(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats will vote Friday on a bill to ban assault weapons in the U.S.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the vote in a letter to colleagues on Friday morning, calling the legislation “a crucial step in our ongoing fight against the deadly epidemic of gun violence in our nation.”
Pelosi urged colleagues to vote for same-day authority — a procedural hurdle that requires a separate vote — in order to fast-track the bill Friday afternoon.
The bill comes roughly two decades after Congress allowed such restrictions to lapse.
“I’m excited today because for a long time now I had wanted to reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Pelosi said in her weekly press conference ahead of the vote. “You weren’t here, maybe weren’t even born when we did this in the 90s. It was hard but it happened, and it saved lives. And I’m looking forward to having a good passage of it this afternoon.”
President Joe Biden and gun control advocates renewed calls to outlaw weapons like AR-15 rifles in the wake of recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas and Highland Park, Illinois.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering pleaded with lawmakers just last week to ban such weapons, stating she will be “haunted forever” after a shooter opened fire during the city’s Fourth of July parade, killing seven people.
Congress passed its first major piece of gun reform in 30 years in June, which enhanced background checks for potential gun buyers under the age of 21 and included money for red flag laws and mental health services. But the measure fell short of what Biden and Democrats hoped to enact.
Leading gun manufacturing executives who testified before lawmakers on Wednesday maintained that people, not firearms, cause mass shootings.
“I hope the American people are paying attention today. It is clear that gun-makers are not going to change unless Congress forces them to finally put people over profits,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said during the hearing.
House Democrats originally planned on including a ban on assault weapons in a broader public safety package, but division within the caucus has delayed leadership’s efforts to bring the package to the floor before the August recess.
Pelosi said Friday that work continues on the other policing measures, including legislation to create new federal grant programs for local police departments.
“House Democrats are committed to building safer communities, in every corner of the country,” she wrote. “To that end, our Members have been working on a robust package of public safety bills and have made immense progress in our discussions.”
While the assault weapons ban may clear the House, such legislation is not likely to advance in the Senate, where Democrats would need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome the filibuster.
Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Despite Wednesday’s news of a potential billion-dollar Senate climate deal, environmental activists still appeared at Thursday night’s annual Congressional Baseball Game in the hope that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats will follow through on their climate promises, though at a much smaller scale than anticipated.
U.S. Capitol Police and Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said earlier this week that they were aware of potentially hundreds of protesters and would have an increased presence in the area of Nationals Park, where the century-old charity event is taking place.
The climate activists want Democrats to immediately pass the newly announced energy investments — brokered, per a late Wednesday announcement, between West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as part of another spending bill via reconciliation — and for Biden to declare a climate emergency.
The protest was planned as anger mounted against Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in the 50-50 Senate who earlier this month seemingly closed the door on climate negotiations in the next spending package, saying he could not support the environmental provisions of Democrats’ bill because of historic inflation.
“Hopeful that both actions can be taken swiftly, activists will continue pushing until Democrats’ climate promises are signed, sealed, and delivered,” Now Or Never, the group of climate organizations organizing Thursday’s protest, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a Now Or Never member, said the group was “very surprised” at the successful climate negotiations.
“We didn’t anticipate that announcement to happen at that hour,” Quentin Scott told ABC News. “We’re very encouraged by what the Senate and President Biden announced last night, and we support those negotiations. And so far, the text looks pretty solid, but not perfect.”
Scott and Chesapeake Climate Action Network decided a few hours before the baseball game that they would not be protesting. Another Now Or Never spokesperson said the demonstration would be “significantly different” after the announcement of climate provisions advancing in the spending bill.
On Wednesday, more than 300 people had registered to attend the protest. Upwards of 75 were seen gathered after the start of the game.
“We have decided not to protest tonight’s Congressional Baseball Game. Congressional leaders have declared they intend to meet many of our climate and justice demands, so we’ll be attending the game tonight just to urge Congress to seal the deal and to ask Joe Biden to still declare a climate emergency,” Chesapeake Climate Action Network Director Mike Tidwell said in a statement.
If passed, the Manchin and Schumer agreement, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, would be perhaps the largest clean energy package in U.S. history. Senate Democrats hope to approve it before the August recess begins next week — a daunting time-crunch, given other pressures.
The climate bill, which also includes major health care and corporate tax provisions, would spend about $370 billion for climate and energy programs over the next 10 years, such as using tax credits to incentivize consumers to buy electric cars, fund the domestic manufacturing of batteries and solar panels and allocate spending for other environmental initiatives.
“We’re really happy with this $60 billion in environmental justice priorities. We’re really happy with the $9 billion … rebates for homes. And we’re also very happy with the tax credits for used and new electric vehicles,” said Scott, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network spokesperson. “But,” he added, “we also recognize the things that are not perfect about the deal, we’re going to continue to fight.”
