Politics

(WASHINGTON) — A possible government shutdown is looming as funding runs out at the end of the day Thursday, and Congress has yet to pass a temporary measure to keep the government going.

If one passes both the Senate and House it could be on President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature by Thursday.

But if Congress fails to act, a government shutdown could begin as early as Friday.

If there’s a government shutdown, does everything close?

No, not everything. A full government shutdown would mean federal agencies close their doors or reduce their operations to only what is deemed essential. Programs and agencies that receive mandatory funding or are self-sufficient, such as the U.S. Postal Service, will continue to operate. Only those programs and agencies that are dependent on annual appropriations will be running with empty pockets.

Essential services necessary for public safety such as air traffic control and law enforcement will keep operating — though not necessarily at the same levels.

If essential services continue, why should I care?

During a shutdown, agencies are stripped to the bone, providing only what is necessary to protect life and property or what is required by law. Agency services most directly connected to the public are likely to cease or be severely delayed, seeing “tremendous disruption and uncertainty” as they adjust to reduced staff and operations, according to David Reich of the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

National parks and Smithsonian museums will close, and while people will still receive their Social Security payments, benefit verification, processing overpayments and issuing replacement Medicare cards will stop.

There could be delays in air travel with reductions in the Transportation Security Administration’s workforce. If you have any questions about your taxes, there won’t be anyone on the other end of the line at the Internal Revenue Service because it will not be continuing its customer service.

Will the CDC and FDA close – even though we’re in a pandemic?

No, but there might be delays. Among those agencies that typically see a reduction in operations are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. While these agencies are integral to coronavirus vaccine distribution and combating the coronavirus, they will be continuing their pandemic-related functions at a much-reduced capacity.

The Department of Health and Human Services, the umbrella agency over the CDC, FDA and NIH, will be furloughing 43% of its employees, according to its shutdown contingency plan. Agencies are responsible for creating their own plans for how they will continue operating if money runs out.

Do we know for sure what services will stop?

Yes, and no. Last week, the White House budget office, the Office of Budget and Management, reminded senior agency officials to review and update their shutdown plans. Some agencies have released their plans outlining what is expected to continue and what will be put on hold.

But according to Maya MacGuineas, the president of the nonpartisan think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, it’s never clear until a shutdown which services will pass the absolutely necessary test.

“But one thing is for sure, a lot of people will go home and won’t be doing their jobs and that slows down the process of just about everything,” she said.

How many workers will be affected?

There are about 2.1 million civilian federal employees, according to the Congressional Research Service. During a shutdown, federal employees are either sent home or asked to work without pay.

For example, the Department of Defense is planning to reduce its civilian workforce by 55%, and the Environmental Protection Agency will be furloughing 99% of its employees.

For a small fraction of federal employees, their salaries are financed through funding other than appropriations.

Yet for the majority of the federal workforce, the essential employees left staffing agencies would be missing out on their paychecks.

Jacqueline Simon, public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing over 700,000 government workers, said that for many federal employees, the lack of a paycheck creates tremendous hardship.

“They have rent to pay. They have mortgages to pay, insurance payments, car payments, child support,” she said. “There is a myth that federal employees are all well paid professionals and that’s just not true.”

About a third of the employees the union represents fall into the category of people who make less than $40,000 a year and may not have the financial cushion to keep working without pay, Simon said.

Federal employees working through the shutdown get back pay, but that will not help them in the interim.

Will a shutdown affect the economy?

A government shutdown does not usually have widespread impacts on the economy unless they drone on for weeks. The 2018-2019 partial shutdown under the Trump administration resulted in economic losses of $1.2 billion each week; it was the longest in the nation’s history, lasting 35 days.

The longer a shutdown lasts, the more areas with high numbers of federal employees could see their local economies begin to suffer because those employees are not getting paid, according to Richard Kogan of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Government shutdowns create distrust with how the government functions and the uncertainty can impact the economy, MacGuineas said. Compounding the uncertainty is whether Congress is going to pass a raise or suspension to the debt ceiling so the U.S. does not default on its obligations, which is a separate and much more serious issue from the shutdown.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — An Air Force veteran who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for joining the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Wednesday to 45 days in jail — marking the first misdemeanor plea to lead to jail time for a Jan. 6 rioter who was not held prior to sentencing.

Derek Jancart, who was among members of the pro-Trump mob that entered the Capitol and made it as far as Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s conference room, had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He was not accused of participating in any violence during the riot.

