Politics

(ATKINSON, N.H.) — When Vivek Ramaswamy took the stage in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Tuesday just one day after ending his presidential campaign, he gave a passionate speech.

It was the same speech, in fact, Ramaswamy had given on the trail multiple times when pitching himself to voters, but with one exception: He replaced the references to himself with references to Donald Trump.

In less than 24 hours, Ramaswamy, a biotech businessman and conservative commentator who campaigned as the most Trump-friendly, “America first” alternative in the GOP field, dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed his former opponent.

In New Hampshire, he appeared alongside the man who — as recently as Saturday — had accused him of “deceitful campaign tricks” and not being “MAGA.”

But there was little bad blood to be seen between them on Tuesday.

“We are in the middle of a war in this country,” Ramaswamy said, portraying a country divided between “those of us who love the United States of America and a fringe minority who hates this country and what we stand for.”

“And right now we need a commander in chief who will lead us to victory,” he said.

The former president soon returned the favor.

“I’ve been a friend of his even though we were competing against each other,” Trump said. “But I was a friend of his and we got along and … I kept saying, ‘Why is he running? He keeps calling me a great president.’ But he’s a fantastic guy, a very smart guy. He’s got some tremendous ideas.”

The end of Ramaswamy’s campaign marked the beginning of his next chapter: as a vocal Trump campaign surrogate.

“He’s going to be working with us for a long time,” Trump said Tuesday after some in the crowd chanted “VP, VP, VP.”

For a while, at least, it looked like Ramaswamy was gaining some traction with Republican voters in Iowa and nationwide. His campaign, while initially little watched, helped him build a larger and larger profile with conservatives.

He saw his polling peak of about 11% on Aug. 23, which was then higher than the support for Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and others.

That was also the day of the first primary debate when Ramaswamy stood out for standing by Trump, keeping his hand raised longer than any other candidates on stage when asked if he would still back Trump as the Republican nominee were the former president to be convicted of the charges he faces. (Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies all wrongdoing.)

Ramaswamy’s commitment became a major part of his pitch to voters, even pledging to keep Trump on as an adviser, if not his vice president, if he reached the White House.

But, eventually, there was a shift. While still generally complimentary of Trump, Ramaswamy began to compare Trump to a “wounded” soldier, saying, “If you want to save Trump,” Iowans should vote for him instead so as not to play into “the deep state’s trap” of, he claimed conspiratorially, narrowing the race to eliminate Trump and prop up Haley instead.

What had seemed to be an unusually amicable relationship between the competitors hit a rough patch just two days before the Iowa caucuses, after the Ramaswamy campaign handed out shirts reading “Save Trump, Vote Vivek.”

Trump went after him for that, posting on social media that the move was “very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ — don’t get duped by this. Vote for ‘TRUMP,’ don’t waste your vote!”

The rift was short lived though, as Ramaswamy quickly rallied behind Trump after Trump’s big win in the Iowa caucuses, calling him in congratulations on Monday night.

“I expect to join him tomorrow in New Hampshire and I think that I will expect to join him on the campaign trail after that as well, because I think it’s important that he becomes the next president of the United States,” Ramaswamy told ABC News.

It wasn’t the outcome Ramaswamy himself had sought, he acknowledged. But by then, his own momentum in the polls had faded, with 538’s surveys of likely voters who watched each primary debate showing he drew divisive reactions.

According to 538 averages, Ramaswamy was at just 6.4% in Iowa by caucus day.

Still, his campaign boasted of a “major upset,” and his Iowa ground game was not lacking.

He held more than 300 events in the state over his nearly 11-month campaign, even relocating to Des Moines, and pulled a large showing at many events through the end of his bid.

He had insisted to voters up to the day before the caucuses that he’d stay in through the general election regardless of his performance in Iowa.

On Monday night, however, he told supporters something else.

“We looked at it every which way and I think it is true that we did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight,” he said in a speech as the results were coming in that showed him in a distant fourth place.