Thursday’s event organizers had warned that if Congress did not act on climate legislation by Sept. 30, they were planning a separate, “highly disruptive, mass direct action that fundamentally disrupts business-as-usual in D.C.”
“If Congress passes the deal that they announced yesterday, then it’s very unlikely that we will go ahead with a future action. But we also reserve the right to come back if somehow this deal falls apart and actually carry through those escalated actions,” Scott told ABC news.
District police said in a statement they were aware of potential protests and would have an increased presence in the area “to ensure the safety and security of the event.”
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that his officers had a “robust security plan in place” for the game.
“We are aware that demonstrators are planning to protest political issues at the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity. Our mission is to protect the Members of Congress during this family event, so we have a robust security plan in place,” Manger wrote.
“We urge anyone who is thinking about causing trouble at the charity game to stay home,” he wrote. “We will not tolerate violence or any unlawful behavior during this family event.”
Thursday’s demonstration also comes after the arrest of six congressional staff members for sitting in the office of Senate Majority Leader Schumer, urging him to keep negotiating on the climate provisions that were later revived with Manchin.
“Our first demand was to reopen climate negotiations which were considered dead for July — and they did!” he said. “So it is a big big win, now we need to fight to improve the policy and fight to pass it.”
The Congressional Baseball Game is a bipartisan tradition dating back to 1909, with proceeds supporting D.C.-area charities. The annual game has been under threat before. In 2017, at a practice for Republican lawmakers, then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner were shot.
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for the first time publicly addressed critics of his landmark opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, using a speech in Italy to make light of Britain’s Prince Harry and other foreign figures who have lamented the rollback of U.S. protections for abortion.
“What really wounded me, what really wounded me, was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision — whose name may not be spoken — with the Russian attack on Ukraine,” Alito said in a sarcastic tone. The decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, was released last month.
Prince Harry had referenced “the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the U.S.” as well as war in Ukraine as examples of why 2022 is “a painful year in a painful decade,” during a speech July 18 in New York.
Alito also made light of commentary from outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” he said. “One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he paid the price.”
Alito appeared to reference Johnson’s recent resignation after a series of scandals in office.
The justice’s comments came during a speech July 21 in Rome at a conference on religious liberty hosted by the University of Notre Dame Law School. The appearance was not previously announced by the Court; video of the speech was posted online Thursday.
“It is hard to convince people that religious liberty is worth defending if they don’t think that religion is a good thing that deserves protection,” Alito told the audience. “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe, and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection. That will not be easy to do.”
The Court’s conservative majority delivered significant victories for religious liberty in the most recent term, affirming the right of a public school football coach to pray among students at the 50-yard line; allow a civic group to raise a Christian flag on Boston City Hall flag pole; and permit Maine families to utilize taxpayer-funded tuition credits for religious schools.
Those decisions, along with major rulings on gun rights, climate policy and immigration, thrust the justices to the center of a divisive and highly-partisan public debate.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal and third woman justice, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the most junior conservative and 5th woman justice, held a rare public conversation Thursday night in what appeared to be at least partly a bid toward lowering the temperature of debate.
“We like each other. We really do,” Barrett said of her relationship with Sotomayor and her other colleagues. “As is often joked, this is like a marriage. We have life tenure and we get along.”
“Fundamentally, they are good people,” Sotomayor said of her colleagues.
The pair, appearing together for the first time, spoke as part of the Reagan Institute’s Summit on Education in a session moderated by Yale Law professor Akhil Reed Amar. The theme of the event was “An Educated Citizenry.”
“To the extent we can maintain a tone,” Barrett said, “I think that in itself has an educative function on civics.”
Neither addressed any of the decisions of the past term, even obliquely; but they did lament public misunderstanding of the court and demonization of its members.
“For me, democracy means an informed group of people,” Sotomayor said, “because without being informed, you really can’t know how to shape, how to live with others.”
Organizers of the event said the conversation was pre-taped several weeks ago but aired Thursday for the first time.
(WASHINGTON) — Secret Service Director Jim Murray is extending his time with the agency until a new director is selected, briefly extending his tenure as his agents finds themselves in the middle of renewed controversy over their actions related to last year’s Capitol riot.
Murray told his colleagues of his extension in an internal note reviewed by ABC News.
“As you are aware, our new director has not yet been named, however, I can tell you that the selection process is active and ongoing,” Murray wrote. “In light of these circumstances I’ve decided to briefly delay my retirement and transition to the private sector in order to help bridge the gap and foster a smooth and meaningful transition for our future Director.”