The Justice Department had asked that he be sentenced to four months in jail, more than they have requested for other lower-level misdemeanor defendants. Prosecutors noted Jancart’s former service in the military, saying he “swore an oath to defend the country, and instead participated on an attack against democracy itself.”

Jancart and his attorney countered by asking Judge James Boasberg to instead sentence him to probation.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Jancart apologized to the court for his actions at the Capitol, saying he “didn’t go there to hurt anybody.”

“I did get caught up in the moment … I wish in hindsight I had stayed back,” Jancart told the court.” I love this country and I feel ashamed of my actions.”

The George Washington University Project on Extremism says that 71 of the more than 600 people charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack have claimed to have military experience. Jancart is the first Jan. 6 defendant with military service to be sentenced for joining in the insurrection.

A co-defendant of Jancart’s, Erik Rau, was also sentenced Wednesday to 45 days in jail.

Rau cried as he addressed the court, saying that his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack had taken a toll on his family.

“I am first of all very sorry that you are having to spend your morning having to deal with me,” Rau said. He told the court that “there is no excuse” for his actions during the insurrection.

To date, more than 80 rioters have pleaded guilty to the charges against them, based on a tally by ABC News. Of the seven other defendants sentenced after pleading guilty to misdemeanor offenses, none have been ordered to spend time in jail, with the exception of two sentenced to time served after they received pretrial detention.

In recent hearings, several judges have expressed concern that the Justice Department is not seeking harsh enough punishments for some of those charged in connection with the attack.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday announced the formation of the Law Enforcement Coordination Council — an effort to “institutionalize best practices in law enforcement,” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with ABC News.

The LECC, chaired by Mayorkas, is the “first ever” department-wide body that will serve as a governing organization for the department’s agencies like the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mayorkas said.

During his previous stint at the department starting in 2009, best practices for law enforcement training and use-of-force policies have been a subject of Mayorkas’ portfolio.

“We are bringing a greater, in my opinion, a greater degree of organization, cohesion to [law enforcement policies],” Mayorkas said. “And the Law Enforcement Coordinating Council is comprised not only of the agencies that perform the law enforcement mission, but also offices within our department that have significant equities oversight offices as well, for example, such as the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the office of privacy and the office of the inspector general.”

The commission being announced Wednesday was not influenced by photos of border patrol agents on horseback aggresively pursuing migrants attempting to cross the southern border, Mayorkas said.

“These efforts began well before the incident at issue,” Mayorkas said.

“We have received broader inquires for some time now, with respect to our training, our practices and procedures are policies to include use of force … and as we are communicating in response to those inquiries, we felt it appropriate in the service of transparency, to communicate directly to the public,” he said.

Mayorkas said that he doesn’t have a sense of timing on when the investigation into the border patrol agents on horseback will be complete.

“I know that the investigators understand the need to move both thoroughly and quickly, and they’re conducting the investigation independently,” he said.

Mayorkas explained that the results of the commission and best practices will be integrated into the department’s federal law enforcement training center.

Many state and local law enforcement agencies train at the training center, the Secretary said so, while not directly applying to local departments, he said his hope is they will be able to receive best practices from the department.

Mayorkas also said that the commission will look into various Department of Homeland Security agency policies, to ensure that any law enforcement policy discrepancies between agencies is “intentional” to fit the needs of that agency.

Mayorkas said the department will move with “deliberate speed” in getting these policies up and running and sharing them with the public but did not offer any concrete timeline.

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(WASHINGTON) — While the concept of the debt ceiling might seem “in the weeds,” it actually poses a very real threat to millions of Americans in a precarious economic period.

If lawmakers on Capitol Hill remain deadlocked on raising the debt ceiling, the government could go into default — essentially, unable to pay bills. That would directly impact the wallets of millions of Americans, including those who invest in the stock market and those who benefit from government programs such as Social Security and Medicaid.

“It would be disastrous for the American economy, for global financial markets, and for millions of families and workers whose financial security would be jeopardized by delayed payments,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday.

Raising the debt ceiling, she said, is “necessary to avert a catastrophic event for our economy.”

But if you’ve ever wondered what exactly the debt ceiling is, you’re not alone. Here’s what it is and some of the real-world impacts it can have.

What is the debt ceiling?

The debt ceiling is a cap on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its debts.

