Politics

(WASHINGTON) — With the last batches of ballots still being tallied in Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary, Donald Trump weighed in last week to insist his chosen candidate go ahead and “declare victory” even though the counting wasn’t complete.

The former president has a long history of insisting elections are fraudulent when he’s expecting he won’t get the outcome he wants. But historically, election officials around the country from both parties have complied with the law to count up and certify the vote regardless of their politics.

That could change come November: Trump is backing a slate of candidates in battleground states (including Pennsylvania) who have said they support his mistrust in elections, despite any evidence of widespread fraud. If voted into office, these officials would have the power to run elections — or even try to reject or reverse the results — as Trump has repeatedly urged them to do.

“We have to be a lot sharper next time when it comes to counting the vote,” Trump said in a video message earlier this year. “There’s a famous statement: Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate. And we can’t let that ever, ever happen again,” Trump said, referring to a quote from Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin.

The next big test of Trump’s influence is Tuesday in Georgia, where he’s backed election-denier candidates down the ballot to challenge incumbents who wouldn’t do as he demanded in 2020 and overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. Democrats, and many Republicans, predict based on the candidates’ past statements that if they are chosen to represent the GOP and go on to win in the general election, they would interfere with future contests, especially under Trump’s pressure in 2024.

“Just a few years ago, this would have been considered a fringe and extreme view,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said of the rising tide of candidates questioning elections. “Now it’s been mainstreamed and very much normalized, and that’s a big, big problem.”

“It’s a potential emergency,” Simon added, “particularly going into a presidential election.”

The secretary of state is usually tasked with overseeing and certifying their local elections. They establish Election Day procedures and play a large role in validating the results, so any refusal to do so — while likely to face legal hurdles — could be a vital step in trying to overturn the ballots.

This year, the office is up for grabs in 28 states, including Minnesota, where Simon is facing a Republican who continues to cast doubt on the 2020 results. Simon said that voters in Minnesota and across the country should be able to trust their elected officials — unless there’s evidence of wrongdoing — to certify the vote of the people, no matter if the outcome is on their side.

“That’s what secretaries of state of both parties, to be fair, have done by and large over the last few years,” Simon told ABC News. “But this new crop of candidates is really alarming because they seem not to have those same values. They seem to be driven by an outcome.”

Some of these candidates have suggested they’ll cease absentee and mail-in balloting and continue audits of the 2020 election, among other actions at the position’s disposal that risk eroding voters’ confidence. Trump and his allies have not provided any proof of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and more than 40 legal challenges across the country failed.

Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican critic of Trump and co-chair of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan advocacy group tracking the uptick in election deniers running for office, warned that if Trump were to get his loyalists in place for 2024, it would presumably be much easier to ensure a loss wouldn’t happen again.

“People tend to focus just on the federal races and federal elections but forget that they’re run by the states. And that’s why these elections are so important,” Whitman told ABC News, describing the thinking behind their strategy: “We change the laws, so we can change the referee, so we can change the outcomes.”

Of the 111 candidates Trump endorsed in the 2022 midterms, more than 70% say they believe the 2020 election was fraudulent, according to FiveThirtyEight research. And as of this month, at least 23 election deniers were running for secretary of state in 18 states, according to the States United Action.

Trump has officially endorsed three secretaries of state candidates in GOP primary races. Each of those contenders argues it’s more important to continue pursuing the possible truth of his debunked claims about 2020, despite the damage to democratic norms and erosion of voter confidence that experts say is well underway.

Here’s a brief look at election-denying candidates in six key states where Trump disputed the results in 2020.

Pennsylvania

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, whom Whitman called a “prime election denier,” earned Trump’s endorsement and handily won the GOP gubernatorial primary. The Pennsylvania governor’s office has powerful influence on future elections.

Mastriano chartered buses to the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, where Trump spoke; was seen at the U.S. Capitol that day (but said he didn’t go inside); and he had been involved in a White House meeting with Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers in December 2020, as Trump worked to overturn the results in the state and in other presidential battlegrounds.

While Mastriano is not running for secretary of state, Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states, like Florida and Texas, where the governor appoints the office who serves as the chief elections officer. Democrats fear that Mastriano — who has been critical of mail-in ballots and called for an investigation of how Pennsylvania conducted the 2020 election, insisting he wanted to “restore faith in the integrity of our system” — could appoint a secretary of state beholden to Trump. Mastriano has avoided specifying how he would carry out that duty as governor.

