(NEW YORK) — Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov John Fetterman, the leading Democratic candidate in the Pennsylvania Senate race, said Sunday that he suffered a stroke on Friday.
“I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long,” Fetterman said in a statement released Sunday afternoon.
“The good news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any cognitive damage. I’m well on my way to a full recovery. So I have a lot to be thankful for. They’re keeping me here for now for observation, but I should be out of here sometime soon. The doctors have assured me that I’ll be able to get back on the trail, but first I need to take a minute, get some rest, and recover,” he added.
Fetterman and his wife, who he credited for catching his stroke symptoms, also posted a video from a hospital. Giselle Fetterman poked fun at her husband.
“I made you get checked out, ’cause I was right, as always,” she said in the video.
It is unclear when Fetterman will return to the trail ahead of Tuesday’s primary election.
Dave McCormick, a businessman who is running for Senate in the Republican primary election, sent well wishes to John Fetterman later on Sunday. “Glad to hear you’re doing well, John. Wishing you a fast recovery,” McCormick tweeted.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former talk show host who has former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the Republican Senate primary, also tweeted, “I have cared for atrial fibrillation patients and witnessed the miracles of modern medicine in the treatment of strokes, so I am thankful that you received care so quickly. My whole family is praying for your speedy recovery.”
Fetterman, who has served as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor since 2019, has staked out progressive positions during his primary campaign. Among other Democrats, he faces fellow progressive state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and centrist Rep. Conor Lamb in Tuesday’s primary.
Lamb, who is trailing Fetterman, sent well wishes via tweet:
“I just found out on live TV that Lieutenant Governor Fetterman suffered a stroke. Hayley and I are keeping John and his family in our prayers and wishing him a full and speedy recovery,” Lamb said.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who is behind Fetterman and Lamb respectively in recent polling, also weighed in.
“As I said at the first debate, John Fetterman is an incredible family man. My prayers are with him and his family as he recovers from this stroke. I look forward to seeing him back on the campaign trail soon,” he said.
Fetterman’s revelation comes as the U.S. marks National Stroke Awareness month in May. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., who suffered a stroke in January, told ABC News earlier this month that when he was feeling the symptoms of a stroke, “I never thought it was a stroke. Even as I was going to the hospital, I just thought I wasn’t feeling well. And a stroke hitting me, that wasn’t on my mind at all.”
(NEW YORK) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that social media companies have to address and track down extremism on their platforms, after a gunman who reportedly espoused white supremacist ideology opened fire at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on Saturday, killing at least 10.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were African American and two were white, authorities said.
“There has to be vigilance,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said on ABC’s “This Week.” “People have to alert other authorities if they think that someone is on a path to domestic terrorism, to violence of any kind.”
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, sources told ABC News.
“Obviously you have to balance the free speech issues,” Pelosi said. “Freedom is so important to us but that freedom also carries public safety with it and we have to balance that.”
The California Democrat said her party in Congress is “of course trying to do something about gun violence” but noted that efforts to address mass shootings on Capitol Hill have fallen short in the Senate, where Republicans have opposed gun control measures, making it impossible for Democrats to advance legislation over the 60-vote threshold in the chamber.
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of pro-abortion rights protests are planned nationwide Saturday in the wake of a bombshell leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that indicated the court’s conservative majority could soon overturn Roe v. Wade.
Women’s March and Planned Parenthood are among the organizations behind more than 450 demonstrations nationwide, which are anticipated to draw hundreds of thousands of people.
Washington, D.C., is expected to be the site of the largest turnout, with 17,000 people anticipated to gather on the grounds of the Washington Monument, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service to Women’s March.
“Losing the right to abortion has consequences. Women will pay the price,” Women’s March executive director Rachel O’Leary Carmona said in a statement. “We can stop this tragedy, and the time is now.”
The “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally, which kicked off at noon, will be followed by a march to the U.S. Supreme Court at 2 p.m. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be among the rally’s speakers, according to the permit. There will also be a performance from musician Toshi Reagon, organizers said.
A counter-protest is also being organized by Students for Life that is scheduled to begin at noon Saturday at the Washington Monument and also march to the Supreme Court.
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin are also expected to have large turnouts for “Bans Off Our Bodies” demonstrations.
A rally organized by the Women’s March Foundation at the Los Angeles City Hall will feature speakers including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass and the attorney and women’s rights advocate Gloria Allred, according to organizers.