Every year, Congress passes a budget that includes government spending on infrastructure, programs such as Social Security and salaries for federal workers. Congress also taxes people to pay for all that spending. But for years, the government has been spending more than it takes in from taxes and other revenue, increasing the federal deficit.

The government needs to borrow money to continue paying out what Congress has already OK’d. The debt ceiling puts a limit on how much money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its bills.

Why should I care about this?

If the government cannot borrow money to continue paying for programs, there will be real-world effects for millions of Americans.

Here are some of those potential effects, according to Yellen, the White House and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan organization.

• 15 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security payments, or see delays.
• 30 million families could stop receiving President Joe Biden’s expanded Child Tax Credit payments, or see delays.
• U.S. military servicemembers could stop receiving paychecks.
• Veterans’ benefits could stop or be delayed.
• Postal workers and federal employees could stop receiving paychecks.
• The United States’ credit worthiness could be downgraded, spiking interest rates, which would raise mortgage, car and credit card payments.
• Doubt in the typically reliable U.S. currency could tank the markets, hurting 401ks and other investments. (The S&P 500 lost 17% in the months surrounding the last debt ceiling standoff.)
• FEMA funding for hurricane and wildfire victims could stop.
• Public health funding for pandemic mitigation efforts could be cut off.
• Child nutrition program and other food assistance could stop.

Moody’s Analytics has estimated that even a long impasse over the debt ceiling could cause the loss of nearly 6 million jobs, increase the unemployment rate to 9% (from 5.2% now) and cause the stock market to lose about a third of its value, wiping out $15 trillion in household wealth.

Would this be worse than a government shutdown?

Yes. This is an even bigger deal than a government shutdown. A government shutdown occurs when Congress does not approve a new spending bill for the next fiscal year, so new payments, such as paychecks, are stopped. In 2019, around 800,000 federal employees were impacted by a government shutdown, and markets dipped.

But the United States has never defaulted on its credit. This would be uncharted territory. The suspension of basically all previously approved government programs, and the ensuing economic shocks, would be unprecedented.

“Many more parties are not paid in a default,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said. “Without enough money to pay its bills, any of the payments are at risk, including all government spending, mandatory payments, interest on our debt and payments to U.S. bondholders. While a government shutdown would be disruptive, a government default could be disastrous.”

Since the debt ceiling system was instituted in 1917, Congress has never not raised the debt ceiling. Congress has voted 80 times to raise or suspend the debt limit since 1960.

Why are we hitting the debt ceiling?

Technically, we already hit the debt ceiling on Aug. 1. But at that time, the Treasury Department started taking so-called “extraordinary measures” to continue to pay the government’s bills. Basically, there is some accounting and investing sleight of hand going on. But one day, the department will run out of tricks and out of cash. Yellen pegged that date as Oct. 18 in a letter to lawmakers Tuesday.

Right now, the federal debt is at $28.43 trillion, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s tracker. The current debt ceiling is actually $28.4 trillion — underscoring the pressure Yellen is under to continue paying the bills through “extraordinary measures.”

Does raising the debt ceiling allow the government to spend more?

Nope. Here’s how Yellen put it during a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill: “It has nothing to do with future programs of payments, it’s entirely about paying bills that have already been incurred by this Congress, in previous Congresses, and it’s about making good on past commitments — as you said, paying our credit card bill.”

Democrats, who are depending on Republican help to raise the debt ceiling, are frequently reiterating the point that raising the debt ceiling does not authorize new government spending. It only allows the government to borrow money to pay for spending that previous politicians have already OK’d, including former President Donald Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But the standoff over the debt ceiling is coming as lawmakers, in an extremely polarized environment, debate passing one of the largest government spending packages in history, Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better agenda.

The debate about government spending is leading to the politicization of raising the debt ceiling, and the negotiations have become completely intertwined. Republicans insist that if Democrats want to pass such a major spending bill through special budget rules that would require no Republican support, they can raise the debt ceiling on their own, too.

Why do we even have a debt ceiling?

One hundred years ago, Congress used to have to OK every instance of borrowing money — a major inconvenience.

So, in 1917, Congress passed a debt ceiling, which would allow the Treasury Department to borrow money for any approved spending without getting permission from Congress, up to a certain limit. The limit exists to ensure the “power of the purse,” or the ability to determine government spending, stays with the legislative branch, instead of shifting to the Treasury Department.

