(WASHINGTON) — Lt. Gen. Michael E. Langley was confirmed by the Senate on Monday as a four-star general, making history as the first Black Marine to attain that rank.
The Senate’s confirmation came after President Joe Biden nominated Langley in June to lead the U.S. Africa Command, responsible for military operations in Africa.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Langley said at his July 21 confirmation hearing that his father, retired U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Willie C. Langley, served in the military for 25 years, while his stepmother, Ola Langley, served the U.S. Post Office.
Langley has served for 37 years, including as the deputy commanding general of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, deputy commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force, and as the commanding general of the Marine Forces Europe and Africa. In November 2021, he assumed the duties of commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, and commander, Marine Forces Command and Marine Forces Northern Command.
“It is a great honor to be the president’s nominee to lead USAFRICOM. I am grateful to the trust and confidence extended by him, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commandant of the Marine Corps,” Langley said in the July Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Following its founding on Nov. 10, 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps barred Black Americans from enlisting until President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. While the order prohibited discriminatory recruitment practices in national defense departments, agencies and industries, civil rights concerns remained, according to the National Archives.
In 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued another executive order that banned segregation in the armed forces. Executive Order 9981 was initially met with resistance from military personnel, according to the National Archives, but all units were eventually desegregated by the end of the Korean War.
Despite significant progress since the Marine Corps’ establishment, Black men and women are still underrepresentedin the Marines Corps senior leadership, according to a 2020 Council on Foreign Relations report. In 2016, the Department of Defense reported there were six Black general-ranking officers serving in the Marine Corps out of a total 87 across all racial demographics.
“Now, the global security environment we are witnessing today is the most challenging I have seen throughout my 37 years,” Langley said during the July hearing, referencing “global tensions” and other threats.
Nevertheless, he said, he is “enthusiastic to engage across the whole government to faithfully execute the policies and orders of the president and the secretary of defense.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday announced the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the state of Idaho challenging its law that will take effect next month that would make it a felony to perform an abortion in all but extremely narrow circumstances.
Garland said the law violates the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) that states hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required to provide necessary treatment to patients who arrive at their emergency departments while experiencing a medical emergency.
That medical care, according to Garland and the DOJ lawsuit, could include providing an abortion.
“The suit seeks to hold invalid the state’s criminal prohibition on providing abortions, as applied to women who are suffering medical emergencies,” Garland said in a press conference at the Justice Department. “As detailed in our complaint, Idaho’s law would make it a criminal offense for doctors to provide emergency medical treatment that federal law requires.”
Garland said that while the law, which will take effect next month, provides an exception in order to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, “it includes no exception for cases in which the abortion is necessary to prevent serious jeopardy to the woman’s health.”
“Moreover, it would subject doctors to arrest and criminal prosecution even if they perform an abortion to save a woman’s life,” Garland said. “And that would then place the burden on the doctors that they are not criminally liable.”
Garland used his press conference to put on notice other states who he says have passed restrictions on reproductive health care that similarly run afoul of federal law in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
“We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that pregnant women get the emergency medical treatment to which they are entitled under federal law,” Garland said. “And we will closely scrutinize state abortion laws to ensure that they comply with federal law.”
The lawsuit asks a judge to declare the Idaho law invalid under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and is preempted by federal law to the extent that it conflicts with EMTALA.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden continued to test positive for COVID-19 Tuesday but is feeling “well,” according to a memo from Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician.
“The President continues to feel well, though he is experiencing a bit of a return of a loose cough. He remains fever-free and in good spirits. His temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation remain entirely normal. His lungs are clear,” O’Connor wrote.
O’Connor added that Biden “will continue his strict isolation measures” and “will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence.”
Biden initially tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21. His symptoms at the time were said to have included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches.
He was treated with Paxlovid and tested negative last Wednesday before emerging from isolation.
However, he tested positive again Saturday in a so-called rebound infection, which can occur when patients take Paxlovid.
