(WASHINGTON) — Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democratic negotiator on a pending package to address gun violence, told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that a deal had been reached on the legislative text — and that the bill will be out soon.
“We have an agreement and the text will be coming out very shortly,” Murphy said before walking onto the Senate floor to preside.
Murphy declined to give more specific timing on when the draft bill would be introduced ahead of what leaders have signaled would be a quick vote.
A bipartisan group of senators has been working for days behind the scenes to turn a previously announced legislative framework into a specific bill that retains enough Republican support to avoid a filibuster.
Democratic leadership, including Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, have been clear they need bill text by Tuesday to get to a vote before the July 4 recess.
The disagreements negotiators faced
Sources previously told ABC News that abortion funding had emerged as the latest snag in the Senate’s talks to finalize the legislative agreement, with the informal deadline looming at the end of Tuesday in order to keep a potential bill on track for a vote before the two-week holiday break.
Negotiators had recently been focusing on the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding from being used to pay for abortions. That provision got caught up in the portion of the possible gun law dealing with mental health funding, with Republicans pushing for language barring any money in an ultimate agreement from being used pay for abortions, according to a source familiar with the matter.
That snag marked the latest curveball in the discussions.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the lead Republican working on the deal, expressed optimism to ABC News earlier on Tuesday that an agreement could be reached later that day, saying that draft text would emerge “hopefully shortly.”
Still, Cornyn said — without elaborating — that certain “details” needed to be worked out.
“It’s a complicated bill and it’s been a tough negotiation,” he said.
The other core negotiators have been Sens. Murphy, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
The gun talks recently narrowed in on two other disagreements: funding for “red flag” laws, which would allow law enforcement to remove firearms from those deemed a danger to themselves or others, and how extensively to address the “boyfriend loophole” by expanding the kinds of domestic abusers barred from having firearms.
Sen. Durbin, the majority whip, suggested to ABC News on Tuesday that conversations over the Hyde Amendment could be resolved quickly and aides were still optimistic that an overall deal would not be derailed.
Negotiators have been pressing for a bill that can get the filibuster-proof support of 10 Republican senators, the same number who previously supported the framework announced on June 12.
Democrats want a deal to be wrapped up shortly to maintain momentum amid public outcry following high-profile mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Republicans, meanwhile, are facing calls from their base to blunt the gun-access aspects of any legislation, with that pressure on display over the weekend when Cornyn was booed at a state party convention in Texas.
When asked by ABC News on Tuesday if that made negotiations more difficult, Cornyn replied, “Oh no. No it hasn’t.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee’s Tuesday hearing will focus on what it says was then-President Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” effort to push key state officials to reject the election results and his central role in the plot to create “fake” slates of electors to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump “drove a pressure campaign bases on lies” about the election, an aide told reporters on a briefing call Monday, and was “warned that his actions risked inciting violence” but “did it anyway.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., will lead the 1 p.m. ET hearing that the aide said will reveal new information obtained by the committee, including evidence it says shows Trump’s role in the effort to get states to submit “fake” pro-Trump electors to Congress to overturn Biden’s win.
“We’ll show evidence of the president’s involvement in this scheme. We’ll also again show evidence about what his own lawyers came to think about this scheme,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Schiff also told the Los Angeles Times that then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows appeared at a Georgia election meeting and also offered auditors autographed “Make America Great Again” hats.
While the hearing will feature live witness testimony from Arizona and Georgia officials, the committee will describe the “breadth” of Trump’s pressure efforts, which also included Michigan and Pennsylvania, the committee said.
The pressure campaign was part of what the committee says is a discredited theory presented by Trump election attorney John Eastman that then-Vice President Pence could unilaterally block Congress’ certification of Biden as president.
An aide said the committee would also spotlight “the heroes in this story” who “remained true to their oaths” and rejected the overtures of Trump and his allies to reject their state’s results or send pro-Trump electors to Congress to further the election challenge.
The committee will also show, an aide said, how the threats facing election workers are “real” and “ongoing” heading into the midterms and 2024 presidential election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who beat a Trump-backed challenger in his GOP primary race for secretary of state last week, will testify on Tuesday, along with his blunt-spoken deputy, Gabe Sterling. Both were on that infamous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to “find” 11,780 votes in Georgia — just one vote over the margin by which he trailed President-elect Joe Biden — so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.
Joining them will be Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who was pressured by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to decertify Biden’s victory in the state, according to emails reviewed by ABC News. Bowers previously described to The Arizona Republic that Rudy Giuliani also called him after the election to pressure him to involve the state legislature to manipulate results in his state.