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(NEW YORK) — As President Joe Biden faces a critical moment for his agenda, Americans’ confidence in his handling of a range of issues is eroding, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

Compared to an August ABC News/Ipsos poll, public approval of how Biden is handling key issues — the pandemic, immigration and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, gun violence and even rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, the issue he’s pushing this week — is on the decline. Dissatisfaction among Republicans and independents is fueling the decline, but the president’s ratings are also hampered by more lackluster approval among members of his own party than presidents typically enjoy.

The poll, which was conducted Sept. 24-28 using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, comes roughly a month after the most difficult stretch of his presidency thus far — the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in a terrorist attack at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport during that drawdown, and for the first time since taking office, FiveThirtyEight’s tracker averaging presidential approval polls showed more Americans disapproved than approved of the job Biden was doing as president.

His overall approval rating now, measured by FiveThirtyEight’s average at 49% disapprove and 45% approve, has worsened since late August, and that sentiment is reflected in the issue-specific approvals measured in this most recent ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Biden’s performance on the coronavirus remains his strongest issue, with nearly six in 10 (57%) Americans still approving of how he is handling it. Still, compared to the ABC News/Ipsos poll in the field Aug. 27-28, Biden’s approval on this issue is down seven points overall and among independents, and down 14 points among Republicans. It’s also down 15 points from his late March record high on COVID-19 job performance in ABC News/Ipsos polling.

Although some Americans are now eligible for a third shot of the vaccine, following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation of boosters for certain populations, vaccinating the unvaccinated remains a central challenge for Biden as his administration works to end the pandemic.

Children under 12 are not currently eligible for vaccines, but that’s likely to change soon. After submitting data on vaccine trials for 5- to 11-year-olds on Tuesday, Pfizer expects to formally request emergency use authorization from the FDA to vaccinate this population.

But this poll, which was weighted to reflect the CDC’s adult vaccination rate, highlights how persuading vaccine-hesitant parents to have their children inoculated will be an additional obstacle for the Biden administration.

A majority (56%) of parents with children under 12 say they are likely to have their child get the coronavirus vaccine when it is available for them. Still, over four in 10 (43%) say they are not likely to.

Even among parents who are vaccinated with at least one shot, approximately two in 10 (21%) say they are not likely to get their child vaccinated when they are eligible. Nearly all (89%) unvaccinated parents say they are not likely to have their child get the coronavirus vaccine when eligible.

About half of parents who have at most a high school degree or who attended some college, 49% and 48% respectively, say they are likely to get their child vaccinated when it’s available to their age group. Among parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, seven in 10 say they are likely to have their child get the vaccine when possible.

Parents who are Democrats are most likely to be vaccinated with at least one dose themselves (86%) compared to parents who are independents (65%) and parents who are Republicans (55%). For parents who are Democrats and independents, 78% and 61% respectively say they are likely to get their child vaccinated once eligible. However, though a majority of parents who are Republicans are vaccinated, fewer than four in 10 (38%) say they will have their child get the vaccine when it’s available to their age group.

The economic recovery from the pandemic also continues to be a challenge for the president. About equal shares of the public approve and disapprove of his handling of the economic recovery, 51% to 48%. The percentage of Americans disapproving of Biden on the economy increased seven points since late August.

Besides the pandemic, enacting a bill to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure is the most pressing priority for Biden this week, as it will be brought up for a vote on the House floor Thursday. By an 11-point margin, Americans approve of Biden’s handling of this issue, 55% to 44%, but disapproval has increased by nine points since late August. Among Republicans and independents, approval dropped 10 and nine points, respectively.

Black and Hispanic Americans overwhelmingly support the president’s handling of the United States’ infrastructure, with 71% and 70% respectively approving, while a majority of white Americans (54%) disapprove.

In politics today, partisans usually are more unified in their support of or opposition to particular issues or people, but that is not the case for Biden on multiple issues. The vast majority of Democrats back the president on his handling of COVID-19 (91%), rebuilding U.S. infrastructure (87%) and the economic recovery (84%), but support among members of his party drops for his handling of Afghanistan (69%), gun violence (65%) and the immigration situation at the southern border (60%).

Without overwhelming support from his party, Biden’s approval among U.S. adults overall falls below 40% on all three of those issues — 38% on gun violence, 38% on Afghanistan and 33% on immigration and the situation at the border.