High-risk patients still face drastically diminished risks of hospitalization after taking Paxlovid.
O’Connor’s memo Tuesday marked the first time he noted a reemergence of symptoms from the rebound case.
Biden had six close contacts before testing positive for COVID for a second time, though White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday none has tested positive.
It remains unclear for how long Biden will be able to leave the White House for a number of planned trips.
Jean-Pierre noted Monday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet released any guidance regarding travel after a rebound infection.
The delegation headed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrives in Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 2, 2022. – ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this week is a significant moment in her long career of advocating for democracy and human rights in Asia while pressuring China and its government in Beijing.
Second in line to the presidency after Vice President Kamala Harris, Pelosi is the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1997 visit to the island.
The Biden administration, which appeared to have unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade Pelosi from visiting Taiwan on her trip to Asia, — although it wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it tried to so — has warned that Beijing could retaliate economically or militarily to her visit.
“If the speaker does decide to visit and China tries to create some kind of crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday. “We are looking for them, in the event she decides to visit, to act responsibly and not to engage in any escalation going forward.”
The visit has infuriated China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province, and has claimed sovereignty over the island. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson vowed that China would “take resolute and vigorous countermeasures” in response to Pelosi’s visit.
“Everything is stormy,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, told ABC News. “And from China’s perspective, they see this as yet another example of how the U.S. will not stop pushing Taiwan to think and act for itself, which is exactly what they don’t want.”
While the Biden administration has maintained the longstanding ‘One China’ policy and does not recognize Taiwanese independence — the standoff over Pelosi’s visit is also due to her reputation as a China critic and hawk, experts told ABC News.
“The Chinese just see her as rabidly anti-China, and believe that no good can come out of her,” Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told ABC News.
As she landed, Pelosi and others in the congressional delegation traveling with her put out a statement saying, “Our Congressional delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.”
The statement continued, “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy,guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances. The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.”
Tiananmen Square and protecting Chinese students
Pelosi seized on human rights in China quickly after winning her first full term in Congress — a liberal who often found common cause with conservatives on human rights issues and China after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and violent crackdowns against protests in 1989.
Representing one of the largest Asian-American communities in the country, she was the chief sponsor of legislation that would allow thousands of Chinese students to remain in the United States after their visas expired and avoid potential persecution if they returned to China.
Despite her relatively junior status in the House, she helped propel the legislation through Congress, prompting a showdown President George H. W. Bush, who vetoed the legislation.
“First the Chinese authorities gave us a massacre, and then they gave us a masquerade,” Pelosi said at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in 1990.
Pelosi wrangled Democratic and Republican votes to override Bush’s veto — embarrassing Bush, who once served as a top U.S. representative to China.
While the veto override effort fell several votes short in the Senate, the Washington Post reported, the administration eventually issued an executive order that accomplished Pelosi’s goals of protecting the Chinese students in the United States.
Later, on an official visit to China in 1991, Pelosi and two congressmen were briefly detained by Chinese police, after unfurling a small banner in protest to commemorate pro-democracy protesters killed near Tiananmen Square.
“We’ve been told now for two days [in private meetings with Chinese officials] that there is no prohibition on freedom of speech in China,” Pelosi said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “This does not conform to what we were told.”
The international incident cemented Pelosi’s position as a chief China critic. She “has been a strong advocate of human rights for a very long time,” Glaser told ABC News.
Pelosi ruffled feathers on a subsequent trip to China: In 2009, she hand-delivered a letter to Hu Jintao, China’s president at the time, calling for the release of political prisoners.
Challenging China’s trade status and taking on her own party
In the 1990s, Pelosi repeatedly clashed with leaders of her own party over the United States’ improving economic relationship with China and its ascension to the World Trade Organization.
She criticized and challenged President Bill Clinton’s efforts to improve trade relations between the two countries, arguing against normalizing trade relations and decoupling the economic relationship from concerns about Beijing’s human rights record and the transfer of technology to countries hostile to the United States.