A spokesperson for the Arizona House of Representatives confirmed to ABC News that Bowers is set to testify in Tuesday’s committee hearing in response to a committee subpoena.
On a second panel, former Fulton County election worker “Shaye” Moss will be the sole live witness. Moss and her mother were falsely accused by Giuliani and other Republicans of election fraud and smuggling “suitcases” of illegal ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on election night. She’s said she was subject to harassment and threats online even after Georgia election officials debunked the allegations.
Both Bowers and Moss received the 2022 JFK Profile in Courage Award “for their courage to protect and defend democracy in the United States.” (Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., also was a recipient.)
In public remarks in Nashville on Friday, Trump compared lawmakers on the Jan. 6 committee to “con artists” as he continues to push the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, part of what the committee argues is a conspiracy that led directly led to the attack on the Capitol.
A majority of Americans appears to agree with the committee, which has interviewed 1,000 people and reviewed more than 140,000 documents in an 11-month-long investigation it says is still ongoing.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted last week after the committee held its third of seven public hearings scheduled for June found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident. In the poll, 58% of Americans said Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the attack — up slightly from late April, before the hearings began, when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of Americans thought the former president should be charged.
Cheney previewed Tuesday’s hearing last week, saying the committee will examine “the Trump team’s determination to transmit material false electoral slates from multiple states to officials of the executive and legislative branches of our government” as well as “the pressures put on state legislators … to reverse lawful election results.”
“An honorable man receiving the information and advice that Mr. Trump received from his campaign experts and his staff, a man who loved his country more than himself would have conceded this election,” she told the hearing room. “Indeed, we know that a number of President Trump’s closest aides urged him to do so.”
A second hearing this week is scheduled for Thursday and will focus on the pressure placed on Justice Department officials, members said.
It comes as the Justice Department sent a letter last week telling the committee’s chief investigator it is “critical” members “provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews” — which the committee has declined to do. The request suggests there are matters DOJ is investigating beyond the violence on the ground on Jan. 6 it is already investigating, specifically, alternate or fake electors.
The House select committee has argued that Trump was repeatedly told the plot to overturn the election was illegal but continued anyway.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Ali Dukakis contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff made a surprise visit to schoolchildren at the National Museum of African American History and Culture to talk about the meaning of Juneteenth as the nation observed the new federal holiday on Monday.
Children and their families greeted Harris, the first Black woman to serve as the nation’s second-highest executive, with cheers as she entered the room.
“Happy Juneteenth, young leaders,” a smiling Harris told the children.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were the last to learn President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier, freeing them from slavery. The date achieved federal holiday status last June, when President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.
“Today is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom,” Harris told the children ages 4 to 10, “and think about it in terms of the context of history, knowing that Black people in America were not free for 400 years of slavery, but then at the end of slavery — right? … when the Emancipation Proclamation happened, that America had to really think about defining freedom …”
“I would argue, it is our God-given right to have freedom,” she added. “It is your birthright to have freedom, and then during slavery freedom was taken. And so we’re not going to celebrate being given back what God gave us anyway” as the group voiced agreement, one person saying, “Amen.”
She continued, “let this be a day that is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom, but to speak about it honestly and accurately, both in the context of history, and current application. That’s what I’m thinking about today.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016, when it became “the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution,” according to the museum’s website.
After their remarks, the second couple talked with children as they worked on coloring books.
The surprise appearance on Monday follows Harris and Emhoff hosting the first-ever Juneteenth celebration at the vice president’s residence, she tweeted on Sunday.
“I can think of no better way to celebrate Juneteenth than by spending time with the community,” Harris said, sharing a photo of R&B duo sisters Chloe and Halle Bailey, who spoke at the event.
Biden released a statement on Sunday afternoon calling Juneteenth “a day of profound weight and power that reminds us of our extraordinary capacity to heal, hope, and emerge from our most painful moments into a better version of ourselves.”
He added, “This is a day to celebrate, to educate, and to act.”
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to recognize Juneteenth as a paid state holiday.
(WASHINGTON) — The clock is ticking for Senate negotiators working to reach a final agreement on an anti-gun violence package before the Fourth of July recess.
After agreeing earlier this month on a framework for the deal — including enhanced background checks for those ages 18-21 and funding for mental health and school safety programs — negotiators trying to turn the agreement into legislative text left Washington over the weekend without a clear path forward on two outstanding elements: “red flag” laws and closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by expanding a ban on domestic abusers owning firearms.
