(ATLANTA) — Stacy Abrams will be back on the campaign trail in a second bid for governor of Georgia, setting the stage for a possible rematch with GOP Gov. Brian Kemp whom she lost to in 2018.
Abrams, hoping to become the nation’s first Black chief state executive, made her campaign announcement Wednesday on Twitter.
“I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power,” Abrams said in an announcement video.
I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapol
In 2018, she ran a closely-watched race for governor against Kemp, but lost by almost 2 points.
Following the loss, Abrams continued to gain notoriety as she advocated for voting rights legislation. She launched the Fair Fight voter protection organization, which is credited with helping Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020, as well as Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win the state’s two Senate seats.
“We believe in this place and our folks who deserve to be seen and heard and have a voice because in the end, we are one GA.”
Abrams highlighted the work she’s accomplished since leaving the campaign trail in an announcement video that shows Abrams at community events and features various scenes of Georgians at work. I’ve worked to do my part to help families make it through paying off medical debt for 68,000 Georgians expanding access to vaccines, bringing supplies to overwhelmed food banks, lending a hand across our state, especially in rural Georgia,” she said.
Kemp may face a Republican primary challenge.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Andre Carson on Tuesday night forcefully condemned the anti-Muslim remarks made by their colleague, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, last week.
Omar, Tlaib, and Carson are the only three Muslims in Congress.
“We may only be three among hundreds serving in Congress, but we are strong advocates that won’t shy away in demanding better for our communities. No one deserves to feel hate or racism solely based on one’s faith. It’s completely unacceptable,” Tlaib said.
A shaken Omar spoke of her difficult experiences as a Muslim American — from the person who told her she would never be elected to Congress for wearing a hijab, to the bigoted reception she received from some Republican members when she was first elected.
“So, when a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the “jihad squad” and falsifies a story to suggest that I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just attack on me, but on millions of American Muslims across this country,” Omar said of Boebert.
In a video posted to Twitter last week, Boebert referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad” and claimed that a Capitol Police officer thought she was a terrorist in an encounter in an elevator on Capitol Hill.
She apologized on Twitter Friday “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended,” adding that she had reached out to Omar’s office to speak with her directly, but the phone call did not go well.
Omar hung up on Boebert after the Colorado Republican refused to make a public apology to her, according to a statement from Omar and Boebert’s account of the call.
“We cannot pretend that this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences,” Omar said Tuesday. “The truth is that anti-Muslim hate is on the rise both here at home and around the world.”
Omar said she has received “hundreds” of death threats often triggered by Republican attacks. She held up her phone to the mics and played out a disturbingly graphic voicemail she received just hours after she got off the phone with Boebert on Monday — highlighting the types of threats she receives.
“Condemning this should not be a partisan issue,” Omar said. “This is about our basic humanity and fundamental rights of religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution. Yet, while some members of the Republican Party have condemned this, to date, the Republican Party leadership has done nothing to hold their members accountable.”
Omar said she wants “appropriate action” taken against Boebert but will leave it to leadership to decide what that means. She did not seem keen on the idea of a resolution that would condemn Islamophobia, noting that it’s been done before.
“This kind of hateful rhetoric and actions cannot go without punishment. There has to be accountability,” she said.
A senior Democratic aide confirmed to ABC News that House leadership discussed a possible resolution condemning Islamophobia but didn’t make any decisions during a meeting Tuesday night.
“Rep. Boebert has directed hateful, racist rhetoric against my colleague and friend, Rep. Omar,” Rep. Carson said. “Her verbal abuse was incendiary and hurtful to her and Muslims across the country and the world.”
“This is not about hurt feelings or mean-spirited words. This is about calling out individuals who deliberately incite violence and irresponsibly spread lies and misinformation,” Carson added.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who is not Muslim, also stood in solidarity with Omar, Tlaib and Carson during the press conference and called on Boebert to be removed from her committees.