“I am disappointed that President Clinton has chosen to continue a failed policy,” she said in a statement when normal relations were extended in 1997. “Since he delinked trade from human rights three years ago, the human rights situation in China and Tibet has deteriorated, the U.S. trade deficit with China has soared, and China’s authoritarian government has continued its sale of nuclear, chemical, missile and biological weapons technology to dangerous countries, including Iran.’
Years later, her positions even led to one of her rare breaks with President Obama and his administration.
According to Newsweek, Pelosi in 2009 helped scuttle the confirmation chances of Obama’s initial pick to lead the National Intelligence Council, over comments he had made about the Tiananmen Square massacre.
(She did not deny her position when later asked about the episode by the Huffington Post.)
“It’s a cheap shot for both Americans or Chinese to accuse her of sort of doing this as some sort of provocation when her commitment to the region and activists has been consistent and unwavering,” said Samuel Chu, the founder and President of the Campaign for Hong Kong, whose father, a prominent/veteran pro-democracy activist, met with Pelosi in Hong Kong on one of her early visits to the region.
Olympic boycotts over Tibet and Chinese forced labor
Pelosi called for the U.S. to impose diplomatic boycotts of the summer and winter Olympics hosted by China in Beijing in 2008 and 2022, respectively.
In 2008, she called for President Bush and other world leaders to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics to show support for Tibetans pushing for independence from China, and condemned the International Olympic Committee for awarding the games to China given its human rights record.
“If freedom-loving people don’t speak out against China’s oppression of people in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out against any oppressed people,” Pelosi said on a visit to India and the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile.
“I don’t think China should have gotten the Olympic Games to begin with,” Pelosi told ABC’s Good Morning America in 2008. “I had a resolution in the Congress which was very popular, and bipartisan support on it. But they did get them with the promise that they would open up more and have better respect for human rights and freedom of expression. They have not honored that.”
Years later, when China prepared to host the Winter Olympics, Pelosi repeated her calls for a diplomatic boycott – this time over China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
“We cannot proceed as if nothing is wrong about the Olympics going to China,” she said at a congressional hearing.
China’s Foreign Ministry blasted Pelosi’s statements and said she was “full of lies and disinformation” in calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Games.
Around the same time, she worked across party lines with Republicans to pass legislation to sanction China for selling goods to America made with Uyghur Muslim forced labor — which President Biden later signed into law.
“None of that would have been possible without her leadership,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told ABC News. “She’s unrelenting.”
(WASHINGTON) — A 49-year-old Texas man was sentenced by a judge to more than seven years in prison Monday for his role in the Capitol attack, the harshest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant — but legal and national security experts say another decision made by the judge could carry potentially broader implications.
In handing down an 87-month sentence to Guy Wesley Reffitt, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich declined to characterize the defendant as a domestic terrorist, as prosecutors had requested.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year prison term for Reffitt, predicated on the use of an increasingly rare legal tool called the “terrorism enhancement,” which empowers judges to issue sentences above the federal guidelines for certain crimes. Federal sentencing guidelines in Reffitt’s case called for a prison sentence between nine and 11 years.
On Monday, Friedrich brushed aside the government’s motion for a terrorism enhancement, citing other Jan.6-related defendants whose conduct appeared to be more serious than Reffitt’s — and for whom the Justice Department chose not to pursue the terrorism enhancement.
Experts said Fridrich’s decision demonstrates the challenge prosecutors face in meeting the exceptionally high standard to formally label someone a terrorist under the law.
“In the court of common sense, individuals who went into the Capitol to engage in destructive behavior and disrupt a lawful government proceeding may have, by definition, committed an act terrorism,” said John Cohen, a former Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor. “But the challenge for prosecutors is to prove that a defendant has met the specific legal elements of a terrorism offense.”