Republican Sens. John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, have been huddled with Democratic colleagues Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, in efforts to turn their broad consensus into an actual piece of legislation that can be considered and taken up for a vote on the Senate floor.
Though tensions ran high at the close of last week, a source close to the negotiations told ABC News on Sunday that discussions were back on track and that they were “moving in the right direction.”
But time is running out for quick action, which many in Congress would prefer.
The Senate is set to depart for a two-week recess at the close of business this week. Pushing a vote on the legislation until after the break threatens to slow momentum for a package already struggling to find a home in the Republican conference.
A senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC that bipartisan negotiators must produce bill text by Tuesday, at the latest, to keep the upper chamber on track for a vote this week.
President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Monday, would not say whether he thought negotiators would have the legislative text finalized by later that day. But he expressed some optimism about the state of the talks.
“I’m confident that … there’s a serious, serious negotiation that’s getting close to becoming fruition,” Biden said. He pointed to the success of some state laws in controlling gun violence but ultimately added that “it’ll be better if we had better regulation of sale of firearms, nationally and nationally mandated.”
Biden won’t get the assault weapons ban he called for in an address to the nation after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead — days after a separate shooting in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store killed 10. Still, lawmakers working on the package in the Senate hope their proposal, if passed, could make an impact on the high tide of gun violence.
But two outstanding topics have plagued bipartisan negotiators.
The framework, announced on June 12 with the filibuster-proof support of 10 Senate Republicans, included funding to incentivize states to implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people who are a danger to themselves and others. Lawmakers have struggled, in recent days, to define what sort of programs would qualify for that funding.
According to Cornyn, the chief Republican working on the deal, negotiators were struggling last week over whether monies made available to states to support such programs should also be available to states with other types of violence prevention, like veterans’ courts, mental health courts and assisted outpatient treatment programs.
Some Republicans have long struggled with “red flag” programs out of concern that those provisions violate the due process rights of those accused of being a threat.
Cornyn told reporters Thursday that he and the other senators were still “grappling with the contours” of the laws but assured, as he has in floor speeches, that states who qualify for funding under the proposed legislation would be held to “the most rigorous due process standards that exist.”
The group has also stumbled over how to draft legislative text aimed at closing the “boyfriend loophole.” Under current law, those convicted of domestic violence against their married partner or against those with whom they have a child are prohibited from purchasing guns. Democrats want to expand that language to include other kinds of dating partners.
But the group working on the Senate bill has had trouble agreeing upon a legal definition of a “boyfriend,” and Cornyn has expressed concerns about how such a change might be implemented.
“We’ve got to come up with a good definition of what that actually means, because what this does is it would add a category to a bar for people being able to purchase a firearm if they fall in that category,” Cornyn said last week. “So it’s got to be clear and it’s got to be something that can actually be applied, because we are talking about pretty serious consequences.”
The difficulty finalizing these outstanding topics emphasizes the pinch that many Republicans are feeling as they weigh supporting the first significant gun reform legislation in nearly 30 years.
Cornyn said, upon announcement of the original framework, that he hoped more than the 10 original GOP senators would ultimately back the finalized legislation. But as Republicans involved have tried to drum up additional support from their conference, they faced yet another warning of the potential political consequences on Friday when Texas Republicans at the state’s party convention booed Cornyn as he tried to defend the package.
“I will not, under any circumstance, support new restrictions for law-abiding gun owners,” Cornyn told the audience. “That will always be my red line. And despite what some of you may have heard, the framework that we are working on is consistent with that red line.”
The anger from the crowd was clear — though crossing the GOP base may not ultimately sway the crucial block of 10 Republicans. Cornyn would not go up for reelection until 2026. None of the other conservatives who signed onto the initial framework will face voters during the 2022 midterm races in November.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell last week signaled willingness to support new gun legislation if it mirrored the proposals outlined in the group’s framework.
“My view of the framework if it leads to a piece of legislation I intend to support it I think it is progress for the country and I think the bipartisan group has done the best they can to get total support and the background check enhancement for that age group I think is a step in the right direction,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Other Republicans have also said they’re amenable to the broad details. But they’ll need to see text before they can make a determination.
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Rachel Scott and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report
(WASHINGTON) — As top White House officials reiterate that tackling high inflation remains President Joe Biden’s chief priority, his administration is debating strategies to bring prices down — and sending mixed signals about how, and how quickly, Biden may act on an issue that is top of mind for voters and weighing on his approval ratings.