The demonstrations join recent protests by abortion rights activists — and some anti-abortion protesters — following the leak of the draft SCOTUS decision on the Mississippi case that challenges Roe, the landmark decision that has guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion for nearly 50 years.
Amid the demonstrations, an eight-foot-high fence was erected at the Supreme Court last week.
The high court is expected to rule publicly on the case in question — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — by the end of June.
A majority of Americans believe Roe should be upheld, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll. But if Roe is overturned, at least 26 states would either ban abortion or severely restrict access to it, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
This week, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have enshrined abortion rights into federal law. The legislation failed in the Senate 49-51, lacking the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP-led filibuster.
President Joe Biden condemned Senate Republicans for failing to act “at a time when women’s constitutional rights are under unprecedented attack — and it runs counter to the will of the majority of American people.”
Ahead of the planned protests, House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi gathered Friday to call on the justices to defend abortion access.
“Americans are marching and making their voices heard,” Pelosi said. “Public sentiment is everything. We will never stop fighting for patients and their health care.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday defended his administration’s response to an ongoing baby formula shortage that has triggered public outcry from parents, lawmakers and drawn Republican fire.
“There’s nothing more urgent we’re working on than that right now, and I think we’re going to be making some significant progress very shortly,” Biden said from the White House at an event that had been meant to tout public safety funding — reflecting how the lack of formula has quickly overtaken other administration concerns.
Biden dismissed growing criticism that the White House was too slow to respond to the nationwide shortage that had been building for months, telling reporters, “If we had been better mind readers, I guess we could’ve, but we moved as quickly as the problem became apparent to us.”
Complaints from families grew increasingly desperate this week as they encountered more empty shelves, with an estimated 43% of formula products out of stock as of Sunday at stores across the U.S., according to tracking firm Datasembly.
Biden on Friday reiterated the efforts already announced by the White House to alleviate supply issues, including expanding access to baby formula for recipients of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as WIC) and a new government website to provide information to caregivers.
Biden also he believes more formula could be getting on the shelves “in a matter of weeks or less” as the Food and Drug Administration scrambles to find a way to relax restrictions in order to allow more formula to be imported from abroad.
The FDA is expected to detail their plan for imports next week. It remains unclear how the imports would work given the agency’s requirements on formula packaging and vitamin content, though Commissioner Robert Califf tweeted Friday that the agency will ensure imported products meet “certain safety, quality and labeling standards.”
“We have to move with caution as well as speed because we got to make sure what we are getting is in fact first-rate products,” Biden said. “That’s why the FDA has to go through the process.”
The shortage — compounded by broader, coronavirus-related supply chain issues — was worsened by a recall from Abbott, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of baby formula products.
The company pulled three of its popular brands in February and closed its plant in Sturgis, Michigan, in the wake of bacterial infections linked to two infants who died after consuming Abbott formula and a Food and Drug Administration inspection that documented problems at Abbott’s Michigan facility, including the same bacteria.
(Abbott maintains there is no evidence its products were connected to the babies’ deaths, though it has acknowledged the infractions the FDA found elsewhere at the plant.)
A complaint against Abbott was first filed in September, but the FDA didn’t investigate the plant until approximately four months later.
Republicans haven’t missed a beat in laying the blame on the Biden White House, holding a press conference on Thursday to speak out on the issue.
“This is not a Third World country,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and a new mother, said at the press event. “This should never happen in the United States.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the shortage in his own floor speech on Thursday, calling it “outrageous and unacceptable.”
“It seems that while President Biden’s administration and the FDA … have been asleep at the switch in terms of getting production back online as fast as possible,” he argued.
Meanwhile, the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill is launching their own investigations. The House Oversight Committee is demanding records from four major formula manufacturers.
“We have asked for a briefing by the end of the month, and we’ve asked three basic questions: Do they have the supply to meet the demand? Is there a supply chain problem that can be corrected? And what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told ABC News.
A group of 32 Senate Democrats on Friday wrote a letter urging the Infant Nutrition Council of America — an association of formula manufacturers — to take “immediate action” to address the shortage, though they didn’t offer any specific steps the group can or should implement.