The terrorism enhancement, codified in section 3A 1.4 of the federal sentencing guidelines, traces its roots back to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, after which Congress enacted tougher penalties to deter acts of “intimidation or coercion” aimed at the government or civilian population.
In the intervening years, terrorism sentences have most frequently been applied to defendants with ties to ISIS or al-Qaeda, or to violent domestic extremists like Cesar Sayoc, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to mailing pipe bombs to members of Congress.
But critics complain that the law is too broad and too inconsistently applied.
In 2017, for example, prosecutors secured a terrorism enhancement for Jessica Reznicek, a climate activist who pleaded guilty to damaging pipeline infrastructure across the Midwest. A federal appeals court upheld her sentence in June.
Meanwhile, neither Dylann Roof, who pleaded guilty to massacring nine people at a Charleston bible study, nor James Fields, who was convicted of killing a Charlottesville demonstrator with his car, were sentenced with the terrorism enhancement.
Reffitt, for his part, brought a weapon to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened to “physically attack, remove, and replace” lawmakers, making him a “quintessential” case for the enhancement, prosecutors wrote in a July sentencing memorandum. In March, a jury found him guilty on five felony counts, including obstruction of justice, as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.
The case marked the first time the Justice Department sought to have a terrorism enhancement applied to a Jan. 6 defendant.
“We do believe that what he was doing that day was domestic terrorism and we do believe that he’s a domestic terrorist,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told Judge Friedrich Monday, before the judge declined to apply the terrorism enhancement.
In rejecting the enhancement, Friedrich sided with Reffitt’s defense counsel, who accused prosecutors of utilizing the tool as retribution for Reffitt taking the case to trial.
“This is the only case where the government has asked for the terrorism enhancement, and this is the only case where the defendant has gone to trial,” said Clinton Broden, a lawyer for Reffitt. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
Friedrich’s decision to reject the enhancement in Reffitt’s case serves as further evidence of its “undisciplined, arbitrary use” in federal cases, according to Bill Quigley, a lawyer for Reznicek.
“How can Jessica Reznicek be a terrorist in the eyes of the law, and this person who stormed the Capitol and threatened members of Congress not be?” Quigley said.
“It is ironic that prosecutors managed to secure this enhancement for a person who damaged infrastructure belonging to a private company, but the courts failed to apply the same label to someone who used violence to further their extremist ideological beliefs in the seat of our democracy,” Cohen said.
Jordan Strauss, a former national security official in the Justice Department, pointed out that the government’s pursuit of a terrorist enhancement against Reffitt could mark a shift in its handling of Jan. 6-related cases — and could foreshadow a more aggressive approach in future cases.
“This case is noteworthy in that it may reflect a policy change for January 6th cases moving forward,” said Strauss, who now serves as the managing director at the Kroll Institute, a corporate consulting firm. “We should expect to see more enhancements sought, particularly if there are guilty verdicts in the more complex sedition cases.”
(NEW YORK) — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab spoke with ABC News Live Monday ahead of the state’s anticipated primary election, which includes a referendum on abortion laws.
Voters on Tuesday will decide on a proposal to amend the state constitution to explicitly disavow the right to access abortion. It will be the first popular vote on abortion rights in nearly 50 years.
Below is a transcript of Schwab’s interview with ABC News’ Kyra Phillips:
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, clearly, it’s a huge vote tomorrow on abortion in your state. Your office estimates that this issue alone could actually bring in an extra 200,000 voters to the polls. Kansas is a red state, of course. So tell me, why is this issue in particular energizing voters there and is that good for Republicans right now?
SCOTT SCHWAB:Well, I think it’s good for our republic to get voters energized. But this is a big issue because we’ve always seemed to be at the center in Kansas on these big social issues, whether it’s slavery, women’s suffrage, prohibition [or] the Civil Rights Act. What’s interesting about this is the Supreme Court of Kansas said there’s an inherent right to an abortion in the Kansas Constitution, and the word does not even exist in the Constitution. But it kind of edges the legislature out from making policy. So this has created the big debate on how much regulation — and should there be regulation — on abortions in our state.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Which leads me to my next question. You know, if abortion remains legal in Kansas, is that the end of the legal fight or will Republicans pursue further restrictions on abortion going forward?