The president said Monday he could make a decision as soon as this week on whether to support Congress instituting a pause on the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon, which experts have estimated could lower prices by approximately 14.72 cents per gallon.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that the administration was open to considering such a move, citing the cost on consumers. As of Monday, the national average gas price was $4.98 per gallon.
“Gas prices have risen a great deal, and it’s clearly burdening households,” Yellen said during an appearance on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. “So [the president] stands ready to work with Congress and [gas tax holidays are] an idea that’s certainly worth considering.”
But Yellen’s counterpart at the Department of Energy seemingly disagreed with that notion in her own appearance Sunday.
“Part of the challenge with the gas tax, of course, is that it funds the roads,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on CNN. “[W]e just did a big infrastructure bill to help fund the roads. So if we do — if we remove the gas tax — that takes away the funding that was just passed by Congress to be able to do that.”
“That’s one of the challenges. But I’m not saying that that’s off the table,” Granholm said.
A gas tax holiday would require approval from Congress, where Democrats hold a fragile majority. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has previously spoken skeptically of the idea, saying it was possibly better “PR” than policy.
Biden told reporters on Monday that, as another relief measure, gas rebate cards were also under deliberation.
“That’s part of what we’re considering,” he said when asked. “That’s part of the whole operation.”
It’s unclear, however, how such rebate cards would work — whether they would be pre-loaded or provide rebates post-purchase.
A recession isn’t guaranteed: White House
Administration officials are united on one point: A recession is “not inevitable,” they have all said.
“There’s nothing inevitable about a recession,” Biden said Monday.
Yellen, Granholm and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese likewise all used variations of that language during their Sunday show appearances.
“There’s a lot of things about the economy right now that are unique,” Deese said. “Americans are spending less money on goods, they’re spending more money on services from companies … The housing market is recalibrating.”
Yellen acknowledged Sunday that inflation was “unacceptably high,” again blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and long-term supply chain issues as contributors.
“These factors are unlikely to diminish immediately, but over time, I certainly expect inflation to come down,” she said.
Still, she noted, “Consumer spending remains very strong. There’s month-to-month volatility, but overall spending is strong.” And, she added, “Bank balances are high. It’s clear that most consumers, even lower-income households, continue to have buffer stocks of savings.”
With the Federal Reserve taking increasingly aggressive action to curb inflation — raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, the largest hike in nearly 30 years — Yellen said the goal was a delicate balancing act.
“[Fed] Chair [Jerome] Powell has said that his goal is to bring inflation down while maintaining a strong labor market. That’s going to take skill and luck, but I believe it’s possible,” she said Sunday.
As the administration insist there’s a way to avoid recession while reigning in inflation, Republican lawmakers are taking the opportunity to hammer Biden on higher prices — a key talking point for the GOP ahead of the November midterm elections.
“Bidenflation is costing average Americans an extra $460 a month,” Pennsylvania Rep. Lloyd Smucker tweeted on Monday.
Officials weigh more economic measures
Biden made clear Monday he has no plans to meet oil executives in person but is instead tasking top aides, like Granholm, with making his administration’s position clear.
In a letter last Wednesday, Biden called out seven oil refiners for earning record profits while oil supplies decrease. He asked the companies to increase production or risk facing White House intervention.
While the president did not specifically identify the tools he could use, Granholm hinted during a Wednesday CNN appearance that the Defense Production Act may be on the table.
In his letter, Biden also instructed his energy secretary to convene an emergency meeting with oil company executives.
Granholm will probe the companies to explain reductions in oil refining capacity, according to an ABC News report. Trade groups representing the producers contend that “U.S. refineries are running at 94 percent of capacity.”
The American Petroleum Institute also fired back at Biden’s letter, with its CEO and president arguing it was “the administration’s misguided policy agenda shifting away from domestic oil and natural gas [that] has compounded inflationary pressures and added headwinds to companies’ daily efforts to meet growing energy needs while reducing emissions.”
Separately, Yellen told federal lawmakers earlier this month that her department was reviewing Trump-era tariffs targeting China.
Economists in a March policy brief said that “eliminating the tariff would save US firms and households about $81 billion annually on direct purchases from China.”
When asked Saturday about his position on eliminating those tariffs, the president said, “We are still in the process of making up my mind.”
ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — Buried in the data about the nation’s abortion debate is an uncomfortable truth: A disproportionate number of women seeking to end their pregnancies are Black.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women as a population have the highest rate of abortions — nearly 24 abortions per 1,000 Black women, compared to about seven abortions per 1,000 white women.