He suspended his campaign after meeting with some of his staff at a caucus celebration party, later telling ABC News the decision to drop was one made by him and his wife, Dr. Apoorva Ramaswamy.

Vivek Ramaswamy now says he’s going to do “everything” he can to support Trump in the race.

“If it’s not going to be me — and it’s not, as of tonight that’s clear — I think that Trump should be the next president of the United States and I’m going to do everything that I can to make it so,” he said Monday of his choice to head to New Hampshire.

When previously asked if he would consider a role as Trump’s vice president, Ramaswamy would usually say something to the effect of “I love the man, but I can only lead from the front,” as he told a voter earlier on Monday.

But hours later, when asked by ABC News, he said he “would evaluate whatever is best for the future of this country.”

He did not rule out a run in 2028 either, telling ABC News, “I think that this movement is just getting started.”

But, he added, “Who’s going to be the best vehicle to advance that agenda forward? Right now, that’s Donald Trump and he has my full support for that reason. But ‘America first’ doesn’t end in 2028. It doesn’t end in 2032. It goes for another 250 years, and that’s what I think is ahead for this country.”

ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump on Thursday filed his brief with the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of the justices hearing arguments next month about whether the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause” disqualifies him from being president again.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden will sit for a deposition with the House Oversight and Judiciary committees on Feb. 28, the committee chairmen said in a statement on Thursday, after weeks of back and forth with the younger Biden’s legal team.

Hunter Biden had been subpoenaed to sit for a closed-door deposition in the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into the president but said he would testify only in a public forum and previously castigated the probe as “illegitimate.”

He faced a contempt vote for his refusal.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Congress narrowly averted a partial government shutdown, buying a few extra weeks to try to work out an agreement on a set of bills that will fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

After several days of nail biting over Friday’s looming deadline, which would have seen four of 12 government funding bills expiring, both chambers passed the short-term funding bill — allowing them to get out of town as another snowstorm barrels toward the East Coast.

The funding solution now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The legislation expands the funding expiration date for the four government funding bills set to expire on Friday to March 1. The other eight bills, which were set to run out of funding on Feb. 2, will now run out of funds on March 8.

“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses, all of whom would have felt the sting of the government shutdown,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “And this is what the American people want to see. Both sides working together and governing responsibly. No chaos, no spectacle, no shutdown.”

The Senate easily passed the short-term funding bill by an overwhelming vote of 77-18. The House passed it 314-108.

The House Freedom Caucus members unsuccessfully pushed for Johnson to add a last-minute border amendment to the stopgap funding bill. Ahead of the vote, the House Freedom Caucus put out a statement urging all Republicans to oppose the funding measure.

“Speaker Mike Johnson should walk away from his agreement with Senate Majority Leader Schumer and pass an appropriations package that meaningfully reduces spending year-over-year and secures our southern border. That is what winning looks like,” the statement said.

The short-term bill buys Congress some additional breathing room, but it ultimately does little to resolve the longer-term questions about government funding that have plagued this Congress, which has already extended its deadline to complete work on government funding twice before, for months.

It’s not clear if this extra bit of time will finally make the difference, despite a breakthrough in negotiations between the House and Senate that has allowed for expedited work on longer-term funding bills.

Earlier this month, Schumer and Johnson reached an agreement on the overall cost of government funding bills after months of squabbling over the matter as House Republicans sought to exact funding cuts greater than those previously agreed to by President Joe Biden and former-Speaker Kevin McCarthy during negotiations over the federal debt limit.

Johnson and Schumer finally settled the matter by announcing they would keep levels consistent with the Biden-McCarthy agreement, inspiring renewed confidence that these extra few weeks could be the magic push that Congress needs to finally complete its work.

But there’s still a long way to go, and it’s not clear whether the extra six weeks Congress is expected to buy itself Thursday will be enough to turn that handshake agreement into legislation that can be voted on and passed — especially with Speaker Johnson’s right flank raging over the deal.

Many of his most right-of-center members are frustrated that Johnson did not fight harder to exact cuts in the agreement.