The humanitarian crisis at the southern border was thrust into the spotlight over the last two weeks after a surge of migrants, mostly from Haiti, were sheltering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, hoping to claim asylum and remain in the United States. That migrant camp was cleared as of Friday, but more than 17,400 remained in the U.S., according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

While the secretary said Friday that about 12,400 of those migrants will have an opportunity to have their asylum cases heard before an immigration judge and about 5,000 were still being processed, thousands did not have that chance before being flown directly back to Haiti or returning on their own to Mexico. The administration has employed a controversial policy using a public health rationale to immediately expel unauthorized migrants at the border.

Most Americans (58%) believe the United States should allow migrants seeking asylum at the border to stay until their cases are heard while four in 10 believe they should be deported back to their native countries immediately, the ABC News/Ipsos poll found.

By party, a majority of Democrats (83%) and independents (57%) believe migrants seeking asylum should be allowed to remain in the United States while their cases are heard, but about seven in 10 (72%) Republicans believe they should be deported immediately.

Across racial groups, most Americans think these migrants should be allowed to stay until their asylum cases are heard, but white Americans (52%) are less likely to feel this way than Hispanic (66%) and Black (78%) Americans.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel® September 24-28, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,101 adults, including an oversample of 537 parents with children under the age of 12. The overall results have a margin of sampling error of 3.7 points, including the design effect. Results among parents have a margin of sampling error of 4.7 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-24-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — In their first appearance before Congress since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the nation’s top military leaders candidly admitted to lawmakers that they had recommended to President Joe Biden that the U.S. should keep a troop presence there, appearing to contradict his assertions.

The testimony by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, was at odds with Biden’s comments earlier this year to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that his military commanders did not recommend keeping a residual force.

The revelations came during at a six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee where Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had been “a strategic failure” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some “uncomfortable truths” about the two decade U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

Here are some key takeaways:

Military commanders wanted to keep at least 2,500 troops in Afghanistan

While Milley and McKenzie said they would not disclose the content of private conversations with Biden, both generals offered their personal opinions that they said matched their recommendations.

“My assessment was back in the fall of ’20 and remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2,500, could bounce up to 3,500,” Milley told Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

“I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and I also recommended early in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time, those were my personal views,” McKenzie said.

The generals’ statements were at odds with what Biden had told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview on Aug. 18.

“No one told — your military advisers did not tell you, “No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that?,” Stephanopoulos asked Biden.

“No,” said Biden. “No one said that to me, that I can recall.”

Biden also said his military advisers were “split” on the matter.

McKenzie said he had also warned that the withdrawal of U.S. troops “would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan military.”

“I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government,” he said.

‘A strategic failure’

Austin and Milley told senators that the sudden collapse of the Afghan government, as well as the U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan over the past two decades, should be examined to learn what may have gone wrong.

Milley became the first U.S. military leader to describe the American military mission in Afghanistan as “a strategic failure” that had developed over time.

“Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure — the enemy is in charge in Kabul, there’s no way else to describe that — that is a cumulative effect of 20 years,” Milley said.

The general speculated that the U.S. had trained an Afghan Army that “mirrored” the American military without taking into account local and cultural traditions and allowed it to becoe too dependent on American technology.

“We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation,” said Austin. “The fact that the Afghan army, we and our partners trained, simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise.”

“We need to consider some uncomfortable truths,” he added. “That we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks, that we did not grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that Taliban commanders struck with local leaders in the wake of the Doha agreement, that the Doha agreement itself had a demoralizing effect on Afghan soldiers, and that we failed to fully grasp that there was only so much for which – and for whom – many of the Afghan forces would fight. We provided the Afghan military with equipment and aircraft and the skills to use them.”

“Over the years, they often fought bravely,” said Austin. “Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police officers died. But in the end, we couldn’t provide them with the will to win. At least not all of them.”

US intelligence did not predict the Taliban’s swift takeover, the generals said

The three leaders expressed surprise at how Afghan forces had quickly fallen apart leading to a Taliban takeover of the country in 11 days.

“I did not foresee it to be days. I thought it could take months,” said McKenzie, who added that he had anticipated that the Afghan military would be able to hold out against the Taliban until later this year and possibly into early next year.

“We certainly did not plan against a collapse of the government in 11 days,” Austin said.

“There’s no intel assessment that says the government is going to collapse and the military is going to collapse in 11 days that I’m aware of. And I’ve read I think all of them,” said Milley, who later described the failure to predict the scope and scale of the Taliban takeover as “a swing and a miss.”