Even Republicans are concerned with Mastriano’s win, as indicated by GOP candidates dropping out in the final stretch of the primary race to consolidate votes around the Republican candidate who ultimately fell second to Mastriano.

Georgia

The former president backed a slate of candidates ahead of Tuesday’s primary, all promoting forms of election denialism in their platforms.

If Herschel Walker and Rep. Jody Hice were to win a Senate seat and the secretary of state’s office, respectively, they could theoretically try to overturn future election results — by refusing to certify the vote and send it to Washington — as Trump had pushed Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, to do in 2020.

In an infamous January 2021 phone call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” nearly 12,000 votes to overtake Biden.

Hice, who is challenging Raffensperger, objected to Georgia’s electoral votes being counted for Biden and has said he’d decertify Biden’s 2020 win — a move that election experts say is not possible.

While Georgia has already undergone three separate audits which all confirmed Biden’s victory, Hice has said he would appoint a special counsel to investigate.

Arizona

In Arizona, Trump endorsed Mark Finchem, a far-right lawmaker in the state’s House of Representatives who attended the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.

Like Mastriano, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued Finchem a subpoena for “information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election.” (Also like Mastriano, Finchem was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 but said he wasn’t inside.)

Trump praised Finchem for an “incredibly powerful stance” on election integrity, well in advance of the GOP primary on Aug. 2. Finchem is sponsoring a bill that would treat Arizonians’ ballots as public records and make them searchable online, which experts warn could be exploited.

“These folks are supported by Trump, if only for the sole reason that they have said that they would seek ways — or have demonstrated already to seek ways — to undermine the election or actually return the election results,” Semedrian Smith, deputy director at the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, told ABC News. “It’s absolutely terrifying to imagine that folks who already claim now that they are willing to overturn the election results, it’s hard to imagine that they’re not absolutely going to do that down the road.”

Nevada

Jim Marchant, a former member of the Nevada Assembly running in the Republican primary for secretary of state on June 14, has said he would not have certified Biden’s victory had he been in the office in 2020.

Like Mastriano and Finchem, he was involved with a fraudulent election document attempting to award Nevada’s six electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden, which was submitted to Congress and the National Archives. Marchant doesn’t have Trump’s endorsement but has said Trump allies encouraged him to run.

Marchant’s website states that his “number one priority will be to overhaul the fraudulent election system.” He has said he supports changes to state law to allow the legislature to override the secretary of state’s certification of an election.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is one of nine states with a board or commission in charge of election oversight instead of just the secretary of state, but conservative leaders there are pushing to dismantle the bipartisan election commission.

State Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, the Republican front-runner for secretary of state, said she supports taking power away from the panel, which she has blasted as “broken,” and handing it over to the office she is seeking.

Nearly a dozen other states, meanwhile, have also attempted to diminish secretaries of states’ authority over elections or shifted aspects of administration to highly partisan bodies in the wake of the 2020 election.

In a sign of the fractured times, Wisconsin’s state GOP on Saturday opted not to endorse any candidates for statewide office ahead of the primary on Aug. 9.

Michigan

Trump, in Michigan, has backed Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who won her party’s nomination at a convention last month. She gained prominence after claiming, without evidence, that she’d witnessed irregularities in processing mail-in ballots while working as an election observer in Detroit in 2020.

Karamo will face Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat and former law school dean seeking her second term, whom Trump has attacked as “rogue.”

Benson faced an onslaught of criticism in the wake of the 2020 election and told NBC News last week, for the first time publicly, that Trump said in a White House meeting she should be arrested for treason and executed. A Trump spokesperson said Benson was lying, but Benson said the experience showed her “there was no bottom to how far he [Trump] and his supporters were willing to stoop to overturn or discredit a legitimate election.”

Simon, a neighboring Democratic secretary of state, told ABC News that all voters, including Trump supporters, should be concerned with the election-denier trend.

“No matter what issue you care about the most, you’re not going to get very far unless you have free and fair elections,” Simon said. “You want people running them who are going to be fair.”