Murray wrote in his note that he spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House leadership and they agreed to extend his July 30 retirement date.
The Secret Service has come under new scrutiny over its handing of text messages from the days before, during and after Jan. 6.
Those messages, which the agency maintains were deleted during a software update for its phones, were supposed to be preserved and turned over as part of investigations into the Capitol attack.
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general, an internal watchdog who had sought the records before they were deleted, recently launched a criminal probe into what happened, according to three sources familiar with the situation.
A secret service spokesperson told ABC News that the texts were not maliciously deleted, and Director Murray said in a statement last week that he was reaffirming his commitment to working with and helping the House Jan. 6 committee.
“As an American and Director of this incredible agency, I found the events at the Capitol on January 6th to be abhorrent. What happened on that day in January 2021 is anathema to democracy and the processes our constitution guarantees,” he said then. “Since day one, I have directed our personnel to cooperate fully and completely with the Committee and we are currently finalizing dates and times for our personnel to make themselves available to the Committee for follow up inquiries.”
“We have provided thousands of documents, operationally sensitive radio transmissions and access to Secret Service employees,” he said. “We will continue to cooperate fully with the Committee and any other investigative body and remain committed to helping ensure that another such lawless and violent assault on our Constitutional process never takes place again.”
Still, members of the House panel have been skeptical of the Secret Service’s explanations.
“I don’t really buy that for one minute,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, R-Md., said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” this week. “For one thing, isn’t it a little odd that all of the texts would vanish for Jan. 6th and Jan. 5th? Of all the days, what an odd coincidence that is.”
(WASHINGTON) — Another major legislative win for Democrats came Thursday, when — over Republican objections of “corporate welfare” — a bipartisan group in the House passed a bill that funds the nation’s science and technology industries with billions to boost domestic production of crucial semiconductor chips and additional research and development.
The bill cleared the chamber in a 243-187 vote (with one “present” vote) despite late-hour pushes from GOP leadership against the legislation. Twenty-four Republicans joined Democrats in backing the measure, which now heads to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.
One lawmaker, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., whose grandfather Irwin Jacobs founded semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, voted “present.”
“If you want to know who hates this bill, who lobbies against it — the Chinese Communist Party. Why? Because they know it’ll help us compete against them,” Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a major advocate of the package, told reporters while criticizing fellow Republicans for opposing the bill.
Rep. Frank Dean Lucas of Oklahoma, the ranking GOP member on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, took another view.
“Regrettably, and it’s more regrettably than you can possibly image, I will not be casting my vote for [the chips bill],” he said. “This is one of those occasions that as a statesman and responsible member of Congress, I have to put aside my own pride in science committee’s work and cast the vote that represents the best interest of Americans and, particularly, the good people of the third district of Oklahoma.”
Supporters of the $280 billion proposal highlight the roughly $52 billion it provides to incentivize the creation of semiconductor facilities and therefore increase the competitiveness of the industry in the U.S. at a time when countries like China dominate the sphere.
There’s a significant shortage of these chips, which serve as the “brain” of all kinds of technology in the U.S., from phones to appliances and cars and much more.
Many House Republicans supported the bill as recently as Wednesday, before the surprise news of a deal struck between Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on an expansive spending bill focused on Democratic priorities like climate, health care and corporate taxes.
Manchin had previously said he would not support climate and tax policies in the pending spending package, citing inflation. But Wednesday’s agreement, he said, would actually reduce the government deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Republicans were not pleased. Some had backed the microchip bill once they believed Manchin’s objections had killed Democrats’ spending plans. On Wednesday, shortly before Manchin publicly changed course, the Senate passed the chip bill 64-33 after more than a year of gridlock.
Club for Growth, a Washington-based economic organization, has maintained opposition to the bill — and called on House Republicans to vote no in light of the spending agreement between Manchin and Schumer, which Senate Democrats hope to approve before the August recess.
“The House GOP should kill CHIPS now that 17 Senate GOPers got played by Schumer & Manchin on reconciliation,” Club for Growth Vice President Scott T. Parkinson wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
“I was a no last week, I was a no last night, and I’ll be the first no on the board today,” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on the floor Thursday, calling the measure “corporate welfare.”
The bill is also a top national security policy for the White House, with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, while briefing lawmakers earlier this month, calling its passage a “matter of urgency” and saying the country was “out of time” to act.
Biden issued a statement on the legislation shortly after it cleared the House, saying he “looks forward to signing this bill into law.”
“The CHIPS and Science Act is exactly what we need to be doing to grow our economy right now. By making more semiconductors in the United States, this bill will increase domestic manufacturing and lower costs for families. And, it will strengthen our national security by making us less dependent on foreign sources of semiconductors,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate confirmed Steven Dettelbach as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives earlier this month, making him only the second ATF director to win Senate approval since confirmation was required in 2006.