Revelations in ‘the book’

In his opening statement, Milley explained how his two phone calls to his counterpart in China, first described in the book “Peril” by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, were authorized by then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Milley also said that the Trump national security team was fully briefed on the calls that were intended to reassure China that then-President Donald Trump was not planning a military attack.

“I know, I am certain, that President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese, and it is my directed responsibility and it was my directed responsibility by the secretary, to convey that intent to the Chinese,” Milley said. “My task at that time was to de-escalate my message again was consistent, stay calm, steady and de-escalate. We are not going to attack you.”

He pushed back on another story in the book that, in a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, he agreed with her assessment that Trump was “crazy.”

“I’m not qualified to evaluate the mental fitness or the health of a former president, present president or anybody else or anybody in this room,” Milley said. “That’s not my job. That’s not what I do. And that’s not what I did.”

Several Republican senators took Milley to task for giving access to reporters and authors.

“I think what you did with making time to talk to these authors, burnishing your image, kind of building that bluster, but then not putting the focus on Afghanistan and what was happening there,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “General Milley, this is disappointing to me. I know it’s disappointing to people that have served with you or under you, under your command. It does not serve our nation.”

“You’re doing these interviews and doing them in 2021. Makes me wonder the books, were you a little distracted about what was going on in Afghanistan?” said GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri who then demanded that Austin and Milley should resign.

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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by the deadline it would be a ‘calamity.’

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside Federal Reserve System Chairman Jerome Powell, Yellen said the U.S. would hit its debt limit in less than three weeks, on Oct. 18.

“This would be a manufactured crisis we had imposed on this country, which has been going through a very difficult period and is on the road to recovery,” she said. “This would be a self-inflicted wound of enormous proportions.”

The United States has never defaulted on its debt. Congress has voted 80 times to raise or suspend the debt limit since 1960.

Yellen has previously laid out the consequences to lawmakers of missing the deadline. She has said nearly 50 million seniors could temporarily stop receiving Social Security checks, troops could go unpaid and millions of families who receive the monthly child tax credit could experience delays. A default could also trigger a spike in interest rates and result in a steep drop in stock prices and other financial turmoil, reversing the current economic recovery into a recession, with billions of dollars of growth and millions of jobs lost.

Yellen painted a grim picture again Tuesday.

Even if Congress increases the debt limit but does so too close to the deadline, it could cause economic fallout, Yellen said.

“Furthermore, we know from previous debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise borrowing costs for taxpayers and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States for years to come. Failure to act promptly could also result in substantial disruptions to financial markets, as heightened uncertainty can exacerbate volatility and erode investor confidence,” Yellen outlined in a letter to congressional leadership.

Yellen also reiterated that raising the debt limit has nothing to do with future government spending — a point some Republicans have tried to push as reason for not supporting a debt-limit hike as Democrats on the Hill scramble to try to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger social spending package.

“I want to see that the debt ceiling is raised. I believe that it would be catastrophic not to do so. But I equally believe that deficits have been under both Democratic and Republican administrations, it’s important to recognize that, and that means paying the bills for those deficits is a shared responsibility,” Yellen testified.

ABC News’ Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Caitlyn Jenner, a candidate in California’s recent gubernatorial recall election, said Tuesday on “The View” that she would run for office again, advocating for greater inclusivity among “old school” Republicans who are hurting the party.

This month’s attempted recall of California Gov. Gavin Newsom failed by more than 24%, with some votes left to count. Jenner did not finish among the top 10 replacement candidates.

“Even though it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to in the end, it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Jenner said.

“Would I run again? Yes. I want to stay involved,” she added. “But there’s other things that I would like to do, and that is — one is — try to get the Republican Party to be more inclusive.”

Jenner, a transgender woman, had defended former President Donald Trump while he was in office, but later she said she could no longer support him after he “relentlessly attacked” the trans community. She said on Tuesday that she thinks the media doesn’t give Republicans a “fair break.”

“Trump certainly had his messaging issues,” Jenner said. “I will agree with you on that.”

“He had an insurrection issue and a couple of impeachment issues as well,” co-host Sunny Hostin added.

“We need better candidates,” Jenner responded, adding that “old school” Republicans are hurting the party.

“Honestly,” Jenner continued, “I feel like [they] are destroying the Republican Party in so many ways, they have to move on. There’s got to be a next generation to come in, and I think they’re out there. And I’m hopeful that they’re out there, but we have to change, we have to do a better job.”

Co-host Joy Behar asked Jenner her thoughts on the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection in Washington.