Johnson has pushed back on that and argued that the stopgap measure that passed Thursday is an important part of his larger effort to secure Republican priorities on the larger government funding bills.

“This is an important thing for us because it allows us to fight for our policy changes, our policy riders, in those spending bills. It takes time to do that. And so, the reason we need just a little more time on the calendar is to allow that process to play out,” Johnson said.

But those policy riders are controversial, and Senate Democrats have vowed to block them.

It’s teeing up a precarious situation for Johnson as he negotiates the next set of bills.

This all comes as negotiations continue on a separate spending package that would provide aid to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen border security. Johnson is digging in on hard-line demands for more restrictive border reforms despite progress in the Senate on a bipartisan compromise.

To further complicate matters, the House is only scheduled to be in session for 11 legislative days between now and the new March 1 funding deadline. The Senate is scheduled for a two-week recess in February.

The next 40 days could make for a crunch on the clock and for Johnson.

ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — The best-laid plans of politicians and pollsters often go awry. Thursday night was supposed to be the sixth debate of the Republican presidential primary, and three candidates were originally lined up to participate: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. But Christie dropped out of the race last week, and on Tuesday, Haley announced she would not participate in any more debates unless they were against former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden. With only one candidate left to take the stage, the debate was scrubbed.

But we still have a poll to share! Before each of the first four GOP debates this cycle, 538 partnered with Ipsos to take the temperature of likely Republican primary voters heading into the event. We did the same with this one, and even though there will be no post-debate poll to compare them to, the results still shed some interesting light on the state of the GOP presidential contest as we head into New Hampshire’s primary next week. Click here for the full results of the poll.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s convincing victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses shows his continued strength among Republicans, and a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds once more that Trump is both viewed nationwide as the candidate whom Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would be most satisfied with as their 2024 nominee as well as the highest-rated contender across a range of other attributes.

Three out of four Republican-leaning adults say they would be very or somewhat satisfied with Trump as the GOP’s presidential nominee, compared to 64% who say the same about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 50% for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s two remaining rivals in the nominating race.

Trump’s advantage tracks closely with the findings about Republicans who were interviewed as part of a more extensive ABC News poll conducted the week before the Iowa caucuses.

And much like Iowa entrance polls that indicated Trump was able to dominate among evangelical or born-again Christian voters in the state on Monday, he maintains a sizable advantage in that group’s assessments nationally as well. According to the new ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, 74% of evangelicals or born-again Christians are somewhat or very satisfied with Trump. He has a stronger rating on this question than both Haley and DeSantis among this group.

Trump swept the Iowa caucuses on Monday, defeating the other candidates by historic margins and winning 51% of the vote: the first decisive win of the presidential primary season that establishes a high-stakes benchmark just days before the New Hampshire primary, which takes place on Tuesday and where Haley is hoping to eat into Trump’s margin of victory in order to fuel her own campaign.

DeSantis came in second in Iowa with 21% and Haley was in third place with 19%.

Despite DeSantis’ and Haley’s insistence that their showings in Iowa prove there is appetite among the GOP for a candidate whose name is not Trump — because 49% of caucusgoers voted for someone other than him — and that either of them would be stronger in one-on-one matchups against President Joe Biden, the ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that 80% of Republican-aligned adults view Trump as the candidate with the best chance of getting elected in November. One in 10 say Haley has the best chance, while 9% say the same of DeSantis.

Trump also has a wide lead in this poll over DeSantis and Haley on a range of other attributes. Republicans and GOP leaners see him as the top-choice candidate who best represents their personal values, is the strongest leader, best understands the problems of people like them and is best qualified to serve as president.

Trump’s advantage over DeSantis and Haley on these traits is similar to the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted just prior to the Iowa caucuses, with one exception: The perception that Trump is the candidate with the best chance of getting elected in November has strengthened since his win in Iowa.

Trump also maintains a higher favorability rating than his opponents. In the new poll, 72% have a favorable impression of him, compared to 63% for DeSantis and 49% for Haley. These numbers are similar to right before the caucuses.

