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, wrote that they have “serious concerns” the IRS is “not prepared” for the next tax season, and that taxpayers “may face delays and difficulties in filing returns and receiving refunds.”

The Trump administration has conducted large-scale layoffs and voluntary buyouts — some of which have been reversed — at the IRS, which is also responsible this year for implementing new changes to the tax code following the passage of Republicans’ major tax and domestic policy bill.

Bessent has served as acting IRS commissioner since August after President Donald Trump removed Billy Long, a former GOP congressman, from the role two months after he was confirmed by the Senate and nominated Long to become the U.S. ambassador to Iceland.

Bessent became the seventh official to lead the agency in 2025, following Long and a string of other senior officials.

The law made permanent the 2017 GOP tax cuts, while boosting funding for border security and the Defense Department, scaling back some social safety net programs, and limiting taxes on tips and overtime for some workers.

In a statement to ABC News, Warren accused the Trump administration of enacting changes that will benefit wealthy Americans and make it harder for other Americans seeking help from the agency.

“Donald Trump’s endless attacks on the IRS are good news for his billionaire buddies and giant tax prep companies, but bad news for Americans getting ready for filing season. Americans rely on the IRS to file their taxes and get their tax refunds quickly and easily, and I’m pressing for answers,” she wrote.

The Democrats also cited a September report from the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration on the previous filing season.

While the watchdog called the 2025 filing season “successful” and found that the agency processed more tax returns compared to the same time period in the previous year, it also found that the Trump administration’s workforce reductions “had no significant impact” on the 2025 filing season — but that they could “impact key processing programs and customer service going forward.”

According to the inspector general’s office, the staffing losses on customer service and anti-fraud teams could lead to the agency processing fewer returns, assisting fewer taxpayers, and failing to prevent $360 million in fraudulent refunds from being paid out.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to questions from ABC News about the inspector general’s report and the concerns raised by Democrats.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s military mission off Venezuela’s coast, calling the seizures of multiple oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea “a provocation and a prelude to war.”

“I’m not for confiscating these liners. I’m not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people that are suspected of being drug dealers. I’m not for any of this,” Paul told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

Paul also described the administration’s policy of handling suspected drug traffickers as “bizarre and contradictory.”

“And then why is the former president [Juan Orlando] Hernandez of Honduras, who was in jail for 45 years, why is he released?” Paul asked. “So, some narco-terrorists are really OK and other narco-terrorists we’re going to blow up. And then some of them, if they’re not designated as a terrorist, we might arrest them.”

Here are more highlights from Paul’s interview:

On Erika Kirk and Marco Rubio’s 2028 Vance endorsement
Karl: Is JD Vance the heir apparent here?

Paul: I think there needs to be representatives in the Republican Party who still believe international trade is good, who still believe in free market capitalism, who still believe in low taxes. See, it used to separate conservatives and liberals that conservatives thought it was a spending problem. We didn’t want more revenue. We wanted less spending. But now all these pro terror protectionists, they love taxes, and so they tax, tax, tax, and then they brag about all the revenue coming in. That has never been a conservative position. So I’m going to continue to try to lead a conservative free market wing of the party, and we’ll see where things lead over time.

Karl: And that’s not JD Vance.

Paul: No.

On retaliatory strikes in Syria
Paul: You know, it’s hard not to want to hit back when they kill some of our own. But I would like to go back, really, to the first Trump administration when he said he didn’t want the troops there. There’s like 900 troops, maybe a thousand, maybe 1,500. They’re not enough to fight a war. They’re not enough to be an effective strategic force. What they are is a target and a tripwire. 

So we’ve done this retaliatory strike. Now, now, Donald Trump ought to do what Donald Trump proposed in the first administration, what Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 bomb. He left. There’s no reason for us to be in Syria. We need to leave Syria and not be a trip wire to getting back involved in another war.

On the potential for a one-year extension for ACA subsidies
Paul: Look, we have health care in our country for poor people. It’s called Medicaid. All of the rest of this stuff has not worked. Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama said it would bring premiums down. Premiums gone through the roof. Every time we give more subsidies, the premiums go higher. I have a plan that says everybody in this marketplace, and it’s only about 4%, everybody in this marketplace should be able to go to Amazon or Costco or Sam’s Club and as a group, a large group — millions of people in the group — negotiate with Big Insurance to bring prices down. It’s the only proposal out there that — that has a chance of bringing prices down.  