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(NEW YORK) — The first batch of imported baby formula under “Operation Fly Formula” arrived in the United States on Sunday as the Biden administration tries to alleviate the nationwide baby formula shortage.

Military aircraft transported the shipment of three formula brands, the equivalent of up to half a million 8-ounce bottles, from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Indiana. The shipment included Nestlé Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior as well as Gerber Good Start Extensive HA, all of which are hypoallergenic formulas for children with cow’s milk protein allergies.

The Department of Agriculture said Saturday that “additional flights will be announced in the coming days.”

“Typically, the process to transport this product from Europe to U.S. would take two weeks. Thanks to Operation Fly Formula, we cut that down to approximately three days,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

This shipment is the first of multiple planes of imported formula expected to arrive in the U.S. in the coming weeks.

“Folks, I’m excited to tell you that the first flight from Operation Fly Formula is loaded up with more than 70,000 pounds of infant formula and about to land in Indiana. Our team is working around the clock to get safe formula to everyone who needs it,” President Joe Biden tweeted Sunday ahead of the plane’s arrival.

Biden also signed legislation aimed at improving access to baby formula for low-income families last week.

The Access to Baby Formula Act of 2022 ensures families can use benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — also known as WIC — to buy formula products outside what is normally designated for the program during times of crisis.

The program purchases about half of all infant formula supply in the U.S., with some 1.2 million infants receiving formula through WIC.

Typically, each state relies on a contract with a single manufacturer to supply products for WIC participants. But a recall from Abbott, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers, highlighted flaws within the federal nutrition program.

“When we became aware of all of this we came together very quickly to do what we could,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said in remarks from the floor after the legislation passed, though she said she wished it would’ve never gotten to this point for families.

“The reality is that half of the baby formula in this country goes to moms and babies that are on a very important program that is called the Women, Infants, and Children’s program,” Stabenow continued. “We know that we’ve got to do anything humanly possible to take away any barrier available for them to get this important food for children.”

Now, the United States Department of Agriculture will have authority to amend WIC program rules during a shortage, recall or other emergencies and allow families to buy whatever products are available in the store.

The law also requires formula manufacturers that provide products for WIC participants to have a contingency plan for responding to shortages or recalls in the future.

Biden signed the baby formula bill into law during his five-day trip to Asia, according to the White House. He also signed a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine as Russia’s invasion stretches into its fourth month.

The Access to Baby Formula Act of 2022 had overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, passing the House in a 414-to-9 vote and the Senate via unanimous consent.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrated the bipartisan moment in the chamber.

“It’s rare that we have unanimity in the Senate on important measures, and I wish we had more, but this is one of these important issues and I’m glad we’re acting with one voice,” said Schumer, calling the shortage “stuff of nightmares” for parents.

For the week ending May 15, nearly 45% of products in the U.S. were unavailable, according to the data tracking firm Datasembly, up slightly from the 43% out-of-stock rate reported the week ending May 8.

The House also tried to give $28 million in emergency assistance to the Food and Drug Administration to enhance safety inspections and prevent fraudulent products from getting into stores. But the bill failed to move forward in the Senate, as Republicans on Capitol Hill remain opposed to giving the agency more funds.

FDA chief Robert Califf was grilled by lawmakers this week on the agency’s response to the formula shortage. He said it will the situation is “gradually” getting better, but that it “will be a few weeks before we’re back to normal.”

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The Biden administration is planning for a likely wave of COVID-19 infections this fall and winter by ensuring both a “new generation” of vaccines and access to treatment and testing, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said on Sunday — but he stressed that plan depended on congressional funding.

“We have the resources,” Jha told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “One of the reasons I’ve been talking a lot about the need for Congress to step up and fund this effort is if they don’t, Martha, we will go into the fall and winter without that next generation of vaccines, without treatments and diagnostics. That’s going to make it much, much harder for us to take care of and protect Americans.”

Jha has been urging lawmakers to approve President Joe Biden’s request for an additional $22.5 billion in COVID funding, warning that the nation has spent much of the money dedicated to pandemic testing and treatments, including what was in the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law last year. That request, however, remains stalled in Congress amid GOP opposition.