Dettelbach, who is a former federal prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, was sworn in July 19 to run ATF, the law enforcement agency in charge of enforcing the nation’s gun and explosives laws.
He sat down with “GMA3” to discuss his plans for the agency, the powers the agency has at its disposal and his thoughts on the country’s gun violence epidemic.
GMA3: Sir, thank you for being here. First time in seven years. They’ve had acting directors, but not a permanent director. Has that impacted the agency and its work in some way by not having a permanent person in place?
DETTELBACH: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And look, there are incredible people out there all across the country, ATF folks who have been working really hard to try and combat violent crime, gun crime for all these years. And I think from my standpoint, as you say that the first Senate-confirmed director in seven years, I feel a lot of obligation. To do it is to stand up and fight for those folks.
They’re doing a great job and I am there to support and try and make sure that our state and local partners have what they need. Because you said it right, there is a big problem out there. Mass shootings are a big problem. But in addition, there’s that constant drumbeat of tragedy that goes on because of violent crime and gun violence.
GMA3: And you mentioned it because, again, the very high profile awful tragedies in these mass shootings we’ve been seeing, oftentimes we hear the ATF has helped track down the weapons or doing something with shell casings, you know, that type of forensic work. But what are you doing? Help people understand what the ATF does to prevent gun violence in this country. Maybe there’s not mass shootings, but the everyday gun violence.
DETTELBACH: Yeah, absolutely. So you’re right, there’s different parts of this and there’s some things that are newer that the public doesn’t know about; then there’s the tried-and-true things that are really important, start with that.
So I’m in New York today to sit down and meet with New York law enforcement because they are some of the leaders in the country in terms of being smart about combating gun violence and having task forces to make sure that we’re working together. The days of “this is my turf, that’s your turf” are over in law enforcement. We work together.
So that task force, that’s the new thing that you talked about, is what we call crime gun intelligence. And that can be used both to try and catch shooters and take them off the street and also to catch them before they kill again. So, as you said, to prevent.
So one of the things that we do is do what’s called a trace and that’s available free to every law enforcement. That’s like getting the birth certificate of a firearm where it started. Then I think you pointed out this thing is called NIBIN but it really is the part that comes out the back of the firearm, the injected cartridge casing. There’s now science that allows us to find out because bad guys don’t usually pick that up, right?
What we find, we can now connect that shooting to maybe some shooting that happened last week or the week before. And that really is a hot lead for law enforcement to go out and get that person before they act again.
GMA3: How do we– because so much of the gun violence we see and again, the high-profile cases are one thing, but then we see what happens in places like Chicago, here in New York [there] was a violent weekend and so many people got shot– how do you prevent that gun violence? How do you get those guns off the streets? Because that’s the violence that doesn’t always make the headlines.
DETTELBACH: Yeah, my background before I did this job, for 20 years I was a federal prosecutor and then I was a U.S. attorney. And so I will tell you that law enforcement alone cannot do this. It has to be a wholesome approach. I always compare it to a three-legged stool. You have to have great enforcement, right? Because people need to know there are dangerous people in this community that need to be caught and they need to be, we need to be protected from.
You also have to work with the entire community to do prevention work. That means giving families and kids options before they get inculcated into this violent culture that we have out there. And then the third part is reentry. So it’s the No. 1 predictor in many cases of whether you’re going to do something violent and be a criminal is whether you have done it before. We need to do a better job of making sure people aren’t recidivists. Those three things, it’s a three-legged stool because if you don’t do any one right, the stool falls.
GMA3: Director, how are you doing? Because all that sounds really hefty, it sounds like a big project. How do you do that with such– you’re the smallest division of the Justice Department, 2,500 agents. I believe D.C. has more police officers, I think by a thousand, than you do agents. You’re supposed to be doing this all over the country. Why do you have so few?
DETTELBACH: Well, look, if you ask any police chief or executive in the country, they could use [more]. And the president, by the way, has proposed a significant increase to ATF’s budget for this year. But as you said, my job, I’m in law enforcement, is to do the best with what we have now. And the way we do that is partnership, it’s with working with state and local law enforcement to be a force multiplier.
Back when I started this business as a prosecutor, you know, 30 years ago, there were eight different agencies doing the same thing in their own little task forces, in their own little units. We cannot do that anymore. We have to share intelligence and share bodies in real-time ways.
And that stuff is happening in New York. That’s why I mean, what’s happening right here in New York is actually in many ways a national model. And not everybody can do what they do in New York because crime looks different in different places. But they are doing stuff with task forces, they are doing stuff with crime gun intelligence, and we are their full partners in doing that and we have to support that.