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(NEW YORK) — The No. 2 official in the Justice Department told ABC News in an interview Friday that there has been “no effort” to redact President Donald Trump’s name from the release of files stemming from federal investigations into convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked Friday in an interview by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas whether every document that mentions Trump will be released as the government continues its rollout of hundreds of thousands of files in the coming weeks.

“Assuming it’s consistent with the law, yes,” Blanche said. “So there’s no effort to hold anything back because there’s the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else’s name, Bill Clinton’s name, Reid Hoffman’s name. There’s no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that and — and so — but again, we’re not, we’re not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein.” 

When directly pressed over whether there’s been any order to DOJ  personnel to redact materials involving Trump, Blanche rejected any such suggestion and accused Democratic lawmakers of using selective disclosures from Epstein’s estate to present Trump in a negative light.  

“President Trump has certainly said from the beginning that he expects all files that can be released to be released and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Blanche said. 

Blanche sat for the interview just hours before the department released its first tranche of thousands of files, which contained little information related to Trump and instead included images of former President Bill Clinton without context, which were highlighted on social media by DOJ and White House officials.

A spokesperson for Clinton accused the department of selectively disclosing the pictures in a statement and denied that they showed any wrongdoing by the former president.

“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday only to protect Bill Clinton,” Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Urena said Friday. “They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton.”

“Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats,” the spokesperson said.

In the ABC News interview, Blanche further sought to defend the department’s decision not to release the entirety of its files subject to disclosure under the bill signed into law by Trump, which gave the Justice Department a 30-day deadline to release the entirety of its Epstein investigative files. 

“I did not say that all the files will not be released, I said all the files will not be released today,” Blanche said when asked about an interview he gave earlier Friday to Fox News. “And the law is very specific that the Department of Justice is required to make sure that we protect victims. And as recently as Wednesday, we learned of additional victim names, and so we’ve received over 1,200 names of victims and their family members since we started this process. And so there’s an established precedent that in a situation like this, where it’s in essence impossible for us to comply with the law today, that we comply with the law, consistent with the law.”

When asked whether the public should be confident that Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal defense attorney, would act in the public’s interest over Trump, Blanche said the American people should look at what the department ultimately releases.

“Your confidence should be in the fact that for decades, lots of people have been trying to go after President Trump falsely, and when it came to the Epstein saga, it’s exactly the same story.”  

Blanche added that the process to make redactions to the documents, “was not Attorney General [Pam] Bondi, [FBI] Director Patel, Todd Blanche going through and coding millions of documents and saying, ‘yes, no, yes, no.’ You have multiple, dozens and dozens of the most highly trained lawyers in the Department of Justice working for the National Security Division. These are career lawyers engaged in this process.”

Blanche defends prison transfer of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell  

In the interview, Blanche also defended the department’s controversial move over the summer to transfer Epstein’s convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell to a lower security prison facility just days after he sat for an interview with her over two days in Florida.

In an interview released by Vanity Fair earlier this week, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied that Trump was involved in the decision and said he disapproved of Maxwell’s transfer. 

While Blanche said he was “not permitted” to talk about security for individual inmates, he said Maxwell was facing “multiple threats” that warranted her being moved to a separate low-security facility in Texas.

“At the time that she was moved, there were multiple threats against her life, and like happens all the time at the Bureau of Prisons when that happens, one of the things that one of the options available to the warden and the security system within the Bureau of Prisons is to move the inmate,” Blanche said. “She’s not released. She’s in federal prison.”

Blanche further denied Maxwell was receiving any preferential treatment in the new facility, despite recent whistleblower disclosures released by congressional Democrats. 

 Blanche says investigations into Comey, James will continue

ABC News separately asked Blanche whether the department plans to continue pursuing prosecutions against two of Trump’s top political targets, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey after a federal judge tossed their indictments in November on the basis that a Trump-installed prosecutor was unlawfully appointed. 

 Two separate federal grand juries in the past two weeks have rejected the department’s efforts to re-indict James on mortgage fraud charges and a separate federal judge in Washington, D.C., has restricted prosecutors from accessing key evidence in their probe of Comey.