Meanwhile the U.S. is experiencing another COVID wave, with cases rising in nearly every state. Official infection numbers are up to more than 100,000 per day and COVID-related seven-day average hospitalizations rose by around 24% from the prior week, according to the latest CDC data. Experts say this surge is due in part to the virus’ continued variants and subvariants, some of which are increasingly contagious. Vaccination, the White House says, remains a key strategy at preventing severe illness death and lessening the spread.

“What we know is that this virus is evolving very quickly and every iteration of it has more and more immune escape [which] makes it harder for this virus to be contained unless we continue vaccinating people and keeping people up-to-date,” Jha said on “This Week.”

With the recent spikes in COVID cases and hospitalization numbers, Jha said vaccination or boosters were crucial and that he felt “very strongly” Americans should wear masks indoors again.

“When you’re in an indoor space, you should be wearing a mask,” he said. “First and foremost, my advice is if you have not gotten vaccinated in the last five months, if you have not gotten boosted, you need to go out to do that now.”

Raddatz pressed Jha on whether the administration had considered a new public health strategy considering their consistent advice had not broken through to all quarters of the public.

But, Raddatz asked, had the administration been considering another public health strategy considering their consistent advice (vaccines, masking) had not broken through to all quarters of the public?

“You said month after month after month, put your masks on, get a vaccine, get a booster, but the numbers aren’t really moving. So what kind of discussions do you have about another plan?” Raddatz said.

“We want to help people understand that we are in a different moment than we were two years ago, right? We are at a point where lots of people are vaccinated and boosted, where we do have widespread therapies available,” Jha said.

“And so the key discussion now is: How do we help Americans through this moment? And, this is really important, Martha, how do we prepare for future variants, how do we prepare for the evolution of this virus, and how do we make sure we have the resources to do it so we can protect Americans as this virus continues to evolve?”

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week backing booster eligibility for children 5 to 11 at least five months after their initial shots, Raddatz pressed Jha on when kids not yet eligible may be able to get their first shots.

“But what about 5 and under? How soon might we see that?” Raddatz asked.

“What I know is that Moderna has completed its application, those data are being looked at very closely right now by FDA [Food and Drug Administration] experts. And my expectation is that as soon as that analysis is done, probably within the next few weeks, we’re going to get that expert outside committee,” Jha said, referring to an FDA advisory committee. “And then after that, FDA’s going to make a decision.”

“My hope is that it’s going to be coming in the next few weeks,” he said.

Jha also talked about another infection that has gained increasing attention: monkeypox. Biden recently said it was “something that everybody should be concerned about.”

Jha, however, cautioned that there were significant differences between the COVID pandemic and the latest monkeypox cases, which have two confirmed infections so far in the U.S.– in Massachusetts and New York.

The U.S. is equipped with vaccines against it, Jha noted. And monkeypox has long been studied around the world.

“I would not be surprised, Martha, if we see a few more cases in the upcoming days. And I think the president’s right: Anytime we have an infectious disease outbreak like this we should all be paying attention,” he said. “But I feel like this is a virus we understand. We have vaccines against it, we have treatments against it, and it spreads very differently than SARS-CoV-2. It’s not as contagious as COVID.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden signed legislation Saturday aimed at protecting low-income families as the United States grapples with a nationwide baby formula shortage.

The Access to Baby Formula Act of 2022 ensures families can use benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — also known as WIC — to buy formula products outside what is normally designated for the program during times of crisis.

The program purchases about half of all infant formula supply in the U.S., with some 1.2 million infants receiving formula through WIC.

Typically, each state relies on a contract with a single manufacturer to supply products for WIC participants. But a recall from Abbott, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers, highlighted flaws within the federal nutrition program.

“When we became aware of all of this we came together very quickly to do what we could,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said in remarks from the floor after the legislation passed, though she said she wished it would’ve never gotten to this point for families.

“The reality is that half of the baby formula in this country goes to moms and babies that are on a very important program that is called the Women, Infants, and Children’s program,” Stabenow continued. “We know that we’ve got to do anything humanly possible to take away any barrier available for them to get this important food for children.”

Now, the United States Department of Agriculture will have authority to amend WIC program rules during a shortage, recall or other emergencies and allow families to buy whatever products are available in the store.

The law also requires formula manufacturers that provide products for WIC participants to have a contingency plan for responding to shortages or recalls in the future.

Biden signed the baby formula bill into law during his five-day trip to Asia, according to the White House. He also signed a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine as Russia’s invasion stretches into its fourth month.