“Did that bother you too?” she asked Jenner.

Jenner said that Jan. 6 “obviously wasn’t right. And we can’t have that in our country.”

“We need to bring people together is what we need to do. We have a tendency in this country to put everybody in a box,” she said. “And the Republican party needs to change, and to be honest with you, I am the poster child for change.”

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(NEW YORK) — 

The TAKE with Rick Klein

He’s been there before, with many of the same players alongside him, and wants to see his party get there again.

With that in mind, former President Barack Obama is lending rhetorical support to President Joe Biden’s agenda — an agenda he thinks the nation “desperately needs” and that he believes Democrats will get across the finish line.

In an interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts — ahead of the groundbreaking for what he sees as a legacy-defining initiative: the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago — the former president urged his party not to shy away from the argument that wealthier Americans should be asked to pay more in taxes.

“I think that they can afford it. We can afford it. I put myself in this category now,” Obama said. “And I think anybody who pretends that it’s a hardship for billionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes so that a single mom gets child care support, or so that we can make sure that our communities aren’t inundated by wildfires and floods and that we’re doing something about climate change, for the next generation, you know, that’s an argument that is unsustainable.”

It’s a relatively simple message, but one with complicated repercussions at this moment of uncertainty for the agenda of his former vice president.

Memories of the political wipeout that followed the passage of Obamacare — back when Democrats had far more comfortable margins in Congress than they do now — would be fresh even if so many key figures weren’t still in positions of power.

One critique from back then is that Democrats failed to sell what they were seeking to do, in a debate where Obama and others found themselves playing defense around what bills would not do.

Obama’s long-view-of-history take isn’t shared by all Democrats, just like they don’t all agree on the unmitigated political upside of what Biden wants. But the party might be able to use a dose of the fierce urgency they famously had in the Obama days, in the uncertain now.

 

The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper

Top Pentagon officials are slated to face tough questions during testimony on Afghanistan before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, U.S. Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley will offer their insight into the chaotic troop drawdown in Afghanistan.

All eyes will be on Milley, who has taken heat, including calls to resign, since Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa revealed in their book “Peril,” that Milley took secret precautions to keep former President Donald Trump from being able to launch a nuclear weapon or taking military action after the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Milley and the others will likely be grilled on not only the troop withdrawal and the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members, but also on the later retaliatory drone strike that killed 10 civilians, including children.

Milley had first referred to the drone strike as “righteous,” but changed his stance amid the fallout.

“This is a horrible tragedy of war and it’s heart wrenching and we are committed to being fully transparent about this incident,” Milley said.

 

The TIP with Alisa Wiersema

The long-awaited debut of Texas’ redistricting proposal revealed that despite Republican influence on the map-making process, the outcome broadly favored incumbents on both sides of the aisle. Additionally, given the state’s rapid population growth, two newly proposed congressional districts — numbered 37 and 38 — were outlined respectively in the Austin and Houston suburbs.

Under the proposed map, incumbent Democrats — like Rep. Colin Allred and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher — whose current district borders would have led to competitive midterm challenges, were “packed” into would-be bluer districts. On the flipside, this means that many of the areas surrounding those districts are also going to become more favorable to Republicans and would lessen future chances of competitive races that could benefit Democrats.

Democrats also argue that the current configuration doesn’t reflect the state’s increased population being attributed to people of color.

The political packing approach is likely to resonate most in the Houston metropolitan area, where existing Democrat-represented districts were redrawn to overlap one another. This allows the newly proposed 38th Congressional District to create a new, reliably red district in the suburbs. Meanwhile, the creation of the 37th Congressional District near Austin would spread out existing Democrat influence, while reinforcing surrounding GOP-controlled districts.

The most visible border change would happen to Texas’ 34th Congressional District, which is currently occupied by retiring Democrat Filemon Vela. The current district would essentially be split in half and the southern, bluer region would become the entire district. The former northern portion would fold into the more GOP-favoring 27th district, which is currently occupied by GOP Rep. Michael Cloud.