SCHWAB:Well, if the measure passes, it’s very difficult for the legislature to regulate anything as it relates to abortion. I’m no longer a policymaker in the House, even though I had been at a time. We will always have those debates on abortion and some measures will pass, some won’t.
But really, I can see after this, because this has been such a topic of an issue, this constitutional amendment, that the legislature might want to sit back and just take a breath if it passes. Because we have had a whole lot of good laws on the books that aren’t in effect because that Supreme Court ruling and it’ll just be like what we had six, seven years ago. I think a lot of legislators in our state will just kind of want to take a break, but that’s just my prediction.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Take a break. Define take a break. What does that mean?
SCHWAB:We’ll take a break in…not deal with this issue this year. Let’s deal with some other issues that have taken a back-burner, because these social issues have really taken a lot of the legislature’s bandwidth. So there’s a lot of things like K through 12 funding and highway funding and rainy day fund. So I really think the legislature will probably want to focus on this next upcoming session. But I could be wrong. The legislature is an independent body.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, and think about all the political pressure. I mean, you really think abortion would take a back seat?
SCHWAB:Actually, they tried to pass this amendment to go to the vote of the people two years ago. And it didn’t pass. It didn’t, it didn’t have the votes to go there. So, yes, sometimes it does.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. Let’s talk voter confidence, shall we? Since we’re talking about that, you’re in a pretty tight primary yourself. Your opponent, former County Commissioner Mike Brown, has echoed Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud. He’s made election security central to his campaign against you. What’s your response to those lies about the 2020 election? Where do you stand?
SCHWAB:Well, you know, it is frustrating because he was a county commissioner at the time and he certified his own loss in that election and trusted enough to do that and that all of a sudden the turn. But, President Trump is not complaining about Kansas and we do post-election audits. We’ve done over 300 post-election audits in Kansas since we took office in 2019. And one, not one county has failed their audit. And we’re unique in that that we do post-election audits in a way that they are finished before the board of canvassers meet to show those board of canvassers an error did not occur. And every county has voter paper ballot verification that gets counted. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty hard to cheat.
ABC NEWS LIVE:But if you just look at the past couple of years. Can you win as a Republican if you reject the former president’s false claims about the election? We see the power that Trump still holds within the GOP. What do you say to those in your party who do continue to peddle the “big lie” because it’s still happening?
SCHWAB: It is interesting. I had a friend [who told] me saying, “It’s interesting the people who believe conspiracy theories about somebody trying to control them are allowing themselves to be controlled by the very people spreading the conspiracy theory.” The complaint in Kansas isn’t valid.
And that’s where we put our focus…
I don’t judge other states because I would have to go there and audit them. And I don’t have time to do that because I’m paid to do [that] here in Kansas and in Kansas we get it right. And it’s just the outside voices coming into our state, making false attacks and assumptions that the law itself prevents from happening.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Before we let you go, Scott, I’ve got to ask about one of the stories making news. Of course, locally, your office is refusing to turn over provisional ballot records ahead of voting tomorrow, despite a court ruling that says you violated the state’s open records law. You know, the governor there in Kansas has urged you and your office to comply with the ruling. You’re running as the candidate with integrity and challenge your opponent over his 2020 election lies. How can you claim that while ignoring this court order?
SCHWAB:Well, we can’t do the court order. It requires a software upgrade that we can’t do right now. And we will be appealing that to the Kansas Supreme Court because a lower court agreed with us. What it is, is it’s partial information in that report, and we’re constantly trying to fight partial and misinformation and that appellate courts change Kansas law, as opposed to the open records being, “Hey, if there’s a record, you’ve got to make it open.” The appellate court says you got to create the record. Well, that’s something completely different that we’ve never had to deal with before.