The former president is largely considered the front-runner in New Hampshire’s fast approaching contest, but Haley has cut into his lead considerably since the fall. According to 538’s polling average, she currently trails Trump in the state by about 13 points, 45.6-33.1%. That is in stark contrast to early November, when Trump dominated the field, leading by about 30 points.

Part of Haley’s boost came after well-received debate performances and after a key local endorsement — in December, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu opted to support her over his friend, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. And her team has placed a big bet that independent voters in the state will rally on her behalf.

The importance of New Hampshire is reflected strongly in her campaign’s finances, with more than $26 million spent inundating the state with ads between her official campaign organization and her allied super PAC.

She’s also had an aggressive ground game, with 35 days recorded on the ground in the state and more than 50 events with voters, according to an ABC News analysis of events since February.

Even still, in his speech to Iowans on Monday evening, Trump made it clear he believes that GOP voters’ devotion in New Hampshire is strong enough to maintain his lead.

“So it’s now off to New Hampshire, a great place … they’re embarrassed by what’s going on. Our country is laughed at all over the world and laughing at us,” he said. “And they want our country to come back.”

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® January 16-17, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,480 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, with an oversample of born-again Christians weighted to their correct proportion in the population. Results have a margin of sampling error of 2.8 points, including the design effect, for the full sample. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.

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(WASHINGTON) — Congressional leaders left the White House on Wednesday seemingly still at odds over how to break the logjam over Ukraine aid and U.S. border policy.

President Joe Biden hosted top lawmakers for more than an hour to discuss his $106 billion supplemental request that would include roughly $61 billion in military assistance to Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion.

The bill, which also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan as well as $14 billion for border security, has been stalled amid fierce debate over immigration policy as House Republicans demand stricter protocols on asylum and parole.

Leaving the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, “We understand that all these things are important, but we must insist, we must insist that the border be the top priority.”

“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine but the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security,” he said.

Schumer countered that both Ukraine and the border need to be addressed at the same time.

“The president himself said over and over again that he is willing to move forward on [the] border. And so we said we have to do both,” Schumer said.

The Senate Democratic leader added, “The only way we will do border and Ukraine, or even either of them, is bipartisan. You cannot, cannot do things with one party in a divided Congress. Any party that says, ‘Do it my way or no way’, we’re not going to get anything done.”

A White House readout of the meeting called the need for Ukraine aid “urgent.”

“In the meeting, President Biden underscored the importance of Congress ensuring Ukraine has the resources it needs — including air defense and artillery capabilities — to defend itself against Russia’s brutal invasion. The President discussed the strategic consequences of inaction for Ukraine, the United States, and the world. He was clear: Congress’s continued failure to act endangers the United States’ national security, the NATO Alliance, and the rest of the free world,” the White House statement said.

Ahead of the meeting, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the meeting would center on Ukraine.

“That’s what we’re gonna focus on in this discussion,” Kirby told reporters at the daily briefing. “And as the speaker knows quite well, we continue to negotiate in good faith in a bipartisan way with the Senate, Republicans and Democrats up there on Capitol Hill, about the national security supplemental and which obviously includes money for border security.”

Kirby said that could include sharing some classified material with the lawmakers to help demonstrate the “desperate, urgent need” for weapons and other capabilities to be provided to Ukraine.

It’s been more than a year since Congress approved major funding for the war-torn Eastern European nation, and the administration has said it is quickly running out of funds to continue providing aid to Ukraine.

Describing the White House meeting, Schumer said there was an “understanding that if we don’t come to Ukraine’s aid, that the consequences for America and around the globe would be nothing short of devastating.”

Johnson said while House Republicans “understand the necessity about Ukraine funding” they still have questions about Ukraine’s “strategy and endgame.”

Biden’s requested supplemental national security package sets aside $14 billion for border policies, including the hiring of more than 1,000 additional border patrol agents and asylum officers. It also includes $1.2 billion to combat the flow of fentanyl.