GMA3: Let’s get your take on one last thing here, because we see the mass shootings and we often see that the shooter did buy a firearm legally, but for the most part, the violence we’re seeing day in, day out, on streets, is the problem illegally possessed guns more so than legally bought guns? How big is that issue?
DETTELBACH: It’s a huge issue. There are people that have firearms that the law clearly says, and I think almost everybody agrees, should not have firearms. So those are people who are, let’s say, convicted murderers, rapists, you know, felons, other groups of people who are laid out in law. And they are able to get firearms far too easily, and they’re using them to hurt people. A lot of people.
Not in cases that make the national news, just like you said, T.J., but in everyday tragedies that are playing out in this country and God bless the police and and federal agents who are working together to work on this because it is a 24-hour a day, seven-day a week problem, and it can get very, very hard on them and dangerous for them. So one thing I want to say is, you know, we owe them a lot.
GMA3: And we get it. From your perspective, you’re not the policy guy, you’re the enforcement guy. But our problem is not legal gun owners in this country. Would you say it’s not legally purchased guns?
DETTELBACH: Look, I am not the policy guy. I am the enforcement guy. Congress just came together in a bipartisan way to give us more tools to try and deal with this problem. I’ll use whatever– that debate is important, but my job is to take what comes out of Congress, the laws on the books, and make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect people.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday pointed to robust job growth and low unemployment that should, he argued, quell growing concerns of a financial downturn after it was announced that the economy contracted for a second consecutive quarter — meeting a common but unofficial definition for a recession.
Biden opened a meeting of business leaders in Washington by insisting the economy was still strong despite the back-to-back quarters of negative growth and that some contraction was expected after strong growth last year as the country emerged from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our job market remains historically strong. Our economy created more than 9 million jobs since I came to office, in no small part because of the people on this stage. Our economy created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter, the same period as today’s GDP report covers, and our unemployment rate is 3.6% — near a record, historic low. Secondly, households and businesses, the engines of our economy, continue to move forward,” Biden said.
“Now, there’s no doubt we expect growth to be slower than last year and the rapid clip we had. But that’s consistent with the transition to a steady, stable growth and lower inflation,” he said, acknowledging that “there’s going to be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession.” Republicans, too, were quick to seize on the continued declines.
“But if you look at our job market, consumer spending, business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well,” Biden said.
His defensive campaign comes as Republicans continue to hammer him on historically high inflation, which they linked to the slowdown.
“This is Joe Biden’s recession. Biden can lie and deflect blame all he wants, but that will not alleviate the pain Americans feel every time they fill up their gas tanks, go grocery shopping, check their retirement savings, or balance their budgets. Biden and Democrats are responsible for our shrinking economy, and they’re only trying to make it worse,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.
The administration has ramped up a messaging effort to convince the public that the country has not entered a recession, noting that the U.S. has added 2.7 million jobs this year and consumer spending has continued to rise despite biting inflation, which the Federal Reserve aims to cool through interest rate hikes without setting off broader economic shockwaves.
Biden on Thursday also touted two pieces of legislation making their way through Congress that he says will relieve inflationary pressures.
During his meeting, the House passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which will provide an infusion of funds for the domestic chip manufacturing industry. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also announced a deal on Wednesday on legislation that would lower prescription drug costs, fight climate change and implement a 15% minimum tax on corporations.
“Both of these bills are going to help the economy continue to grow, bring down inflation and make sure we aren’t giving up on all the significant progress we made in the last year,” Biden said.
(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump continues to push false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, his political action committee has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations and candidates that are pushing to tighten voting laws or spread unproven claims of election fraud, new FEC filings show.
Among the donations is a $150,000 payment to a little-known organization, Secure MI Vote, that’s spearheading a petition to clamp down on voting requirements in the state of Michigan, which Trump lost in 2020 after winning the state in 2016.
The group’s director says the donation from Trump’s Save America PAC has been a big help.
“It definitely helped us get the word out and then cover some of the expenses,” executive director Jeff Litten told ABC News. “It’s not cheap.”
The payment comes amid a flurry of big-dollar donations from Trump’s PAC to like-minded groups working to lay the groundwork for voting reform before the 2024 election.
“America needs safe and secure elections,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told ABC News. “That’s why Save America is investing in organizations, causes, and candidates committed to election integrity.”
Earlier this year, before the Michigan donation, ABC News reported that Trump’s PAC gave $1 million to a right-wing nonprofit organization run by some of his close allies that has been hosting “Election Integrity Summits” around the country. At one of those summits, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was involved with Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, urged attendees to recruit and create election “task forces” in their communities ahead of the upcoming midterms, to avoid a repeat of the last election.