That means that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the biggest impact would be felt by Black women in the South, where conservative legislators are set to enact restrictions.
To Monica Simpson, a leading Black activist in Georgia and executive director of SisterSong, none of this should be surprising.
“If it’s obliterated,” Simpson said of the right to abortion, “then we’re not only dealing with an access issue. In a bigger way, we’re also dealing with criminalization possibilities. And that’s a very scary thing in particular for Black folks in this country who are already over-criminalized in so many ways.”
The Supreme Court was expected to rule on the abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, in the next few weeks. According to a leaked draft opinion, the court’s decision would leave the issue up to states. If that happens, more than two dozen states, mostly in the South and Midwest, plan to move ahead to severely curtail access to abortion.
Simpson’s organization SisterSong, a lead plaintiff in a Georgia abortion case, and several other Black advocacy groups say the decision is tightly coupled with race. Slavery, painful gynecological experiments and forced sterilizations are part of the nation’s history when it comes to Black women.
“We all need to be able to determine how many children we’re going to have, if we’re going to have children. We all have a human right to make decisions about our bodies,” said Toni Bond, an ethics and religious scholar who in the 1990s helped to coined the term “reproductive justice” to distinguish concerns among Black women from those of wealthier white feminists.
Among those concerns: Black women are considerably more likely to die from childbirth than white women, even when accounting for education. According to one federal study, college-educated Black women are five times more likely to die from pregnancy than college-educated white women.
Health care access is limited, too, and expensive, with many of the same states voting to restrict abortion also blocking efforts to expand Medicaid, the government’s insurance for low-income families.
Police brutality is another factor, advocates say.
“When you look at all of that in its totality, then yes, it’s going to feed into the decisions that black women make,” said Simpson.
“And if that decision is that they choose not to bring a child into this world right now, that is a decision that is a human right to make, and they should not be shamed for that decision,” she added.
During arguments on the abortion case, conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested safe-haven laws that allow a woman to relinquish her child to a fire station or police station have relieved women of the burdens of parenthood.
Also, anti-abortion groups say their church-based crisis pregnancy centers can assist every women, regardless of her race or ethnicity, on their journey through motherhood.
Simpson and others said that kind of thinking ignores the unique challenges that minority communities face, including the higher medical risk of pregnancy for Black women.
“I think they are not about pro-life at all. They are absolutely about pro-birth,” Simpson said of pregnancy crisis centers. “They want us to bring babies into this world, but they have not proven to us or shown us in any way where they have walked with our folks in our community through their lives.”
In the end, several advocates told ABC News they were prepared to work outside the legal system if necessary, as Black people have done historically.
“We should see this as something deeply, deeply troubling. This is not just about what is legal. This is about what is moral and just,” said Paris Hatcher, executive director of Black Feminist Future.
Because of that, Hatcher said, “I will make sure that anyone who needs an abortion will get (one) by any means.”
(NEW YORK) — The federal gun safety proposal announced last week by a bipartisan group of senators in response to the attack on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is “a step in the right direction,” according to several authorities — but the measures, had they already been in place, might not have prevented the Uvalde shooting, mental health and violence experts told ABC News.
The legislative framework, by 10 Republicans, nine Democrats, and one independent senator, contains six proposals focusing on mental health plus three gun-specific proposals that include targeting criminals who illegally evade licensing requirements and cracking down on those who illegally purchase and traffic guns.
The proposal does not raise the age limit to purchase semiautomatic assault-style weapons — but for buyers under 21 years of age, it “requires an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement.”
“Our plan increases needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can’t purchase weapons,” the 20 senators in a statement.
Officials caution that the framework, which members have been negotiating for weeks, is not yet in its final form. Although the backing of 10 Republicans would give the current framework enough votes to overcome its biggest hurdle in the Senate, it’s not clear if the final proposal will have the same support.
Some experts ABC News spoke with praised the current proposal for its focus on mental health, which includes making major investments to increase access to mental health and suicide prevention programs, as well as investments in programs that increase access to mental and behavioral services via telehealth, and support for state crisis intervention orders.
“The fact that it brings together a multi-tiered set of interventions in schools and communities and families as well as safety provisions … the comprehensiveness of this is what I feel most hopeful about,” said Dr. Andy Keller, president of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, who advised at least one of the senators who sponsored the bill.
But other experts said it’s far from certain that the measures, had they already been in place, would have prevented the deaths of 19 children and two adults in Uvalde last month.