Blanche confirmed the department’s investigation into Comey “is continuing” and said it was “not a mystery” that DOJ plans to still seek charges against him and rejected any suggestion the prosecution was “vindictive.”

James and Comey have denied all wrongdoing.

When asked about the interview that Wiles, the White House chief of staff, gave to Vanity Fair in which she candidly appeared to concede the DOJ’s prosecution of James was “retribution,” Blanche again defended the department’s actions.

“Because we’re looking at the evidence, we’re investigating them, investigating the cases. We have law enforcement, career law enforcement, doing the investigations are being presented to a grand jury in the normal course,” Blanche said.

ABC News has previously reported that career prosecutors on both the James and Comey investigations recommended prosecutors not pursue  either indictment based on what they considered the lack of sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers warned the Trump administration that they’re “examining all legal options” to hold it accountable to Friday’s deadline ordering the Department of Justice to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accusing the administration of “breaking the law.”

The Justice Department was set to release on Friday hundreds of thousands of documents stemming from its investigations into Epstein, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview with Fox News.

But as the administration reviews the documents for sensitive materials, Blanche said more productions would be coming over the next several weeks — indicating the administration does not believe it can fully comply with a law mandating the release of all files by 11:59 p.m. on Friday.

“So today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said.

The comments set off immediate reaction from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Schumer charged that the administration is “hell-bent on hiding the truth” while asserting that failure to release all of the Epstein documents by Friday’s deadline would be “breaking the law.” 

“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out,” Schumer pledged in a statement. “People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past.”

Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and said he hadn’t spoken to Epstein for more than a decade at the time of his arrest in 2019.

Trump’s name was mentioned several times across the hundreds of Epstein files that were made public earlier this year. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an article published this week that Trump “is in the file” but that “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.” 

Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, said they’re examining “all legal options” after “the Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” Garcia and Raskin said in a statement.

“Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this Administration has broken the law. We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” they added.

The White House has not publicly commented  on the criticism from Democrats.

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who led the charge to force the vote to compel the Justice Department to release the files, posted the legislative text of the bill he co-authored highlighting the phrase “not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this act” and also the word “all” as it pertained to “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorneys’ Offices.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has long been investigating Epstein’s financial ties, proclaimed that anything short of a full release of the files by end of day Friday amounts to a “violation of the law.”

“The law Congress passed did not say ‘release some of the Epstein files’ or ‘release the files whenever it’s convenient for Donald Trump.’ Anything short of a full release today is a violation of the law and a continuation of this administration’s coverup on behalf of a bunch of pedophiles and sex traffickers,” Wyden wrote in a statement.

Blanche, during the Fox News interview, suggested that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims. 

Blanche added that “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is taking his message and vision on the economy directly to voters — but he faces an American public that, recent polling shows, feels largely negative toward how the president has handled economic issues.

“Here at home, we’re bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin,” Trump said during a primetime address to the nation on Wednesday night.

Vice President JD Vance also travelled to Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday to talk about the White House’s economic vision — just one week after Trump paid his own visit to the Keystone State for remarks on the economy.

But a Quinnipiac University poll published on Wednesday found that almost 6 in 10 registered voters disapprove of how Trump has handled the economy, while 65% say the state of the American economy is “not so good” or “poor.”

Quinnipiac University’s poll also found that 57% of registered voters think Trump is more responsible for the economy’s state right now, and 34% of voters think former President Joe Biden is.

Last week, Reuters and Ipsos published a poll that found that only 31% of Americans approve of how Trump has handled the cost of living — up from 26% in their late November polling.

Dan Schnur, a political communications and strategy expert who teaches at the University of Southern California, told ABC News that part of that comes from Republican voters, including working-class young men, feeling the impact of high costs.

“A lot of voters, particularly working-class young men, voted for him last year because they were angry about the inflation under Biden and they believed Trump would make things better,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet, and so we’re beginning to see their disappointment.”

Ryan Mahoney, a Republican strategist and former communications director for the Georgia Republican Party, told ABC News he thinks this low approval may be because of a “disconnect from the White House to the American people, about the president acknowledging and empathizing with the cost crunch that the American people are feeling.”

Asked on Tuesday if he was worried about recent polling and whether affordability would be a political liability, Vance brushed off concerns — instead shifting blame to Biden.