“We are calling on you and your member companies to take immediate action and ensure that infant formula manufacturers are making every effort to mitigate this dangerous shortage and get children the nourishment they need,” the lawmakers wrote.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., announced Wednesday her panel would examine the Abbott plant in Michigan, where the bacteria was found, and the “FDA’s delayed response to this horrific incident.”
DeLauro released a whistleblower complaint last month showing a former employee of Abbot detailed concerns about alleged wrongdoing at the facility.
Abbott said it could restart operations at its Michigan facility within two weeks of getting the green light from the FDA. From there, the company estimates it would take an additional six to eight weeks to get the product into stores.
But the FDA said Friday that Abbott’s plant still carried contamination risks as of March.
“The plant remains closed as the company works to correct findings related to the processes, procedures, and conditions that the FDA observed during its inspection of the facility from January 31 – March 18, 2022, which raised concerns that powdered infant formula produced at this facility prior to the FDA’s inspection carry a risk of contamination,” an FDA official said.
Abbott says they are working to address the FDA’s issues so they can resume operations.
“We are confident that we can continue to produce safe, high-quality infant formula at all of our facilities as we have been doing for millions of babies around the world for decades,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty, Mariam Khan, Molly Nagle and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
Outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki delivered an emotional farewell from the briefing room podium Friday afternoon — expressing thanks to President Joe Biden, her administration colleagues and even the White House press corps.
Looking back at the last 15 months and 244 briefings, Psaki said she was “very nervous” when she first visited the Bidens in Delaware in November 2020, saying the majority of that conversation was about “the importance of returning integrity, respect, and civility to the White House.”
After bringing back the daily press briefings that grown heated and then mostly disappeared under the Trump administration, Psaki appeared to relish good-natured sparring with reporters while consistently defending Biden administration policy, making her a favorite target of Fox News hosts and even former President Donald Trump.
“The small sliver of – of my job here in engaging with all of you, that doesn’t – not mean that we have let our Irish side show, mine and the president’s as well, from time to time. I recognize that. But on my best days, and as I look back, and when I look back, I hope I followed the example of integrity and grace that they have set for all of us, and do set for all of us every day.”
Thanking some of the senior administration officials, as well as her press shop, Psaki said she was “very grateful to them,” and countered those she said label Washington as “rotten” and “corrupt.”
“People always ask me, and I’m sure you guys get asked this too, about whether Washington is rotten,” she said to the reporters. “You know, whether everybody is corrupt here and you know nothing good happens, and we all just argue with each other. And I, having done this job, believe the absolute opposite is true, because I have worked with and engaged with all of these incredible people across the administration and this amazing team, many of whom are here that I get to work with every day.”
NEW: Press sec. Jen Psaki delivers emotional remarks to reporters at final White House press briefing.
“At times we have disagreed. That is democracy in action. That is it working. Without accountability, without debate, government is not as strong.” https://t.co/hi29tu0lxMpic.twitter.com/3nTASwbaMC
Psaki is being succeeded by her deputy, Karine Jean-Pierre, who now becomes the first Black and openly gay woman to hold the job.
She has often said she regrets once getting a stern letter of reprimand from a government ethics watchdog for politicking from the podium.
Wrapping up her statement, Psaki turned to the White House reporters she said “challenged” and “pushed me” throughout her time in the high-pressure role.
“You have debated me. And at times we have disagreed. That is democracy in action. That is it working,” she said. “Without accountability, without debate, government is not as strong. And you all play an incredibly pivotal role, thank you for what you do. Thank you for making me better. And most importantly, thank you for the work every day you do to make this country stronger.”
Psaki, who has two young children and came down twice with COVID, has not confirmed reports she will be joining MSNBC.
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Department lawyers and attorneys representing a coalition of GOP-led states were in court on Friday to again trade jabs about whether the Biden administration can lift pandemic-based restrictions at the southern border known as the Title 42 order.
Judge Robert R. Summerhays, a Trump appointee, said he plans to issue his decision later — not immediately — on the legal challenge that would block the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 order from ending May 23.
Meanwhile, the temporary restraining order issued by the federal judge to prevent any phase-out of Title 42 will remain in place until he issues that decision and Customs and Border Protection can continue to expel immigrants on Title 42 grounds.
The administration argues that Title 42 is a health care policy meant to deal with the spread of COVID-19, not an immigration control measure, and that it has no choice but to follow the agency’s guidance that the public health order is no longer necessary as of May 23.