It’s almost like in an open meetings act forcing a legislative body to have a meeting when they normally don’t wish to have a meeting. So we’re struggling with trying to comply with a court order that physically we cannot comply with while trying to run an election. And we don’t want to do massive software changes while we’re in the middle of an election.
(WASHINGTON) — Senators are hopeful that within days they’ll again approve a bill that would offer millions of veterans expanded health care and disability payments for illnesses induced by exposure to burn pits during their service.
The proposal, known as the Honoring Our PACT Act, has been at the center of heated debate on Capitol Hill after Republicans, in a reversal, last week blocked the legislation following its bipartisan passage in June before a technical change in the House-passed version forced another Senate vote.
Twenty-six Republicans, led by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey changed their votes the second time around after the bill initially passed 84-14. It won only 55 votes last week, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
In total, the legislation would institute some $280 billion in new spending, over a decade, for veterans’ health.
The dispute — which drew the ire of veterans and activists like comedian Jon Stewart, who derided Republicans’ change of heart as cowardly — is over what Toomey called a Democratic “budget gimmick”: how $400 billion in existing funds already being used for veterans is being accounted.
“My concern about this bill has nothing to do with the purpose of the bill,” Toomey said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote last week.
“What I’m trying to do is change a government accounting methodology that is designed to allow our Democratic colleagues to go on an unrelated $400 billion spending spree that has nothing to do with veterans and won’t be in the veterans space,” Toomey added Sunday on CNN.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he will offer Toomey a vote on an amendment to the bill to address his concerns.
“We offered Toomey — he’s standing in the way — the ability to do an amendment at 60 votes, just like the bill is a 60-vote bill. He insisted, at least in conversations with some others, saying, ‘No, no, no. If you don’t put it in the bill’ — which will kill the bill — ‘I’m not going to be for it,'” Schumer said at a news conference last week.
“I stand by the offer,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday he supported Toomey’s position, arguing in a statement that the PACT Act “could … allow Democrats to effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of billions in new, unrelated spending.”
He told NBC News on Monday that the legislation would “pass this week.”
The congressional back-and-forth has received heightened media coverage after Stewart, a major veterans advocate, held a press conference and gave media interviews that swiftly went viral.
“America’s heroes who fought in our wars outside sweating their assess off with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments while these motherf—— sit in the air conditioning walled off from any of it,” Stewart said on Thursday, lambasting the GOP blockade. “They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings.”
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Stewart said the winding course of the bill, despite the bipartisan support, was baffling.
“This is so bananas. Nothing changed. So I don’t understand any of this,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, Stewart joined a small group of protesters, many of them veterans, in front of the Senate ahead of planned votes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., spoke with Stewart about the legislation along with Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott. Blumenthal said he believed but wasn’t certain that the Senate could act on the proposal in about 48 hours.
Burn pits have been used in U.S. military installations outside the country to dispose of waste, and the smoke from those sites has been linked to various respiratory illnesses and even cancer in troops who were exposed.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden announced Monday that the U.S. had killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, over the weekend. He hailed the operation as a significant win in the fight against terror groups overseas — including in countries where the U.S. no longer maintains a military presence.
“Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more. People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer,” Biden said, speaking from the White House where he is isolating with COVID-19.
“The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm,” he said. “We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
The president said al-Zawahiri had returned to the Afghan capital to be with family and was killed on Sunday morning local time. Al-Zawahiri was named the leader of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in 2011 and officials believe he was a key part of the group’s international activities for decades.
“He was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11, one of the most responsible for the attacks that killed 2,977 people on American soil. For decades, he was the mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said. “He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats and American interests.”
Biden said he hoped al-Zawahiri’s killing could offer a moment of relief for those who had family members killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“We continue to mourn every innocent life that was stolen on 9/11 and honor their memories,” he said. “To the families who lost fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and coworkers on that searing September day, it is my hope that this decisive action will bring one more measure of closure.”