Retired brigadier general Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a former army psychiatrist and senior adviser to the Defense Department, told ABC News that the proposal’s investment in children’s and family’s mental health services might have helped mitigate the attack, since there’s “considerable evidence” that accused shooter Salvador Ramos had mental health problems.
“Proactive outreach and engagement could have gotten him into treatment and avoided the deterioration leading to the shootings,” Xenakis said.
The same holds true for the proposal’s protections for victims of domestic violence and funding for school-based mental health support services and telehealth services.
“[If he was] a victim of abuse … had the mental health system and protective services engaged early, he may have been diverted from becoming a shooter,” said Xenakis. “He clearly had problems in school, and would’ve been helped by school-based mental health and wraparound services.”
James Densley, a professor of criminal justice who cofounded the Violence Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group that studies mass shootings, said that successful treatment comes from ease of access.
“You want to remove as many barriers as possible to getting people the help they need,” Densley, who called the legislative proposal a “step in the right direction,” told ABC News. “You put [a mental health clinic] right in the school, where that kid walks through the door every day and it’s right there, and if it’s accessible and affordable, then you’re going to get more of an uptake.”
But former FBI agent Mary Ellen O’Toole, a leading expert in profiling criminals’ brains, said that even with all the proposals in force, Ramos could still easily have fallen through the cracks.
“Where he would have fallen through the loop was, he was not in school — he was he was at work,” O’Toole told ABC News. “He wasn’t in a position where someone that knew him could have reached out and tried to get him mental health care … through the school system.”
In addition, said O’Toole, for him to have been directed toward mental health assistance that might have prevented the shooting, those around him would have needed to be aware of the warning signs.
Speaking about the people close to him — “whether they worked in that fast food restaurant with him, or if his grandparents were aware of it” — O’Toole said that “if you don’t have something specifically designed to teach people how to recognize the warning behaviors … he still could have gotten away with it.”
Xenakis praised the proposed funding for school safety resources, including additional training for school personnel and students, but said he would also like to see “expanded school violence prevention that includes identifying students at risk for such behaviors.”
Regarding the proposal’s gun-safety measures, Xenakis said that if Ramos had not availed himself of the proposed mental health services, it’s not clear they would have helped avert the attack.
For gun buyers under 21 years of age, the framework proposes an enhanced review process that requires an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement — but that would have only impacted Ramos’ ability to buy a weapon had he sought out mental health assistance or had a criminal record.
“This provision with background checks could’ve been protective … if he had had treatment and been involved in a mental health program,” Xenakis said.
And since Ramos purchased his AR-style weapon legally, the proposal’s crackdown on criminals who illegally evade licensing requirements would not have applied to him, said Xenakis.
School safety experts like Ron Avi Astor say that’s why more gun safety provisions are needed. Astor, part of a group of researchers who recently issued an eight-point plan for immediate government action to reduce gun violence, told ABC News that without a bill that focuses on responsible gun ownership, there is going to be little impact on the number of shootings that occur.
Astor, who supports gun education, safety training, and stricter licensure for gun owners, said “that’s where you’re going to get the biggest difference: if you implement even the licensing alone, not even background checks.”
“If we were willing to go for licensing like we do with cars, that would save potentially tens and tens of thousands of lives,” Astor said.
The current Senate proposal “is not a perfect solution that’s going to solve the problem,” said Densley. “It might make these types of mass shootings less frequent. It might make them less deadly in the coming years. But it’s not going to solve the problem.”
(NEW YORK) — The Texas Republican Party this weekend formally “rebuked” multiple GOP senators, including one of their own, for helping lead bipartisan negotiations on new gun legislation.
The resolution, adopted at the state’s convention on Saturday in Houston, dismissed the Senate compromise announced last week that had the filibuster-proof support of at least 10 Republicans.
“We reject the so called ‘bipartisan gun agreement,’ and we rebuke Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey Graham 1601 (R-S.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.),” the resolution reads.
The party’s admonishment reflects, in part, the difficulty of congressional action around guns, given some opposition in highly conservative circles. The state GOP’s response followed Cornyn being booed, too, by the crowd while speaking at the convention on Friday.
Cornyn stepped up to help lead bipartisan negotiations around modest gun reforms following the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. The bipartisan group of senators working on the legislation announced an initial agreed-upon framework on June 12 that would increase funding for school safety and mental health as well as require enhanced background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds and support “red flag” laws enacted by states.
The agreement did not include more sweeping restrictions backed by Democrats and President Joe Biden, like raising the legal buying age for assault-style weapons.
Work continues on final text of the bill, with leaders in the House and Senate vowing quick votes if Republicans remain onboard — with hopes to bring text to the floor of the Senate this week.