“Imagine if we had had local task forces in these counties? What if we had citizens like you in 2020, overseeing this?” Mitchell said at the private summit, which ABC News attended by purchasing a ticket.
“We could have stopped it,” Mitchell told the crowd. “That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing here tonight.”
In Michigan, the Secure MI Vote petition looks to tighten restrictions on voter ID laws, registration requirements, and mail-in ballot procedures in a way that experts say would make it more difficult to vote. Michigan law already requires an ID to vote in elections, but the petition would eliminate a provision that allows those without IDs to vote through a sworn affidavit.
“It’s a proposal that would curtail voting access for Michiganders and is part of a larger effort to slice away voting rights from every angle,” said Jasleen Singh, the counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit bipartisan public policy institute.
For months, Trump himself has zeroed in on voter ID laws as a rallying cry to spread baseless accusations of fraud in the 2020 election, despite no evidence of malfeasance.
“They want no voter ID,” Trump said to a group of students during a student summit in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday. “Could it be because they want to cheat in elections?”
According to a study from the Brennan Center, “overly burdensome” ID requirements make it more difficult to vote, especially for minority and low-income populations. The group found that as many as 11% of eligible voters “do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements.”
But Jamie Roe, the spokesperson for Secure MI Vote, said the Michigan group’s petition would require state-funded IDs to be provided to “applicants with hardships.” Suggestions that the petition was going to take away voting rights were “absolutely nonsense,” Roe told ABC News.
“What right are we taking away?” Roe asked. “If you don’t have an ID or can’t afford one, we’re going to get you one.”
According to a copy of the document available on the group’s website, the petition also seeks to prohibit election officials from sending out unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots — a step officials took ahead of the 2020 presidential election that helped contribute to the highest voter turnout the state has ever seen.
“There’s a reason why there are so many different kinds of restrictions, and that’s to affect all different kinds of voters,” said Nancy Wang, executive director of the pro-voter group Voters Not Politicians. “In Michigan, the margins are so close, so if you even affect 2,000 votes, then you can turn the tide on an entire election.”
Litten says the Secure MI Vote petition has over 500,000 signatures — far beyond the 340,000 required for certification. After the group missed the June 1 deadline to get on the November ballot, Litten says they’re now ready to submit the petition to the state this Friday.
If the petition is approved, the group hopes that by next year they’ll get it before the GOP-controlled legislature, which by law has the power to adopt the petition and pass it into law without approval from the state’s Democratic governor, who has previously vetoed similar legislation.
“We think it would find a favorable response from the Michigan legislature,” Roe said during a June 1 press conference.
Beyond the $150,000 donation from Trump’s Save America PAC, Secure MI Vote’s operation is largely funded by other conservative groups that do not disclose their donors.
Virginia-based advocacy group Liberty Initiative Fund has given Secure MI Vote more than $2.4 million worth of in-kind donations for services including “petitioning,” “auditing petitions,” and “media consulting,” while the newly launched Michigan-based dark money group Michigan Guardians of Democracy has given more than $2.1 million in both monetary contributions and in-kind contributions for services like “signature contact,” according to filings.
Elsewhere, Trump’s PAC has been pouring money into supporting other organizations that spread unproven election fraud claims and support like-minded candidates.
In Pennsylvania, Save America donated $1 million apiece to two super PACs, Our American Century and American Leadership Action, that helped secure a win in the GOP Senate primary for Trump-endorsed candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, who supported Trump’s claims of a stolen election.
In an upcoming GOP House primary in Wyoming, Save America PAC gave half a million dollars to the Wyoming Values super PAC supporting Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman against Rep. Liz Cheney, who has become a target of Trump and his allies over her role leading the House investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Throughout her campaign, Hageman has continued to spread unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election, including during a GOP primary debate earlier this month.
Trump’s PAC has also homed in on Georgia over the last few months, funneling millions of dollars into super PACs attempting to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who testified this week in the Fulton County grand jury investigation into Trump’s actions after the 2020 election.
Get Georgia Right, a super PAC that received a $1.5 million donation from Save America back in November, has been airing political ads opposing Kemp that claim without evidence that “widespread illegal ballot harvesting continued” during the 2020 election, even though the incumbent Georgia governor “dismissed concerns about voter fraud.”
Another group, Take Back Georgia, which received more than $2.8 million from Save America PAC over the last few months, supported former Georgia Sen. David Perdue and his false claims about “rigged elections” in Perdue’s unsuccessful primary challenge against Kemp.
And even after Perdue lost the GOP primary in May, Save America contributed another $146,000 to Take Back Georgia so the group could continue its Trump-aligned efforts in the state through the general election season.
Representatives for Get Georgia Right, American Leadership Action, Our American Century, and Wyoming Values did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment. Officials with Take Back Georgia were not reachable.