“I’m urging House leadership to hold Lauren Boebert accountable by removing her from her committee assignments, advancing a resolution of condemnation, and taking all other appropriate measures to ensure our message that Islamophobia, anti-Blackness, and xenophobia will not stand is loud and clear,” he said in a statement.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard historic arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with conservative justices openly raising the prospect of overturning decades of legal precedent since the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
After almost two hours, the conservative majority appeared headed toward changing 30 years of settled law protecting a woman’s right to end a pregnancy before fetal viability and upholding the Mississippi ban, which legal scholars say could clear the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.
“Viability it seems to me has nothing to do with choice,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “Why is 15 weeks not enough time?”
“That’s not a dramatic departure from viability,” Roberts added of the state law and the line it would draw.
Since the 1973 landmark Roe ruling and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case that affirmed the decision, the court has never allowed states to prohibit the termination of pregnancies prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks, according to medical experts.
Mississippi argues Roe was wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its own policy.
Scott Stewart, the solicitor general of Mississippi and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, spoke first, saying that the precedents the Supreme Court set with Roe and Casey in 1992 “damaged the democratic process” and “poisoned the law,” adding, “they’ve choked off compromise.”
“For 50 years they’ve kept this court at the center of a political battle that it can never resolve,” he said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the court should have taken up the case since the legal right to an abortion based on viability has been a long-standing precedent.
“There has been some difference of opinion with respect to undue burden, but the right of the woman to choose, the right to control her own body has been fairly set since Casey and never challenged. You want us to reject that viability line and adopt something different,” she said. “Thirty (justices) since Casey have reaffirmed the basic viability line. Four have said no to the members of this court, but 15 justices have said yes or varying political backgrounds.”
Referring to comments from a Mississippi lawmaker, she said, “The Senate sponsor said we’re doing it because we have new justices on the Supreme Court,” noting the new makeup of the court with three conservative justice appointed by former President Donald Trump.
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” she asked.
Justice Stephen Breyer stressed the importance of stare decisis — the legal principle that courts generally adhere to precedent.
“To overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question,” Breyer said.
Jackson Women’s Health and its allies say the high court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose the procedure is clear, well-established and should be respected.
But the current court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, is widely considered more sympathetic to abortion rights opponents than any in a generation.
Conservative justices homed in on the current viability standard of roughly 24 weeks, with Justice Samuel Alito describing the line set as “arbitrary.”
As Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, representing Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, argued the impact of pregnancy, Alito responded, “If a woman wants to be free of the burdens of pregnancy, that interest does not disappear the moment the viability line is crossed,” adding, “The fetus has an interest in having a life, and that doesn’t change from the point before viability and after viability.”
When Justice Thomas asked her to identify the constitutional right at issue — whether to abortion, privacy or autonomy, Rikelman replied, “It’s liberty.”
“It’s the textual protection in the 14th Amendment that the state can’t deny someone liberty without the due process of law,” she said.
“Allowing a state to take control of a woman’s body and force her to undergo the physical demands for risks and life-altering consequences pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation for liberty, and once the court recognizes that liberty interest deserves heightened protection, it does need to draw a workable line of viability that logically balances the interests at stake,” Rikelman added.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked if the court’s decisions in Roe and Casey were wrong to begin with, how that would counter the stare decisis principle.
“The Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice on abortion. If we think that the prior precedents are seriously wrong, why don’t we return to neutrality? Doesn’t the history of this court’s practice with respect to those cases tells us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality, and not stick with those precedents in the same way that all those other cases did?”
Later, Kavanaugh asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing the Biden administration’s support for abortion providers, “Why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress?”
“There’ll be different answers in Mississippi in New York, different answers and Alabama than California because they’re two different interests at stake and the people in those states might value those interests somewhat different way,” Kavanaugh said, signaling he might support handing the issue back to the states, despite saying at his confirmation hearings that Roe was “settled law.”
Prelogar replied that it’s not up to states to decide whether to honor fundamental rights.