The U.S. drone strike comes after collaboration from various parts of the counterterrorism community, a senior administration official told reporters earlier Monday. A separate source told ABC News the operation was carried out by the CIA.
Biden was first briefed on al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts in April and was ultimately briefed on a proposed operation on July 1, the administration official told reporters. Key Cabinet members and advisers were convened on July 25 to receive a final updated briefing on the intelligence assessment, which the official said continued to strengthen on a daily basis.
“The president received an updated operational report and pressed at a granular level. He asked again about any other options that would reduce collateral or civilian casualties. He wanted to understand more about the layout of rooms [of al-Zawahiri’s safe house in Kabul] behind the door and windows on the third floor of the building,” the official said.
“At the conclusion of the meeting, the president authorized a precise tailored airstrike on the condition that a strike minimize to the greatest extent possible the risk of civilian casualties. This authorization meant that the U.S. government could conduct an airstrike once an opportunity was available,” the official said.
The U.S. is confident through intelligence sources and “multiple streams of intelligence that he was killed “and no other individual,” the official said.
The successful remote strike against al-Zawahiri comes nearly a year after Biden presided over the turbulent U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan following two decades of war. He and his administration insisted then that the cost of involvement wasn’t worth the chaos and that the U.S. would still have the capability to track and eliminate terror threats without forces on the ground.
“We showed that without American forces on the ground in Afghanistan and in harm’s way we remain able to identify and locate even the world’s most wanted terrorists and then take action to remove him from the battlefield,” the senior administration official said Monday.
The exit from Afghanistan, which had been negotiated during the Trump administration, took place against the backdrop of an unexpectedly rapid takeover of the country by the Taliban, the armed group the U.S. had fought after invading in 2001. Biden faced sharp criticism from Republicans and others over his handling of the withdrawal.
Evacuation efforts were also marred by an Islamic State attack at an airport checkpoint in Kabul as the U.S. military and others worked to ferry out civilians. Thirteen U.S. troops and dozens of Afghans were killed.
On Monday, the senior administration official told reporters that al-Zawahiri had been staying in one of Kabul’s most affluent and prominent neighborhoods, near various diplomatic centers and international companies. The official confirmed that the ruling Taliban were aware of his presence in the area, knowledge that could further strain already tenuous relations with Washington.
The official said that the Taliban sought to cover up al-Zawahiri’s presence at his safe house after the strike.
“This is a very important point for us to make clear to the Taliban: that we expect them to abide by the terms of the Doha agreement, and the presence of al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul is a clear violation of that,” the senior official said, referring to the agreement the Taliban negotiated with President Donald Trump in Doha, Qatar.
“My administration will continue to vigilantly monitor and address threats from al-Qaeda, no matter where they emanate from,” Biden said in his speech from the White House. “The United States did not seek this war against terror, it came to us, and we answered with the same principles and resolve that have shaped us for generation upon generation: to protect [the] innocent, defend liberty, and we keep the light of freedom burning — a beacon for the rest of the entire world.”
ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House said Monday that China was seemingly laying the groundwork to carry out “military provocations” in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan.
“China appears to be positioning itself to potentially take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
He cast the escalating tensions as fueled by China, which the U.S. was “not threatening,” and he insisted that a potential visit from Pelosi would have precedent and would not “change the status quo” regarding China and Taiwan.
Under the “One China” policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as China’s government and does not support an independent Taiwan, considering the matter “unsettled,” though the U.S. is militarily supportive of the self-governing island and maintains informal ties.
“We, and countries around the world, believe escalation serves no one,” Kirby said. “Beijing’s actions could have unintended consequences that only serve to increase tensions.”
“The world should reject any [Chinese] effort to use it to do so,” Kirby said, referring to a possible Pelosi appearance in Taiwan. “We will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimated. We will keep operating in the seas and skies of the western pacific, as we have for decades.”