But Republicans are demanding more sweeping changes to U.S. immigration policy, pointing to the influx of migrants at the southwest border.

Negotiations have been going on for months, and were carried on throughout the holiday recess by a bipartisan group of senators.

Heading into the meeting with Biden, Schumer and McConnell gave a brief update on where things stand.

McConnell said the supplemental package could go up for a vote in the Senate as soon as next week.

“This is a unique opportunity to accomplish something in divided government that wouldn’t be there under unified,” McConnell said. “I keep reminding my members that if we had a 100% Republican government — the president, House, Senate — we probably would not be able to get a single Democratic vote to pass what Senator Lankford and the administration are trying to get together.”

Schumer said he wouldn’t make promises on timing for a vote but said they were “making good progress.”

But Johnson has only grown more insistent that the House should not accept the Senate’s work, and instead has pointed to H.R. 2, a House-Republican backed bill filled with border policies the Democratic-controlled Senate wouldn’t support and that the White House would likely veto.

“We have talked about the necessary elements to solve this problem,” Johnson said outside the White House.

“We passed our bill and it has critical elements. It’s a historic restoration of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, it is the end of catch and release, it is reforms to the broken asylum and parole systems. We’re not insistent upon a particular name of a piece of legislation, but we are insistent that the elements have to be meaningful,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump coasted to a strong victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses which, despite depressed turnout amid brutal weather, saw him embraced by a majority of the state’s Republican base.

Now he’s gearing up to battle directly with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, looking to quash what appears to be her best hope at beating him in his quest for a third straight presidential nomination, sources in Trump’s orbit told ABC News, offering a glimpse into his immediate next moves on the trail.

“The game plan is always to win. And whether it’s ‘scorched earth’ or highlight the major deficiencies in her record, that’s what we can expect the next week,” said one former campaign official who remains in touch with Trump’s current team and who asked not to be named to share internal discussions. (Spokespeople for Trump and Haley did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

“Donald Trump has a chance of ending this race and putting the final nail in the coffin of this presidential primary in New Hampshire,” the former official said. “He’s not one to leave artillery in the gun.”

Monday night’s results saw Trump clinch a thorough victory in Iowa, taking more than 50% of the vote and winning every county except for one.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Haley, who were separated by only a couple of points for second and third place, respectively, ultimately trailed Trump by about 30% each despite months of pitching themselves as better alternatives to win the White House.

Allies of DeSantis and Haley were quick to note the results came out of just one state at the start of the 2024 race (though it is one state that receives outsized attention) and arguably few voters were making their voices heard.

Around 110,000 people voted in the Republican caucuses, which was about 60% of the turnout in the last contested caucuses, in 2016.

And even as the vote totals and entrance polls suggested Trump continues to have problems with more moderate and younger voters and in more educated and less rural areas, his win showed that the base of the party remains with him.

Trump is favored to win upcoming primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but both states offer different quirks that theoretically provide openings for Haley on a narrow path toward competing with him through the rest of the primary season, observers and experts said.

Independents and people registered as undeclared — who typically lean more moderate — are allowed to vote in New Hampshire’s primary and South Carolina, where Trump has a 30-point edge in 538’s polling average, is seen as potentially more hospitable to Haley than Iowa, given her existing connection to voters as a former governor there.

Trump and Haley have already engaged in tit-for-tat attacks, with Trump casting aspersions on Haley’s intelligence and labeling her a “globalist” and the South Carolinian depicting the former president as an agent of “chaos” — while still saying she would pardon him if she’s elected and he’s convicted of a crime (he denies wrongdoing) and declining to rule out if she’d be his running mate.

Sources around Trump forecasted that the attacks from his team and allies will be escalating after Iowa to several notches above what Haley has already faced.

“I think she’s a significant opponent and in a primary, she’s earned the right to get clobbered,” said one source in Trump’s orbit.

“This is a roller coaster she’s only heard of, and she had the seat in the very last row,” said a second person, who like the other Trump sources quoted here asked not to be named because of ongoing relationships.