The Access to Baby Formula Act of 2022 had overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, passing the House in a 414-to-9 vote and the Senate via unanimous consent.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrated the bipartisan moment in the chamber.

“It’s rare that we have unanimity in the Senate on important measures, and I wish we had more, but this is one of these important issues and I’m glad we’re acting with one voice,” said Schumer, calling the shortage “stuff of nightmares” for parents.

For the week ending May 15, nearly 45% of products in the U.S. were unavailable, according to the data tracking firm Datasembly, up slightly from the 43% out-of-stock rate reported the week ending May 8.

The House also tried to give $28 million in emergency assistance to the Food and Drug Administration to enhance safety inspections and prevent fraudulent products from getting into stores. But the bill failed to move forward in the Senate, as Republicans on Capitol Hill remain opposed to giving the agency more funds.

FDA chief Robert Califf was grilled by lawmakers this week on the agency’s response to the formula shortage. He said it will the situation is “gradually” getting better, but that it “will be a few weeks before we’re back to normal.”

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

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(SEOUL, South Korea) – In his first trip to Asia since taking office, President Joe Biden laid out conditions for meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

“With regard to whether I would meet with the leader of North Korea, that would depend on whether he was sincere and whether he was serious,” Biden told reporters on Saturday as he appeared alongside South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at a press event.

Biden campaigned on taking a tougher stance on the North Korean leader than his predecessor. Former President Donald Trump frequently praised Kim, once saying he had a “great and beautiful” vision for his country. Trump and Kim held three high-profile meetings during his presidency.

Biden said last year he’d only meet with Kim so long as he committed to a discussion about dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Yoon, South Korea’s newly elected president, reaffirmed Saturday that their shared goal is the complete denuclearization of North Korea.

“What I would not do is what has been done in the recent past,” Biden said at the time. “I would not give him all he’s looking for, international recognition as legitimate, and give him what allowed him to move in a direction of appearing to be more serious about what he wasn’t at all serious about.”

Biden said Saturday that the U.S. has offered vaccines to North Korea without any preconditions but has received no reply. Coronavirus appears to be surging in North Korea, with 2.4 million people “sickened with fever” as of Thursday.

“The answer’s yes, we’ve offered vaccines, not only to North Korea, but to China as well,” Biden said. “And we’re prepared to do that immediately. We’ve gotten no response.”

A White House spokesperson said the U.S. has offered to provide the shots through existing programs like COVAX — a global initiative to supply COVID-19 vaccines — as recently as last week.

During the joint news conference in Seoul, Biden and Yoon discussed ramping up U.S. support for South Korea in the face of North Korea’s aggression.

“Today, President Yoon and I committed to strengthening our close engagement and work together to take on challenges of regional security, including addressing the threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by further strengthening our deterrence posture and working towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Biden said.

Both leaders agreed to consider expanding combined military exercises and training on the Korean Peninsula.

Biden began his six-day trip in South Korea on Friday and will end the trip in Tokyo, Japan, where he’ll meet with Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.

The White House said the trip comes at a pivotal moment in Biden’s foreign policy agenda.

“The message we’re trying to send on this trip is a message of an affirmative vision of what the world can look like if the democracies and open societies of the world stand together to shape the rules of the road, to define the security architecture of the region, to reinforce strong, powerful, historic alliances,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this week.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday ordered the Biden administration to continue implementing pandemic-related restrictions at the border that effectively close humanitarian relief options for asylum seekers.

The restrictions were slated to end on Monday.

The restrictions were first implemented under the Trump administration by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which issued an order that derives its authority from a decades-old public health law known as Title 42.

The ruling today grants the GOP-led states’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the Title 42 rollback. The injunction is expected to remain in place until the case concludes, the government fixes its approach or until the government gets a more favorable decision on appeal if one is made.

The decision by Judge Robert R. Summerhays, a Trump appointee, comes as the Biden administration’s homeland security apparatus remains strained by a historic level of unauthorized migration in the southwest.

Immigration authorities arrested and stopped migrants 234,088 times along the southwest border last month, the highest monthly total in the reams of publicly available Customs and Border Protection data. That number includes a 183% increase in the number of inadmissible migrants trying to get through U.S. land ports since March.