At the same time, even many vulnerable border state Democrats warn the administration is making a major mistake, that is has no plan to deal with an expected influx of immigrants and that it will hurt the party politically before the midterm elections.
At the hearing, the GOP coalition argued that the Biden administration failed to consider the impact ending Title 42 would have on the states, pointing to reports coming out of the Department of Homeland Security that they are preparing for further elevated level of undocumented immigrants in the coming weeks.
That could be as many as 18,000 more per day, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The GOP coalition argued their states would be harmed by education and health care costs, new drivers’ licenses and even drug trafficking, going as far as to say that lifting Title 42 would “reduce their ability to provide healthcare to legal residents.”
The evidence of such effects, though, is unconfirmed and untested.
Judge Summerhays at one point questioned the potential increase in criminal justice costs.
“It seems highly speculative … I don’t see how you can make the connection there,” the judge said.
When the federal government’s side picked up on the judge’s skepticism and attempted to run with it to undermine the plaintiff’s case, Summerhays clarified that he was simply “prodding” the state coalition attorneys as he did throughout the hearing.
Undocumented immigrants overall pay roughly $11.74 billion in state and local taxes every year, according to the non-profit, non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That amounts to about 8% of an average immigrant’s income, compared to about 5.4% of those in the top 1%.
Central to the case is whether the government fully considered the potential impact on states and whether the Biden administration acted unlawfully when it did not allow for a months-long notice and comment period prior to the end of Title 42.
The Trump administration initially brought the Title 42 order without such notice and DOJ attorneys argued that required such notice would kneecap the CDC’s authority to act quickly in response to changing emergency situations.
The judge’s order could come any time between now and May 23.
(WASHINGTON) — The ongoing baby formula shortage — with nearly half of products recently unavailable, according to experts — triggered a flurry of responses from Washington this week as the Biden administration and Congress sought to address the public outcry.
“There’s nothing more urgent we’re working on than that right now,” President Joe Biden said Friday from the White House at an event that had been meant to tout public safety funding — reflecting how the lack of formula has quickly overtaken other administration concerns.
Criticism and dismay from parents grew ever sharper as families encountered more empty shelves, with an estimated 43% of formula products out of stock as of Sunday at stores across the U.S., according to tracking firm Datasembly.
The shortage — compounded by broader, coronavirus-related supply chain issues — was worsened by a recall from Abbott, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of baby formula products.
The company pulled three of its popular brands in February and closed its plant in Sturgis, Michigan, in the wake of bacterial infections linked to two infants who died after consuming Abbott formula and a Food and Drug Administration inspection that documented problems at Abbott’s Michigan facility, including the same bacteria.
(Abbott maintains there is no evidence its products were connected to the babies’ deaths, though it has acknowledged the infractions the FDA found elsewhere at the plant.)
A complaint against Abbott was first filed in September, but the FDA didn’t investigate the plant until approximately four months later.
Now, the Biden administration is facing questions from Republicans and others about how long problems may persist and what solutions are available to the public — even as the government stresses its watchdog role in investigating Abbott.
“This is not a Third World country,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and a new mother, said at a Thursday GOP news conference. “This should never happen in the United States.”
Responding to such criticism, Biden insisted Friday that “if we had been better mind readers, we could’ve [acted more quickly], but we moved as quickly as the problem became apparent to us. We have to move with caution as well, and speed.”
The White House has not provided a timeline for when shelves will be restocked, though press secretary Jen Psaki maintained Thursday that the government has been working “for months” on this issue as they roll out new steps aimed at alleviating the problem.
Among the fixes, as Psaki and Biden then reiterated on Friday, was supporting the ability of parents to use benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as WIC) to buy formula. Abbott has agreed to provide rebates through August for WIC users to buy other products.
The administration is also calling on federal and state officials to crack down on reports of potential price gouging.
The FDA will announce next week ways that the U.S. can import more products from abroad. It remains unclear how the imports would work given the FDA’s requirements on formula packaging and vitamin content, though Commissioner Robert Califf tweeted Friday that the agency will ensure imported products meet “certain safety, quality and labeling standards.”
Biden said Friday he believed the timeline for imports would be a “matter of weeks or less.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has also unveiled a new website where parents and caregivers can go to obtain information on where to find formula and other resources.