The former president is already planning on upping his campaign schedule in New Hampshire in the coming days, where one source said an anti-tax message could jive with the state’s “life free or die” mantra.

“I think the most important thing is obviously, taxes [are] going to be a part of the conversation. New Hampshire is a no-tax type of state, that’s their political philosophy,” the former campaign official said, arguing Trump “delivered on one of the largest tax cuts in American history.”

Another line of attack from Trump could focus on some of Haley’s wealthy donors, including those who have given to Democrats — a charge she has also faced from DeSantis and tried to play down.

Haley’s allies told ABC News she’s ready to fight back.

“She is tough. There is nothing the Trump folks can say that she hasn’t already heard. Of course, we have to leave room for the probability he will just make stuff up. In that case, she will just have to correct the record,” said Eric Levine, an attorney and donation bundler for her.

Haley, too, appeared to be ramping up her responses this week, including linking Trump to President Joe Biden in the most explicit terms yet.

“Both are consumed by chaos, negativity and grievances of the past,” a narrator says in a new ad running in New Hampshire.

“Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare,” Haley added in remarks after the caucuses.

“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That’s nothing to be proud of,” she said then.

Supportive outside groups, like SFA Fund Inc., the super PAC backing Haley, and the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity are also launching attacks on the former president.

Andrew Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said Haley is well-positioned to absorb attacks before next week’s primary, pointing to past jabs from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — who dropped out on Monday and endorsed Trump — on Haley’s family that ended up falling flat.

“You saw what happened when Ramaswamy went after Haley in the debates: The more he attacked her and accused her of things, the smaller he looked, and she just sat back and absorbed it with a smile on her face,” Smith said.

“I think if [Trump] says, ‘Yeah, she just does well with the moderates, those moderates, you can’t trust those people, they’re not all MAGA’ … That’s probably the best way to do it,” Smith added. “I don’t know if it would necessarily work.”

Haley throughout the campaign has urged voters to move on from Trump, whom she attacks on some major issues like raising the national debt. But she has tempered her comments about her former boss. One frequent line is that he was “the right president at the right time.”

She has also defended his right to be on the 2024 ballot in light of challenges citing the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause in connection with Jan. 6. (More openly anti-Trump candidates, like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, have already left the 2024 race.)

That balancing act underscores the difficulty for Haley or anyone else going against Trump, some experts said. In trying to undercut him with Republican voters, they risk just making themselves smaller.

“Obviously, Trump is still the favorite” in New Hampshire, Smith said. “I don’t think that’s changed at all. I think that Haley has a distant chance.”

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(WASHINGTON) — As the Republican presidential candidates jockeyed for votes during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris was in South Carolina, shoring up support in a state that will kick off Democrats’ primary season next month.

“It’s good to be back,” Harris, who was making her second trip to South Carolina since the start of the new year, said before getting in her motorcade.

ABC News was granted exclusive access to the vice president during her trip, getting a rare, behind-the-scenes look as the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign kicks into high gear. ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce followed Harris as she traveled on Air Force Two, delivered a speech outside the South Carolina State House and met with supporters.

Harris has taken an expanded role on the campaign trail, traveling to at least 18 states over the last six months — taking on political fights over abortion access, race and voting rights.

This, as many voters say President Joe Biden’s age is a top concern. The oldest-ever sitting president, Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows only 28% of those surveyed say Biden has the mental sharpness to serve another four years, down from about 50% in May 2020.

Bruce pressed Harris on how the campaign plans to change that perception.

“I’ll tell you, the reality of it is, and I’ve spent a lot of time with Biden, be it in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room and other places — he is extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally,” Harris said.

Harris added: “Well, I mean, listen, you’re here with me in South Carolina. You saw every room we went in. The numbers of people who are there, applauding quite loudly, and they’re applauding for me and they’re applauding for Joe Biden and for what we as an administration have accomplished. They’re there because they believe in what we’re doing and they want to see us continue to do this work.”