During April, DHS says they removed 96,908 migrants under the Title 42 authority and 15,171 migrants under Title 8, which was the primary deportation authority before the pandemic.

It’s unclear what impact the use of Title 42 has on overall migration, despite claims from Republicans in Congress that it works as a successful deterrent.

Suspected unlawful entries at the border have come at a record pace over the past two years that the Title 42 order has been in effect. Meanwhile, the number of repeat border crossing attempts is up nearly fourfold since the first year the Title 42 was implemented.

One explanation behind the increase in repeated unlawful entries is the lack of long-term consequences for those processed and immediately expelled from the U.S. Under normal immigration processing, an order of removal comes with specific restrictions on re-entry and prosecutable consequences for those who try again.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas held meetings with top immigration officials at the border this week as he oversees preparations the department is taking in case the level of migration elevates further. At a press conference to discuss the trip he noted the Justice Department will decide whether to appeal the Louisiana court’s decision.

Mayorkas this week outlined the Department’s plan for the border transition away from Title 42 which involves surging homeland security resources, improving processing capacity and efficiency, ramping up consequences for increased border crossings, cracking down harder on transnational criminal smuggling networks and strengthening alliances across Central and South America.

“We have a multi-pronged approach to a very dynamic situation,” Mayorkas said. “We are addressing it across the Department of Homeland Security, across the federal government with our state and local partners, and with our partners and allies south of our border.”

Mayorkas said authorities will be increasing criminal prosecutions along the southwest border to apply the sort of consequences that Title 42 does not allow, including multi-year bans on re-entry for unauthorized migrants.

ABC News’ Luke Barr contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. officials are still working out details for the first flight to import baby formula, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday, as parents continue to struggle to find supply amid the nationwide shortage.

The White House announced “Operation Fly Formula” on Thursday as an effort to transport baby formula from abroad that meets U.S. health and safety standards. The first shipment — said to be the equivalent of up to 1.5 million 8-ounce bottles — will come from Nestlé S.A. in Zurich, Switzerland and arrive in Plainfield, Indiana.

“I don’t have a specific update for you in terms of exactly what carrier it’s going to be and exactly what time and date but obviously this isn’t classified information and as soon as we have it properly sourced and all the details worked out, we’ll get that to you,” Kirby said during a press briefing.

Kirby added he doesn’t think it’s “going to be very long” before the flight is actually in the air. “We’re talking days at most,” he said.

The mission will likely use chartered commercial aircraft arranged by U.S. Transportation Command, but military “gray tail” planes could also be used if it is deemed to be the most efficient solution.

Nestlé told ABC News the first shipment will include 132 pallets of Nestlé Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior, as well as 114 pallets of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA — all of which are hypoallergenic formulas for children with cow’s milk protein allergies, one of the most common food allergies in babies.

The administration has been under intense scrutiny for its response to the crisis, which had been building for months.

In another effort to diffuse the situation, President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act to prioritize ingredients needed for formula production. The 1950 law — first used to build up arms supplies following North Korea’s invasion of South Korea — compels suppliers to provide needed raw materials to formula manufacturers ahead of other customers ordering those goods.

But administration officials on Thursday struggled to say exactly how the Defense Production Act will help in this scenario, sidestepping questions on what raw ingredients formula companies need that they’ve said they’re not able to get.

The out-of-stock percentages have worsened for formula products, according to the data racking firm Datasembly. For the week ending May 15, nearly 45% of products were unavailable in stores across the U.S.

Coronavirus-related supply chain issues plagued the industry but a recall and plant closure from Abbott — one of the nation’s top manufacturers — exacerbated the shortage.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf was grilled by lawmakers during a hearing Thursday on the agency’s handling of Abbott. Inspection reports and a whistleblower document suggest the FDA became aware of potential problems at the Abbott plant last fall.

Califf told lawmakers the Abbott plant is on track to reopen within two weeks. Once the facility is reopened, the company has said it would take an additional six to eight weeks before product is back on the shelves.

“We know many parents and caregivers are feeling frustrated,” Califf said. “This crisis has shown us the impact of having a single manufacturer cease production for a brief period, and unless we strengthen the resilience of our supply chain, we could be one natural disaster or quality mishap or cyber attack from being here again.”