(WASHINGTON) — Just 10 days into his congressional career, Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer broke with his party and voted with nine other Republicans and every Democrat in the House to impeach President Donald Trump over the Capitol riot.
Now, just days before his primary, Meijer is under pressure from a major Democratic group, which is spending $500,000 to spotlight John Gibbs, his pro-Trump, election-denying opponent.
Airing in Western Michigan this week, the 30-second ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), House Democrats’ campaign wing, describes Gibbs, who worked in the Trump administration, as “too conservative” for the region and Trump’s “hand-picked” candidate.
While the DCCC’s messaging is negative, the ad pulls focus from Meijer and underscores Gibbs’ conservative credentials shortly before voters have their say.
At a time when Democrats are warning voters that election-denying Republicans pose an existential threat to democracy, the party’s role in a messy GOP primary has left multiple Democratic lawmakers angry and frustrated.
“There’s always a danger of unintended consequences, and I certainly would have taken a different approach,” Colorado Rep. Jason Crow told ABC News on Wednesday. “We should play our game on our terms, and I don’t think approaches like that are usually productive.”
“I thought it was a strange choice, and I called [the DCCC] and let them know,” Michigan Rep. Elisa Slotkin told ABC News.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., a retiring moderate who also voted to impeach Trump, called the Democratic strategy “outrageous” and pointed to Meijer’s votes across party lines on impeachment and to protect same-sex marriage rights.
“Peter’s been a strong independent voice, and he’s put the country first on a number of issues,” Upton told ABC News. “He’s not a rubber stamp.”
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the DCCC, defended the party’s efforts on Wednesday. He argued that the ad was “telling the truth about John Gibbs being a dangerous extremist” and that Democratic candidate Hillary Scholten — who will face either Gibbs or Meijer — would “put people over politics” if elected to serve in the House.
In a brief interview in Washington on Wednesday, Meijer accused Democrats of putting “party interest” first.
“Everything they’re saying in the Jan. 6 committee, everything about how my party is a threat to democracy — and they are investing a half-million dollars to elevate and boost exactly the same thing that they’re railing against?” he said.
“It’s pretty galling in the hypocrisy of it all. And just shameless given their high-minded rhetoric about how they are the party of democracy. Spare me that bull—,” Meijer said.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a retiring member of the House Jan. 6 committee, called the strategy “disgusting” in an interview with CNN, warning that it would help “election deniers win.”
Gibbs, who served in the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Trump, was unsuccessfully nominated to lead the Office of Personnel Management but faced criticism in the Senate over past comments and tweets, including speaking dismissively of Islam and promoting a conspiracy theory involving Democrats. (Gibbs said at the time that “I don’t really see anything to apologize for. I was a commentator.” At his confirmation hearing, he insisted, “In my service in the government … I’ve always treated people fairly.”)
Democrats aren’t just focusing on the right-wing candidate in Meijer’s race. The party has tried to influence GOP primaries across the country — where nominating more conservative options could create more favorable matchups in November and maintain their slim House and Senate majorities.
In California, an outside political group affiliated with House Democratic leaders tried spotlighting a pro-Trump Republican running against Rep. David Valadao, another one of the 10 GOP members who voted to impeach Trump. (Valadao survived his primary two weeks ago and advanced to the general election through California’s top-two system.)
In Colorado, the Democratic leadership-aligned Senate Majority PAC spent millions ahead of the primary last month to portray Joe O’Dea, a Republican seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, as a moderate compared to the more conservative Ron Hanks — which was ultimately unsuccessful. O’Dea said Democrats were “propping up Ron Hanks in a desperate attempt to save” Bennet in November.
And Democrats in Pennsylvania, ahead of the state’s GOP primary in early June, elevated Doug Mastriano, who was linked to Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election and the Capitol attack. (Mastriano was at the Capitol that day but insists he left because of the violence.) He will face Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in November.
Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., tweeted this week that he was “disgusted” that the DCCC has been using its funds — including membership dues paid by lawmakers — to “boost Trump-endorsed candidates, particularly the far-right opponent of one of the most honorable Republicans in Congress.”
Helen Kalla, a spokesperson for the DCCC, told ABC News the group was “laser focused on holding the House majority, which we will accomplish by fighting for every competitive seat.”
“[Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy is an anti-choice insurrectionist coddler and conspiracy enabler, and we will do what it takes to keep the speaker’s gavel out of his hands,” Kalla said.
(WASHINGTON) — Following a surprise announcement Wednesday that he and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin struck a deal on a major spending package — reviving Democrats’ hopes of addressing health care and climate — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer met with his caucus behind closed doors on Thursday morning.