Psaki said Thursday the White House was considering “every option,” including invoking the Defense Production Act, which gives the president substantial power over private industry. But on Friday, Psaki noted that the administration views the DPA as a potential “long-term” solution. “Our focus primarily is twofold: One is increasing supply, and the other is making it readily available,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill is launching investigations into the nationwide shortage. The House Oversight Committee is demanding records from four major manufacturers.
“We have asked for a briefing by the end of the month, and we’ve asked three basic questions: Do they have the supply to meet the demand? Is there a supply chain problem that can be corrected? And what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told ABC News.
A group of 32 Senate Democrats on Friday wrote a letter to urging the Infant Nutrition Council of America — an association of formula manufacturers — to take “immediate action” to address the shortage, though they didn’t offer any specific steps the group can or should implement.
“We are calling on you and your member companies to take immediate action and ensure that infant formula manufacturers are making every effort to mitigate this dangerous shortage and get children the nourishment they need,” the lawmakers wrote.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House of Representatives intends to take legislative action as soon as next week, voting on a bill that would grant emergency authority to the WIC program to address supply disruptions and recalls by relaxing certain regulations.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the shortage in his own floor speech on Thursday, calling it “outrageous and unacceptable”.
“It seems that while President Biden’s administration and the FDA … have been asleep at the switch in terms of getting production back online as fast as possible,” he argued.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney penned his own letter to both the FDA and United States Department of Agriculture earlier this week urging the agencies to “protect infant health by ensuring they have access to safe formula, and when crises arise, to initiate contingency plans to mitigate shortages that risk the lives of infants across the nation.”
House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., announced Wednesday her panel would examine the Abbott plant in Michigan, where the bacteria was found, and the “FDA’s delayed response to this horrific incident.”
DeLauro released a whistleblower complaint last month showing a former employee of Abbot detailed concerns about alleged wrongdoing at the facility.
Abbott said it could restart operations at its Michigan facility within two weeks of getting the green light from the FDA. From there, the company estimates it would take an additional six to eight weeks to get the product into stores.
But the FDA said Friday that Abbott’s plant still carried contamination risks as of March.
“The plant remains closed as the company works to correct findings related to the processes, procedures, and conditions that the FDA observed during its inspection of the facility from January 31 – March 18, 2022, which raised concerns that powdered infant formula produced at this facility prior to the FDA’s inspection carry a risk of contamination,” an FDA official said.
Abbott says they are working to address the FDA’s issues so they can resume operations.
“We are confident that we can continue to produce safe, high-quality infant formula at all of our facilities as we have been doing for millions of babies around the world for decades,” the company said in a statement.
(WASHINGTON) — House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol facing the Supreme Court on Friday, calling on the justices to defend access to abortion on the eve of abortion rights protests in Washington and nationwide.
It comes after the unprecedented leak last week of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade followed by Senate Democrats’ failure to codify abortion rights into federal law on Wednesday.
“Americans are marching and making their voices heard,” Pelosi said. “Public sentiment is everything. We will never stop fighting for patients and their health care.”
Pelosi said Republicans around the country have already mobilized a “dangerous” and “extreme” agenda to criminalize all forms of reproductive healthcare — referring to the conservative push for a nationwide abortion ban — even though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he would not try to break a Democratic filibuster to block a ban should Republicans take control of Congress.
She warned, because Roe is based on a constitutional right to privacy, that other similar rights such as same-sex marriage and contraception would be stripped from Americans if Roe case is overturned.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, commended her colleagues for passing her House bill in September that would provide a national right to abortion, calling it the “most supportive” reproductive rights bill in the history of Congress.
Chu called out West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin who voted with anti-abortion Republicans to block the Senate bill, arguing it went “too far.”
“Even though Senator Manchin did not join, all of the other 49 Senate Democrats did. I also want to talk about that to so called pro-choice Republicans who voted against whip-up because they said our bill goes too far. Well, that’s not true. It does exactly what we need it to do — uphold Roe versus Wade.”
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., co-chair of the congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said Republican lawmakers are “out of step” with Americans’ views because a majority of them support abortion access and personal liberty to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive health care.
“This is personal for many of us,” said Lee. “It’s personal for me, because I know firsthand what being denied access to legal abortion looks like. I have personally experienced the fear the stigma, the trauma, the despair, of being denied the care that you need. I know what it’s like to have your medical decisions criminalized to be forced to travel for the care that you need and to see your future hang on the decisions of politicians rather than doctors.”
Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., called on Americans to mobilize for the approaching midterms in November.
“I am proud to stand with my Democratic colleagues and with our speaker,” said Maloney. “We are united in our resolve to defend abortion rights in this country with our like minded men and women. And it’s time to take America forward again.”
(WASHINGTON) — Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, then-top Department of Homeland Security official Alejandro Mayorkas saw a picture of a Federal Emergency Management Agency analysis as part of the investigation — and realized the equipment used, to illustrate what happened on the day of bombing and lay out a plethora of evidence and leads, had been purchased through a grant program run by his department.
Years later, a repeat: After a shooting on the New York City subway last month injured 10 people, Mayorkas told ABC News in an interview this week, authorities relied on equipment purchased with FEMA funds to capture “critical evidence.”
“We impact people’s lives by making those lives safer,” said Mayorkas, now the secretary of DHS.
The DHS on Friday announced nearly $1.6 billion as part of the FEMA preparedness grant program for the 2022 fiscal year, available to cities from coast to coast, with a specific focus on terrorism and preventing disasters.
The newly announced awards are the latest in what DHS officials called significant funding funneled to the local level. Since FEMA’s preparedness grant program began in 2002, the department has given localities more than $54 billion.
State and local governments, which can apply annually, can be funded by eight grant programs that range from an increase in law enforcement equipment to overtime for local officers on the southern border.
The grant recipients for the largest amount of money, the Urban Area Security Initiative, have to address six priority areas of cybersecurity, soft target and crowded places, information and intelligence sharing, domestic violent extremism, community preparedness and resilience and election security, according to DHS.
The categories of community preparedness and resilience and election security are new for 2022, Mayorkas told ABC News.
DHS’ continued focus on cybersecurity and domestic extremism comes amid the department’s concerns of possible Russian cyberattacks as retaliation to the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine and what Mayorkas himself has called one of the “greatest” threats to the country: homegrown extremists.
As part of the latest wave of grants, which will be disbursed throughout the 2022 fiscal year, DHS will identify 36 high-threat, high-density cities, states and localities that will receive some of the $615 million funds allocated through the program to focus on the six priority areas.
These areas are selected in a nonpartisan way, Mayorkas stressed.
“This is a risk-based program,” he said.
The secretary told ABC News that officials have increased the percentage of funds — from 25% to 30% — which must be dedicated to law enforcement’s terrorism prevention. Mayorkas cited their “role in preventing terrorist acts on the front lines in each of our communities across the country.”
In years past, according to public filings, the grants have been used to fund local narcotics task forces, training for intelligence analysts and more.
Mayorkas says the program has improved because they’ve engaged with local stakeholders on the flexibility of how they spend their grant money.
Along the southern border — where federal officials have been dealing with historically high levels of migration — the department is allocating $90 million for local communities through their Operation Stonegarden grant.
Operation Stonegarden pays for border officer overtime, Mayorkas said, as well as technology enhancements for local communities, such as phones and tablets to allow for better communication, according to previous filings.
Regarding the southern border, the secretary told ABC News that the federal government has been planning since September for the end of Title 42, the Trump-era policy continued by the Biden administration which expels migrants before they can seek asylum under the auspices of a public heath emergency.
President Joe Biden’s White House is seeking to now roll back the use of Title 42 regarding immigrants — which drew intense criticism from advocates under both Trump and Biden — but that plan is being challenged in court, with the latest hearing scheduled in Louisiana on Friday.
Conservatives have continually voiced concerns about how the government will handle high levels of immigration at the same time that the government’s treatment of these migrants, dating beyond the Biden administration, has also drawn scrutiny.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has opened a grand jury investigation related to former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, following the revelation in February that he had brought boxes of documents home to his Mar-a-Lago estate when he left the White House.
At least one subpoena has been issued to the National Archives, and interview requests have been made to some former aides who were with Trump during his last days in office, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The news was first reported by the New York Times.
“President Trump consistently handled all documents in accordance with applicable law and regulations,” a spokesperson for Trump said in a statement following news of the probe. “Belated attempts to second-guess that clear fact are politically motivated and misguided.”
Officials with the Department of Justice declined to comment on the matter.
National Archives officials had previously confirmed in a letter to the House Oversight Committee that some of the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago were marked “classified,” and said they had referred the matter to the Department of Justice.