 

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News’ “Start Here” Podcast. Tuesday morning’s episode begins with analysis of the verdict in R. Kelly’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial. Then, ABC’s Anne Flaherty reports on the impact of New York’s vaccine mandate on hospital workers. And, ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman is on the site of a major train derailment in Montana, where the NTSB is still trying to determine what happened. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

• ABC News’ Robin Roberts’ exclusive interview with former President Barack Obama airs on ABC’s “Good Morning America” at 7 a.m.
• Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie testify in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the conclusion of military operations in Afghanistan and plans for future counterterrorism operations at 9:30 a.m.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testify in a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on supporting an equitable pandemic recovery at 10 a.m.
• President Joe Biden receives the President’s Daily Brief at 10:30 a.m.
• The White House COVID-19 Response Team and public health officials hold a press briefing at 12:30 p.m.
• Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago at 1:15 p.m. CT
• White House press secretary Jen Psaki holds a briefing at 1:30 p.m.
• Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin participate in the final Virginia gubernatorial debate of the general election campaign in Alexandria, Virginia, at 7 p.m.

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the day’s top stories in politics. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.

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(CHICAGO) — Former President Barack Obama believes the migrant crisis at the border in Del Rio, Texas, is “heartbreaking” and thinks comprehensive immigration reform is needed to fix “a system that, overall, is dysfunctional.”

“It’s no secret that we don’t have that. It’s the reason I proposed comprehensive immigration reform. It’s the reason Joe Biden proposed it during his administration, and it’s something that is long overdue,” Obama told Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday morning.

As a candidate, Biden vowed to work with Democrats and Republicans to reach common ground on comprehensive immigration reform — efforts that have stalled in Congress for two decades.

Obama said that the crisis in Del Rio “is a painful reminder that we don’t have this right yet and we’ve got more work to do.”

“As big-hearted as he is, nobody understands that better than Joe Biden,” Obama added. “And the question is now: Are we gonna get serious about dealing with this problem in a systemic way, as opposed to these one-offs where we’re constantly reacting to emergencies? And I think that that’s something that every American should wanna put an end to.”

Biden vowed to implement a more humane approach to immigration than his predecessor, President Donald Trump, but now Biden is under fire from members of his own party over his administration’s handling of the migrant surge at the border in Del Rio.

At the center of the criticism from Democrats is the Biden administration’s use of a Trump-era public health order to rapidly expel thousands of those migrants, mostly Haitian nationals, without giving them a chance to apply for asylum within the United States — a move that violates U.S. asylum law, according to advocates challenging it in court.

“Despite the Administration’s rapid deployment of personnel and resources in response to this crisis, much of the strategy to address the care of these vulnerable individuals is deeply concerning,” Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson and Gregory W. Meeks said in a joint statement Wednesday. “Specifically, we urge the Administration to halt repatriations to Haiti until the country recovers from these devastating crises.”

The Biden administration is defending its use of a Trump-era public health order to deport migrant families in court, arguing that lifting it would lead to overcrowding at DHS facilities, and that an influx of migrants, amid the delta variant surge, poses a public health risk.

So far, more than a dozen flights have taken about 4,000 people back to Haiti, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on CNN on Sunday.

At one point, there were more than 14,000 migrants in Del Rio, putting a strain on Customs and Border Patrol resources.

The influx of migrants from Haiti came after civil unrest erupted this summer following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Caribbean nation.

“Immigration is tough. It always has been because, on the one hand, I think we are naturally a people that wants to help others. And we see tragedy and hardship and families that are desperately trying to get here so that their kids are safe, and they’re in some cases fleeing violence or catastrophe,” Obama said. “At the same time, we’re a nation state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that … as a practical matter, is unsustainable.”

Obama also weighed in on Biden’s attempts to unite Democrats as divisions within the party threaten to imperil the president’s domestic agenda.

Amid ongoing disagreements within the party over a $3.5 trillion so-called “human infrastructure” bill, Biden met last week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as moderate and progressive Democrats from both chambers.

“And as far as Democrats are concerned, I think President Biden is handling it exactly right, which is one of the great strengths of the Democratic Party is we’re diverse,” Obama said. “We come from all parts of the country. We look like the country as a whole.”

Obama said the country “desperately needs” the programs Biden has planned and predicted that the infrastructure package will pass.

“Any time Democrats try to pass legislation, there’s gonna be some negotiation and back and forth and sometimes some arguments that spill out into the press,” he said. “At the end of the day though, Democrats believe that we can make an economy that is fair, that we can address critical issues like climate change in a smart way.”

Obama has been outspoken in his support for his former vice president and told the New York Times in June that the Biden administration is “finishing the job” begun by the Obama presidency.

Obama is set to attend the groundbreaking of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Tuesday — a presidential library in the historic Jackson Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side that will honor his legacy as the first Black president.

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