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday announced the Justice Department is taking action to combat hate crimes through the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, mentioning how last weekend’s mass shooting in Buffalo is being investigated as such a crime.

DOJ is investigating whether the shooter who gunned down 10 Black people last Saturday at a Buffalo supermarket targeted the victims because of their race.

Garland told an audience that included Black and Asian community leaders that “an entire community was terrorized.”

“Last weekend’s attack was a painful reminder of the singular impact that hate crimes have not only on individuals but on entire communities,” he said. “They bring immediate devastation. They inflict lasting fear,” he continued.

“We are employing every resource we have to ensure accountability for this terrible attack, to ensure justice for grieving families and provide support for the community,” he said.

Garland pledged to use “every available tool” to investigate hate crimes overall, saying they are “evolving” and that federal prosecutors must evolve strategies to combat them.

DOJ is required to do so by congressional mandate in the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.

“No one in America should fear violence because of who they are,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “This department will not tolerate any form of terrorism, hate based violence or unlawful discrimination.”

DOJ says they are partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services to lay out steps “law enforcement, government officials, community based organizations and others can take to raise awareness of increased hate crimes and incidents, and to use this increased awareness as a tool for prevention and response,” according to a Justice Department official who briefed reporters on Thursday.

One example, the DOJ official said, was addressing the need for language and cultural competency when engaging with communities affected by hate crimes

Garland also announced grant solicitations “including to programs established under the new Hire No Hate Act to support states to create state run hate crime reporting hotline and to support increased law enforcement reporting to the National Incident based Reporting System.”

On the same day as Garland’s announcement, leaders from the NAACP were set to meet with him, and they released a two-page plan to stop another mass shooting.

“We’re focused on preventing the next attack. We need to act. Democracy and white supremacy cannot coexist and will never coexist,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “It’s one or the other. We’re fighting for democracy.”

An NAACP source told ABC News the “spread of white supremacy across social media platforms” would be a main topic of discussion.

ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.

Buffalo Response Plan by ABC News Politics

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(NEW YORK) — New York’s political scene — upended this week by a newly drawn congressional map — got even more interesting Friday with an announcement from former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“Today I’m declaring my candidacy for Congress in the 10th Congressional District of New York,” de Blasio said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

The new district will span from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn, including de Blasio’s neighborhood of Park Slope, if the map is approved as expected by a state judge on Friday.

“The poll shows people are hurting,” de Blasio told Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough. “They need help, they need help fast, and they need leaders who could actually get them help now and know how to do it.”

De Blasio’s run for a House seat comes after two terms as mayor and a failed presidential bid in 2020. He also considered a run for governor earlier this year but ultimately decided not to challenge sitting Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Instead, he said at the time would devote “every fiber” of himself to fight inequality in New York.

He tweeted Friday morning that “the way to save democracy is be part of it.”

At least one other Democrat will be competing against de Blasio for the nomination. State Sen. Brad Hoylman told THE CITY this week he’ll be campaigning in the new 10th District barring any more changes from the court.

But more are reportedly considering jumping into the race. Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou’s team said this week she’s been approached by community leaders to run in the new district, and that she’s “seriously considering” it.

New York’s current 10th Congressional District is represented by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler. But thanks to the new map, Nadler is running in a new district against House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney.

The new map also pits Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, against first-term progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the situation “chaos” on Thursday, while Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said the map would “make Jim Crow blush” since it splintered several historically Black neighborhoods.

The new districts were unveiled earlier this week by a court-appointed expert after the New York Court of Appeals in April charged the legislature of improperly gerrymandering the map they originally proposed.

New Yorkers also now have to wait until August to vote in the primary elections for Congress, rather than picking their party’s nominees in June, because of the redistricting process.

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(NEW YORK) — Democrats began the year hopeful that congressional redistricting in New York would favor the party – and insulate their slim House majority from a tumultuous midterm election cycle.

But a new map expected to be approved Friday has left the state’s Democrats scrambling, reshaping the political landscape in the diverse districts in the New York City area, prompting accusations of racism and disenfranchisement and straining relationships in the influential delegation.

“Chaos,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Thursday when asked about the state of affairs.

Two powerful committee leaders are set to face off in a new Manhattan seat. The chairman of the party’s campaign committee tasked with defending the majority said he would run in a neighboring district, angering members across the ideological spectrum and prompting accusations of racism.