Terry Harper, one of the members of the executive committee for Texas’s GOP, voted against the resolution criticizing Cornyn and others — and even tried to get it taken out — though he is skeptical of the negotiations around a possible deal on guns.
“I don’t always approve of what my elected officials do, but they are my elected officials. It’s kind of like marriage. I’ve been married for 45 years, and we don’t always agree, but we don’t part the sheets over it,” Harper told ABC News.
“It was all just a little harsh and embarrassing when they booed,” Harper continued in a phone call with ABC News.
At Saturday’s convention, the Texas GOP also added a series of positions on LGBTQ issues as part of their adopted platform and they officially continued to cast doubts on the validity of Biden’s 2020 election victory, rooted in former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing the LGBTQ community in the Republican Party, was denied space for a booth at the event. (The group later shared a statement they said was from Donald Trump Jr. that criticized their exclusion.)
The state party’s new platform as posted online as of Sunday states that “homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice” and that, as a party, “We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity.” The party also said it opposed various medical treatments for transgender people who are 21 and younger including so-called “puberty blockers,” hormone therapy and surgery.
The Texas GOP’s latest position on the gay and transgender community comes as conservatives across the country have increasingly refocused on LGBTQ issues, particularly as they relate to children – including bans on transgender kids’ medical care and discussions of sexuality and gender in classrooms.
The party’s platform was quickly and widely criticized by LGBTQ advocates after it was adopted this weekend, with some saying it could herald broader discrimination.
Following the leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade, Biden argued the high court could next reduce protections for gay and transgender people or reverse other major precedents, such as the national guarantee to same-sex marriage. (The draft of that opinion shows the court majority insisting its ruling on abortion would not affect other cases.)
With its new platform, the Texas GOP also continued to push the narrative of a false 2020 election and said they did not believe Biden was legitimately elected — despite any evidence and multiple recounts and audits in key battleground states.
Trump, as the party standard-bearer, has continued to assail the race he lost and promoted those who wish to overturn it, backing various local and state officials who could soon be in charge of overseeing the next elections.
During this month’s ongoing Jan. 6 committee hearings in the House, testimony from multiple members of Trump’s inner circle showed how they repeatedly rejected his claims in private, including former Attorney General Bill Barr.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll earlier this year found that 65 percent of Americans believed Biden was legitimately elected, though that number had sharp a partisan divide with nearly three-quarters of Republicans believing the opposite.
The final version of the platform will be posted in the coming days. Members voted on each part of the platform separately and votes are still being tallied, though staff with the state party told ABC News that no major changes are expected and it is rare for portions of the document to fail in the final vote. The rebuke of Cornyn was a resolution passed by voice vote.
(NEW YORK) — One of two Republicans on the House’s Jan. 6 committee said Sunday he believes former President Donald Trump’s actions as described during this month’s public hearings “rise to a level of criminal involvement” in the events around the U.S. Capitol attack.
When asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” if he thinks Trump should be prosecuted, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger said: “I certainly think the president is guilty of knowing what he did — seditious conspiracy, being involved in these kind of different segments and pressuring the DOJ, Vice President [Mike Pence], etc.,” Kinzinger said.
He continued: “Obviously, you know, we’re not a criminal charges committee. So I want to be careful specifically using that language. But I think what we’re presenting before the American people certainly would rise to a level of criminal involvement by a president and definitely failure of the oath.”
A new ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed that 58% of Americans think Trump “bears a good or great amount of responsibility for the events of Jan. 6 and that he should be charged with a crime.” (Trump has repeatedly dismissed the House’s Jan. 6 investigation as politically motivated and one-sided.)
The House select committee was set up to probe what took place surrounding the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, following Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss and his months-long campaign to overturn that defeat.
In a series of ongoing hearings, the House committee has detailed some of the evidence gathered in its 11-month investigation, including testimony from Trump’s inner circle showing, investigators say, that Trump knew his push to contest the 2020 results and have Pence reject Joe Biden’s victory was baseless — and illegal.
“It is essential at this moment that we get a grip on this and figure out how to defend our democracy,” Kinzinger, a vocal member of the GOP’s anti-Trump minority, said on “This Week.”
“I think this blows, actually, Watergate out of the water,” Kinzinger said of the current moment, blaming the “lack of leadership” for the partisan division. The congressman, who is not running for another term, said his party had “utterly failed the American people at truth. … Makes me sad, but it’s a fact.”