Schumer urged fellow Democrats to stay united to get the Inflation Reduction Act across the finish line via reconciliation before the chamber breaks next week for their August recess. The proposal would expand health care subsidies; allow Medicare to negotiate on prescription drugs; spend nearly $400 billion on climate and energy policies and raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
“It will require us to stick together and work long days and nights for the next 10 days,” Schumer said, according to a Democrat in the room. “We will need to be disciplined in our messaging and focus. It will be hard. But I believe we can get this done.”
Democrats’ proposed climate, tax and health care bill had been in limbo after Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in the 50-50 Senate, said earlier this month that he was opposed to additional spending on climate policies or tax changes as the country faces historically high inflation.
But in an apparent reversal, Manchin said Wednesday that he and Schumer had reached an agreement after “months of negotiation.”
President Joe Biden applauded their “historic agreement” in remarks delivered at the White House on Thursday, despite the fact that it doesn’t include everything he’s called for in such a package. (At several trillion dollars, Biden’s original American Families Plan was a far more sweeping social spending proposal.)
Biden said Manchin and Schumer’s agreement was also major.
“Simply put, the bill will lower health care costs for millions of Americans and it will be the most important investment — not a hyperbole — the most important investment that we’ve ever made in our energy security,” he said.
If passed, the spending package would be a notable victory for Biden and Democrats heading into the fall midterm elections.
But Manchin said Thursday that Biden had little to do with the deal, telling a local radio show that it was only hammered out between him and Schumer.
“President Biden was not involved,” Manchin said. “I was not going to bring the president in. I didn’t think it was fair to bring him in. And this thing could very well could not have happened at all. It could have absolutely gone sideways.”
Biden on Thursday thanked Schumer and Manchin specifically for the “extraordinary effort that it took to reach this result.”
What’s in the bill?
The 725-page bill, as currently written, would invest approximately $300 billion in deficit reduction and $369.75 billion in energy security and climate change programs over the next decade.
According to Schumer and Manchin, the bill “lowers energy costs, increases cleaner production, and reduces carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.”
There are incentives for Americans to invest in clean energy, with tax incentives for energy efficiency improvements for their homes. There are also tax credits for individuals who buy electric vehicles.
The bill would continue pandemic-era expansions to Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2025 and allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies to lower drug costs, which has long been a Democratic goal. Under the bill, drug manufacturers would be penalized for raising prices faster than inflation.
Medicare drug negotiation would begin in 2026 with 10 of the most expensive drugs eligible for negotiation. That number would increase to 15 drugs in 2027 and to 20 drugs by 2029.
The Inflation Reduction Act would be paid for implementing a 15% corporate minimum tax as well as collecting more through IRS tax enforcement, Democrats said. The legislation includes billions of dollars for taxpayer services, enforcement and modernization of the agency.
Manchin on how the deal came together
Manchin was pressed by West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday on why he changed course to go through with this bill, including the climate provisions, and despite a lengthy explanation and defense that the legislation will not be inflationary, he couldn’t explain the seeming about-face.
Manchin said Schumer was “mad” when he first paused the deal a few weeks ago, but he insisted he never “walked away” from negotiations.
After originally saying this month that he wanted to wait until the next set of economic data was released in August before moving forward on any legislation, Manchin said in his radio appearance Thursday that he directed his staff to scrub the bill down so there “can’t be one thing that you can say caused inflation.”
Still, he said he’s anticipating being criticized by Republicans over the 15% minimum corporate tax.
“Why is anybody or any corporation upset by not paying 15? So yes, I’m anxious to find out who they are,” he said. “Come forward.”
Some Republicans were also quick to criticize Manchin’s changing position, which they said left them in the lurch — having supported a separate computer chips bill when they thought the Democratic spending plan was dead.
What happens next
Democrats hope to use a fast-track process known as reconciliation that will allow the legislation to pass by a simple majority vote.
In the evenly divided Senate, Democrats need their entire caucus — including Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who has vocally criticized Manchin, and Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who like Manchin has bucked other party priorities — to back the bill with Vice President Kamala Harris then breaking a tie.
The party also needs their members to stay healthy enough to vote in-person before the recess. There is no proxy voting in the chamber, as there is in the House.
Manchin is currently recovering from COVID-19 and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin announced Thursday, hours after the spending deal was released, that he too had tested positive for the virus and will isolate following federal guidelines.
Schumer told Senate Democrats on Thursday that they have the opportunity to get the legislation passed before the August recess — just days away.
“When we were in the minority for many years before this Congress, we talked often as a caucus about what we would do if we got the majority back,” he said, according to a Democrat in the room.
“We have now been in the longest 50-50 Senate in history,” he said. “It has been a wild ride and there have been many ups and downs.”
– ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