And a potential successor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was drawn out of his Brooklyn district in the new map, which also splintered several historically Black neighborhoods.

“It would make Jim Crow blush,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Thursday.

In April, the New York Court of Appeals voided proposed state Senate and congressional maps, charging that Democrats in Albany improperly gerrymandered their proposals after an independent commission failed to strike a deal on new maps.

That led to the appointment of a special master by a court in upstate New York, who unveiled the revised maps earlier this week that threw the delegation into disarray.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who lives on Manhattan’s liberal Upper West Side, will compete in a new district against House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has represented the borough’s East Side.

For decades, the two lawmakers have worked together on major issues facing the city – including health benefits for Sep. 11 first responders.

“What he did was atrocious,” Nadler said of the new map proposed by Jonathan Cervas, the court-appointed official. “We’ll see what happens.”

“A majority of the communities in the newly redrawn NY-12 are ones I have represented for years and to which I have deep ties,” Maloney said in a statement.

Jeffries, the No. 4 member of House Democratic leadership, was thrown into a new district with Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., another veteran member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

On Wednesday he released a digital ad bashing the proposal that invoked Rep. Shirley Chisholm, who represented the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Congress for nearly a dozen years.

The new map would force four of the state’s seven Black House members into two districts, House Democrats’ campaign committee pointed out in a letter submitted to the court and a group of impacted New York voters.

“Black members of New York’s congressional delegation have built diverse coalitions of support; they represent communities of Black, Brown, and White voters. The Proposed Map threatens to undo this significant progress,” they wrote.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and represents the state’s 18th congressional district, told reporters in Philadelphia in March that the party “came out of redistricting with a better map than the one through which we currently hold the majority.”

After the latest map was released, he announced plans to run in the 17th district, which includes his home in Putnam County but is mostly comprised of communities represented by freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.

“I’m the only sitting member who lives in the district, which is now numbered NY-17, which remains a competitive district that we will have to win in the fall,” Maloney said, defending his decision. “From my point of view, I’m just running where I landed.”

New York state law only requires members of Congress to live in the state, not their home districts.

Jones, who has not announced his reelection plans, told Politico Maloney had not consulted him on his decision, and his chief of staff tweeted a similar message after Maloney’s announcement.

Maloney’s supporters have argued that incumbent-on-incumbent primaries are inevitable every 10 years when redistricting takes place — and that Jones, who is Black, would be better suited to represent New York’s 16th district, which includes southern Westchester County and is currently represented by progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., another Black freshman lawmaker, criticized that message as “thinly veiled racism.”

Maloney has also argued that he would better align ideologically with the more competitive 17th district as a moderate who has won races in a GOP-leaning district in the past won by former President Donald Trump.

Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday told reporters that Maloney’s decision not to run in the 18th district was “particularly shameful” and “hypocritical,” and could leave an opening for Republicans to flip a seat.

Maloney “cannot seem to take his redistricting on the chin, and be able to run in a district that is still 70% his,” she said Thursday, adding that he should step down from leading the DCCC if he runs against Jones.

“If he is going to enter the primary and challenge another Democratic member, then he should step aside from his responsibilities,” she said.

For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has defended Maloney, a member of her leadership team.

“We’re very proud of Sean Patrick Maloney,” she said Thursday.

“He is our chair of the caucus. He has delivered financially. Why would I not support him on a hiccup?” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, said. “Could he have handled it differently in an announcement? He would say absolutely to that.”

Jeffries on Thursday tried downplaying the tensions that have roiled the delegation this week.

“We’ve managed to avoid member on member primaries for decades. And it’s my hope that we’ll be able to find a way to avoid another member-on-member primary in 2022,” he said.

A state judge is expected to approve the new map drawn by Cervas on Friday after New Yorkers were invited to submit comments. But Democrats have not ruled out potential future legal challenges ahead of the primaries scheduled for August.

New York was set to lose one of its 27 House seats after the 2020 Census, Democrats, who currently hold 19 of the state’s districts, hoped to push through a map that could net the party as many as 3 or 4 new seats.

While the most recent version still favors the party, Democrats could potentially lose several seats if Republican voters turn out in overwhelming numbers in November.

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