“When we go out there and we tell our story, that gasoline and energy got way too high under Joe Biden’s administration, but we’ve lowered the cost of energy — the American people will understand that … They know what Joe Biden broke is not going to be fixed in a week,” Vance said. 

ABC News has reached out to Biden’s office for comment on Vance’s remarks.

Inflation rose during Biden’s term (while slowing toward its end). At the time, Biden and his White House defended the administration’s performance on the economy by pointing to measures they took to bolster the economy, particularly as it struggled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economists have also said rising prices during Biden’s presidency did not occur in a vacuum, but emerged in part from factors such as the supply shortage imposed by the pandemic.

Despite the economic woes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. economy significantly outperformed other major industrialized nations as it emerged from the pandemic, according to an October 2024 report by the Brookings Institution.

Schnur said that while discussing Biden could be “part of, potentially, an effective message. The problem is that blaming your predecessor — for any president — has diminishing returns the longer they’ve been in office.”

From a tactical perspective, Mahoney said, “It’s OK to blame what happened for the four years before you got into office, that you’re having to wade through that … I think all of that is fair game,” Mahoney said. “I do think, though, you have to then present what your plan is.”

Trump is set to once again speak about the economy in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Friday — so will his administration’s focus on the issue and travels help Americans feel better about how they’re handling the economy? 

“I love the idea of getting on the road … but at the end of the day, the script, the teleprompter, the remarks to folks, the interviews with press, have to acknowledge the problem and then provide the solutions,” Mahoney said.

Doug Heye, another GOP strategist and a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, told ABC News, “In a normal political world, this is what you do, and this helps. But we just saw in Pennsylvania, where Trump was supposed to talk about the economy, and brings up all this other stuff, and all he does is get in the way of himself, and there’s no reason to think that that’s going to change.”

Schnur, meanwhile, cautioned that local visits may help Trump’s standing on the economy with older voters, but may have less impact on younger voters who get their news more through digital platforms — a challenge facing both major political parties.

David McIntosh, the president of the conservative political group Club for Growth, said Republicans should “take their message directly to the people this Christmas and in 2026” and explain that the way to reduce prices is “to have price transparency, reduce regulations, and allow free markets to bring back affordability.”

A White House spokesperson, in response to the recent polling and concerns raised by some in the GOP, pointed to how Trump was elected because of economic concerns and to Thursday’s better-than-expected inflation numbers as a sign of the administration’s success.

“President Trump was resoundingly re-elected one year ago precisely because he, unlike Democrats, understood and acknowledged Joe Biden’s economic disaster,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to ABC News.

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(PHOENIX) — Erika Kirk endorsed Vice President JD Vance for president during a Turning Point USA conference in Arizona, vowing to throw one of the most influential conservative organizations in the country behind Vance in 2028.

“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said during her speech on Thursday night at AmericaFest, the first major Turning Point event since her husband’s assassination.

While the endorsement is not a major surprise given Vance’s close relationship with Charlie Kirk, Erika Kirk and Turning Point, it is significant given the group’s prominence on the right.

Turning Point, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012, played a key role in helping elect President Donald Trump and shaping the modern conservative movement, particularly among younger voters.

Vance has not yet officially said whether he will run in 2028. In an interview last month with Fox News, Vance said he was focused on the vice presidency and the 2026 midterms but would have a conversation with President Trump after next year’s elections about 2028 .

“​​We’re going to win the midterms, we’re going to do everything that we can to win the midterms, and then after that, I’m going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it,” Vance said. “But let’s focus on the now.”

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Vance credited the Turning Point founder for his own political rise and for building out President Trump’s second administration.

“So much of the success we’ve had in this administration traces directly to Charlie’s ability to organize and convene. He didn’t just help us win in 2024, he helped us staff the entire government,” Vance said in the days after Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10 during a campus event at Utah Valley University.

Erika Kirk’s endorsement follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that if the vice president were to run for president in 2028, he would support him. 

“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio told Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple.

Trump himself has said Vance and Rubio would be “great” options for presidential candidates.

“I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two,” Trump said in late October. “I think if they ever formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House announced Thursday that the board at the Kennedy Center, which President Donald Trump now chairs and is newly filled with his appointees, has voted “unanimously” to rename the building the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”

“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a social media post.

“Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur,” Leavitt continued.

The move raises legal questions, as it appears congressional approval would be needed to make the name change.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, told ABC News that federal statute (Title 20 of the U.S. Code, section 76i) designates the building “the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” 

“I suppose he could rename some parts of the building, but he cannot rename the building itself or the center itself,” Super said.

Back in February, Trump fired multiple members from the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees and became its chairman. Several of his administration officials were then installed as board members — including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, second lady Usha Vance, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, and U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.

When asked about the board’s vote to rename the center during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he was “honored” and “surprised.”

“Well, I was honored by it. It’s board, it’s a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. And I was surprised by it. I was honored by it,” Trump said.

While Trump and the White House said the vote was unanimous, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Board of Trustees as one of its ex-officio members, said she was muted on the call during the vote and could not voice her opposition to the name change.

Beatty told reporters that “a lot of time was spent praising the president” before a proposal was made to rename the building.

“At that point, I said, ‘I have something to say,’ and I was muted, and as I continued to try to unmute, to ask questions and voice my opposition to this, I received a note saying that I would not be unmuted,” Beatty said. “I was not allowed to vote because I was muted. I would not have supported this.”

Beatty and Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, the ranking member on the House Appropriations subcommittee on the interior, said they were looking at ways to push back on the change in Congress.

“We also believe this is illegal. This is our living monument to JFK,” Pingree said.

Though Trump said he was “surprised,” he has repeatedly referred to the center as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” before the change was announced on Thursday.

“On Dec. 5 of this year, the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw will take place at the Kennedy Center. Some people refer to [it] as the Trump-Kennedy Center, but we’re not prepared to do that quite yet– maybe in a week or so,” Trump said on August 22.

Trump on Thursday said his administration “saved” the historic arts and culture center.

“We’re saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape — physically, financially, in every other way,” he said. “And now it’s very solid and very strong.”

Despite Leavitt and Trump’s claims that he has rescued the building financially, the Washington Post reported in late October that ticket sales have plummeted since Trump’s takeover.

Several high-profile artists and shows have canceled appearances at the venue since Trump became its leader, including actress Issa Rae and the Broadway show “Hamilton.”

ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said during his presidential address on Wednesday night that his administration is “bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin,” claiming that he has brought prices down across the board.

“I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast,” Trump said from the White House’s Diplomatic Room, adding, “Let’s look at the facts.”

He made sweeping claims about prices — from gasoline and groceries to airfare and hotel flights — comparing the current price to that of former President Joe Biden’s administration.

But according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the president’s claims in some cases appeared to be exaggerated, false or unverifiable.

BLS is set to release updated numbers on Thursday providing an updated look at consumer prices — the first inflation report since the end of the government shutdown.

The president said that under Biden, gasoline prices rose 30 to 50%, hotel rates rose 37% and airfares rose 31%.

“Now, under our leadership, they are all coming down and coming down fast. Democrat politicians also sent the cost of groceries soaring, but we are solving that, too,” Trump claimed.

Trump claimed that egg prices are down 82% since March and that “everything else is falling rapidly.”

ABC News has compiled fact checks on some of Trump’s claims.

Gas prices

It’s true that gas prices hit an all-time high in June 2022 under Biden, with an average price of $5.016 per gallon, per AAA.

According to AAA, the new average is $2.998. That would be an almost 50% decrease from the highest point under the Biden administration.

But when you compare gas prices to where they were just a year ago, Sept. 2025 to Sept. 2024, the latest CPI report puts gas down just .5%.

Airfare

Airline fares were up 3.2% in September under the Trump administration compared to a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hotel rates

Hotel room rates are down .8% and car rental prices are down 5.0% over the past year, per BLS data.

Groceries

The average price of a dozen grade A eggs was $3.49 as of September, down from an all-time high of $6.23 in March — a 43% decrease, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s important to note, also, that egg prices were heavily affected by the avian flu.

Overall, meat prices have gone up 8.5% in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Beef prices are at a record high — up 14.7% in the past year.

Notably, Trump also doesn’t mention coffee. Coffee is up 18.9%, according to BLS data from September, the most recent available. The price of coffee has risen in part due to the president’s tariffs on places like Brazil — although last month the White House began exempting coffee from his tariffs.

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