On Monday, Harris spoke to a crowd of hundreds outside the state Capitol to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day and laid out what she saw was at stake in the coming election.

“As vice president of the United States, I’d say, at this moment, in America, freedom is under profound threat,” Harris said. “Today, in fact, we are witnessing a full-on attack on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms.”

South Carolina has played a critical role in Democratic primary politics. Most voters who participate in the state’s Democratic primary are Black — the party’s base. It also revived Biden’s campaign in 2020 after he came in fourth in Iowa, and fifth in New Hampshire.

In a nod to South Carolina’s role in Biden’s 2020 win, the Democratic National Committee changed its 2024 presidential primary calendar to elevate South Carolina to be the first state to vote while demoting Iowa and New Hampshire, which national Democrats argue are not representative of their voter base or of the country, despite sharp outcry from both states.

“We’re not going to wait and parachute into these communities at the last minute and ask them for their vote, we’re going to earn their vote,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told reporters on a call earlier this month.

“Well, that’s why I’m out here,” Harris told Bruce in an interview before departing Columbia. “We’ve done really good work, our challenge will be to let people know who brung it to them.”

She added: “We have done the work that has been about bringing down unemployment, Black unemployment, to some of the lowest numbers we’ve ever seen … What we’ve done on student loan debt, we have now erased student loan debt for over three-and-a-half million people and with more to do, so we’ve delivered.”

An area where they have not delivered, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, is on immigration, a critical issue for voters. Just 18% approve of Biden’s handling of the border.

Biden assigned Harris the responsibility of addressing the root causes of migration at the southern border.

Democrats and Republicans are negotiating on Capitol Hill as the country faces record-shattering numbers of encounters at the southern border. Some Democrats are pressing the administration to do more, including New York Mayor Eric Adams, who has chided Washington for lacking urgency on the issue.

“Does your administration bear responsibility for that?” Bruce pressed the vice president.

“It is no secret for anyone that we have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed and it would be great if we could get some bipartisan consensus to do just that,” Harris responded.

Harris has also taken a leading role when it comes to abortion rights. The California native will be embarking upon a nationwide “Reproductive Freedoms Tour” next week to highlight the administration’s fight for abortion access.

While the White House has said it wants to codify the rights previously guaranteed under Roe v. Wade, without Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, its ability to act is limited.

“What can you realistically promise the American people you would do to protect these reproductive rights?” Bruce pressed.

“Well, we’re gonna continue to do what we’ve been doing, and so that includes what we’re doing through the court system, what we’re doing to ensure emergency care and protection for all people in terms of access to emergency care, what we’re doing to protect access to contraception is another big piece of this,” Harris said.

“But here’s the bottom line: From Kansas to California from, from Ohio to Virginia. When this issue has been on the ballot, the American people have voted in favor of freedoms,” she added.

With a potential Biden-Trump rematch on the horizon, the Biden-Harris campaign says in the coming months voters will be presented with a stark choice involving “democracy and freedom.” Harris told Bruce the campaign is gearing up for a tough fight.

“Well, I mean, we’re talking about an election for president of the United States, vice president of the United States, and we have to earn that reelect. I mean, these are challenging times,” she said. “I have been traveling our country, and it is clear to me that there is an intent to attack these most fundamental freedoms and liberties.”

Bruce asked Harris if a rematch with former President Donald Trump, who went on to handily win the Iowa caucuses later on Monday, was a foregone conclusion.

“I don’t know,” Harris said. “But look, if it is Donald Trump, we’ve beat him before and we’ll beat him again.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Chuck Grassley, the oldest serving member of the United States Senate, is receiving antibiotic infusions at a hospital to treat an infection, according to a statement from his office.

The Iowa Republican is 90 years old.

His office says the senator is in good spirits and will return to work “as soon as possible following doctors’ orders.”

Intravenous infusions of antibiotics are usually used for a serious infection or one that can’t be or was not successfully treated with oral antibiotics.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.