“If you’re not willing to tell people the truth in America, you shouldn’t run for Congress,” he said.
Stephanopoulos also asked Kinzinger about upcoming elections, noting that the next presidential contest could have “a similar controversy.”
“We’re seeing allies of President Trump being elected to run elections in state after state. I’ve already pointed out the divide between Republicans and Democrats over what happened on Jan. 6. How worried are you about 2024?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Very worried,” Kinzinger replied.
“This is the untold thing,” he continued. “We focus so much on what goes on in D.C. and Congress and the Senate, but when you have these election judges that are going to people that don’t believe basically in democracy – authoritarians – 2024 is going to be a mess.”
(NEW YORK) — A recession is not “at all inevitable” as the Federal Reserve takes increasingly aggressive action to address sharply rising inflation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday.
“I expect the economy to slow,” Yellen told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “It’s been growing at a very rapid rate, as the economy, as the labor market, has recovered and we have reached full employment. It’s natural now that we expect a transition to steady and stable growth, but I don’t think a recession is at all inevitable.”
“Clearly, inflation is unacceptably high,” Yellen continued. “It’s President [Joe] Biden’s top priority to bring it down. And [Fed] Chair [Jerome] Powell has said that his goal is to bring inflation down while maintaining a strong labor market. That’s going to take skill and luck, but I believe it’s possible.”
The current inflation rate, year-over-year, is at a 40-year high of 8.6%, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On Wednesday, in an effort to cool those rising costs, the Fed increased interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point — marking the largest rate increase since 1994. A higher interest rate increases borrowing costs for consumers and companies, potentially slowing inflation by decreasing demand.
“You say it’s not inevitable, but I guess the question is: Is it likely?” Stephanopoulos pressed Yellen, citing data on consumer pull-back and slowing movement in the job market and noting that she, Biden and Powell were all wrong about inflation’s lasting impact last year.
“Consumer spending remains very strong. There’s month-to-month volatility, but overall spending is strong, although patterns of spending are changing and higher food and energy prices are certainly affecting consumers,” Yellen said.
“But bank balances are high,” she continued. “It’s clear that most consumers, even lower-income households, continue to have buffer stocks of savings that will enable them to maintain spending. So I don’t see a drop-off in consumer spending as a likely cause of the recession in the months ahead. And the labor market is very strong, arguably the strongest of the post-war period.”
Yellen attributed inflation partly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the conflict had increased global prices on energy and food.
“It’s important to recognize that the United States is certainly not the only advanced economy suffering from high inflation,” Yellen said. “We see it in the U.K., we see it in France, Germany, Italy; and the causes of it are global, not local.”
She said “energy prices spillover is really half of inflation,” but that Biden has been working to keep oil prices from going even higher.
Gas prices remain at record highs after months of increases. The current national average is about $4.98 per gallon.
Yellen cited Biden’s “historic” release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve over six months in an effort to reduce prices — though costs continue to climb.
“[Biden] stands ready to work and is encouraging producers of oil and refined products, gas, to work with him to increase supplies, to bring gas prices and energy prices down,” Yellen said.
On Wednesday, Biden sent a letter to seven major oil refiners in the U.S., blasting them for posting record profits while consumers face record-high gas prices and calling on them to increase production.
The American Petroleum Institute fired back, with its CEO and president arguing it’s “the administration’s misguided policy agenda shifting away from domestic oil and natural gas [that] has compounded inflationary pressures and added headwinds to companies’ daily efforts to meet growing energy needs while reducing emissions.”
“How do you respond to that?” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“I don’t think that the policies are responsible for what’s happening in the oil market,” Yellen said. “I think that producers were partly caught unaware of the strength of the recovery in the economy and weren’t ready to meet the needs of the economy. High prices should induce them to increase supplies over time.”
While long-term efforts to bring down the cost of gas are being debated, Stephanopoulos asked about the short term.
“Several in Congress are calling for gas tax holidays. Prices average around $5 a gallon. Is that on the table?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“President Biden wants to do anything he possibly can to help consumers,” Yellen said. “Gas prices have risen a great deal and it’s clearly burdening households. So he stands ready to work with Congress, and that’s an idea that’s certainly worth considering.”
Yellen also said the administration is considering lifting some Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods.
“We all recognize that China engages in a range of unfair trade practices that it’s important to address,” Yellen said. “But the tariffs we inherited, some serve no strategic purpose and raise costs to consumers. And so, reconfiguring some of those tariffs so they make more sense and reduce some unnecessary burdens is something that’s under consideration.”