Pelosi landed in Singapore early Monday local time for a tour of Asia that her office said will also bring her to Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. Neither her office nor the White House has confirmed her reported plans to visit Taiwan.
Kirby said that the “potential steps” China may take in response to Pelosi’s possible visit to the island — which China claims as part of its territory — “could include military provocations, such as firing missiles in the Taiwan Strait or around Taiwan, operations that break historical norms such as a large-scale air entry into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone” or “air or naval activities that crossed the median line; military exercises that could be highly publicized.”
He noted that the last time Beijing fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait was in 1995 and 1996.
“Some of these actions would continue concerning trend lines that we’ve seen in recent years,” Kirby said, adding that “some could be of a different scope and scale.”
There could also be measures taken “in the diplomatic and economic space, … like Beijing’s public assertions last month that the Taiwan Strait is not an international waterway.”
Asked what planning was “being done in advance to ensure there won’t be any dangerous fallout if she does indeed go to Taiwan,” Kirby said he could “assure” that Pelosi would be able to “travel safely and securely.”
“We take our security commitments in the region very, very seriously,” Kirby later said on Fox News. “And we have ample capabilities in the region should we need them.”
At Monday’s briefing, Kirby said President Joe Biden had not spoken directly with Pelosi about her trip to Asia. He also took issue with a reporter who asked why Pelosi was “being urged not to go.”
“I don’t know that she was urged not to go,” Kirby said. “Who urged her not to go?”
“The president did not speak directly with the speaker about this trip,” he said.
The reporter clarified she had been asking about Biden saying previously that the military did not think it was a good idea for Pelosi to go to Taiwan.
“The speaker makes her own decisions,” Kirby said. “And what we did was provide her context, analysis, facts [and] information so that she could make the best decision possible for every stop, for every overseas travel.”
“We have been clear from the very beginning that she will make her own decisions and that Congress is an independent branch of government,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The leader of al-Qaeda, one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, was killed in a drone strike in Kabul over the weekend, ABC News can confirm through sources familiar with the operation.
A source briefed on the operation confirmed that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in the U.S. strike in Afghanistan.
A senior administration official said earlier Monday that the U.S. conducted a successful counterterrorism operation against a “significant” al-Qaeda target in Afghanistan over the weekend, adding that there were no civilian casualties.
The counterterrorism attack took place in Wazir Akbar Khan, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Kabul and literally walking distance to the main diplomatic areas, including the U.S. Embassy.
President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks on the operation tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Al-Zawahiri, who was born in Cairo in 1951, trained as a physician before founding the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the FBI said. His organization had sought to overthrow the Egyptian government “through violent means” before merging with al-Qaeda between 1998 and 1999, the U.N. Security Council said.
As Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda deputy, al-Zawahiri helped coordinate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden appeared together the day after the attacks in a video, in which an al-Qaeda spokesperson threatened the West, saying a “great army is gathering against you,” U.S. officials said.
The Justice Department named al-Zawahiri and bin Laden as unindicted co-conspirators for their roles in coordinating the attacks.
Both had been indicted in the Southern District of New York in 1999 for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people the previous year.
After bin Laden’s death in 2011, al-Zawahiri took over as al-Qaeda’s leader, officials said.
The FBI had placed al-Zawahiri, who was sometimes known as “The Doctor” or “The Teacher,” on its list of Most Wanted Terrorists, offering a $25 million reward for his capture.
The strike that killed al-Zawahiri is a major success of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and the result of countless hours of intelligence collection over many years.
This mission shows the tenacity and absolute dedication of U.S. intelligence and military professionals toward pursuing those responsible for the attacks of 9/11.
The message for al-Qaeda and its affiliates should be that the U.S. will never relent in its mission to hold those accountable who would seek to harm America and its people.
ABC News’ Mick Mulroy, Martha Raddatz, Sohel Uddin and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.