A former clerk to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan, Prelogar earlier said, “The court has never revoked a right that is so fundamental to so many Americans and so central to their ability to participate fully and equally in society. The court should not overrule the central component of women’s liberty.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who’s personal views on abortion factored large during her confirmation hearing last year, raised doubts about how sweeping the impact would be if the court sides with Mississippi. “Don’t Safe Haven Laws take care of that?” she said, referring to legislation in nearly every state allowing a parent to abandon a newborn baby without fear of prosecution in the event life circumstances make them unable to parent.
Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
But Americans appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.
Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.
The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.
A decision in the Mississippi and Texas cases are expected by the end of the court’s term in June 2022.
The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday is hearing arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and whether decades of legal precedent since Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
Since the 1973 landmark Roe ruling and a 1992 case that affirmed the decision, the court has never allowed states to prohibit the termination of pregnancies prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks.
Mississippi argues Roe was wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its own policy.
The sole abortion clinic in the state, Jackson Women’s Health, and its allies say the high court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose the procedure is clear, well-established and should be respected.
The arguments are being heard by a court with a 6-3 conservative majority widely considered more sympathetic to abortion rights opponents than any in a generation.
Audio of the arguments, beginning at 10 a.m., can be heard live on the court’s website.
Legal scholars say the case is the most significant for abortion rights in 30 years. If the justices uphold the Mississippi law, they would be reversing a key precedent that could clear the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.
Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
But Americans appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.
Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.
The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.
A decision in the Mississippi and Texas cases are expected by the end of the court’s term in June 2022.
The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization is Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic. – ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider a case that could fundamentally transform abortion rights in America by overturning Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.
“This is the most important Supreme Court case on abortion since Roe in 1973, and I don’t think it’s particularly close,” said Sherif Girgis, Notre Dame law professor and former clerk to Justice Samuel Alito.
The justices will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health over a Mississippi law that prohibits termination of pregnancies after 15 weeks. Lower courts have found the ban plainly unconstitutional under the half century of legal precedent since Roe and put it on hold.
Fetal viability outside the womb — around 24 to 26 weeks, according to medical experts — has been the long-standing line before which states cannot ban abortions. Mississippi is asking the justices to eliminate that standard and allow each state to set its own policy.
“Roe v. Wade has hindered a healthy political dialogue about abortion, and perhaps most importantly, about how we as a society care for the dignity of women and children,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is leading defense of the state law.
The case will be heard by a court whose conservative majority of justices is widely viewed as more sympathetic to opponents of abortion rights than any in a generation. The three most recently appointed justices were all elevated to the high court by former President Donald Trump with the express purpose of overturning Roe.
”The new crop of quite conservative justices on the court seems to put special stock in how wrong a previous opinion was, and they all think that Roe was very, very wrong,” said Cardozo Law professor and ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw. “I think that will be an important factor in their decision whether to revisit it.”
The fact that the court decided to take up the case — without a clear conflict among lower courts or ambiguity in legal precedent — suggests to many legal scholars that a decision favoring Mississippi is highly likely.
“The court has long surprised us,” said Shaw, “but it seems to me a vanishingly slim chance that the court will strike down the Mississippi law.”
A decision upholding the state’s 15-week abortion ban would implicitly reverse nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and open the door to state restrictions much earlier in pregnancy.
“You cannot uphold Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion and continue the precedent of Roe v. Wade. They’re not compatible,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is leading the legal battle against the law. “There is no middle ground.”
Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
University of California, Berkeley Law professor Daniel Farber said the legal options before the court are stark and extreme. “I think between those two options, I think overruling Roe would win the day,” Farber said.
Some abortion law scholars believe the justices may attempt a more moderate approach — at least in appearance — by upholding the Mississippi law while explaining that they are changing, rather than overturning, the standard set by Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
“The court might say, ‘We are not finding that there’s no constitutional protection for abortion, only that these earlier decisions didn’t give sufficient weight to other kinds of state interests,'” said Shaw. “So, perhaps states may be able to ban abortions prior to viability, but that doesn’t mean they have carte blanche to ban all abortions.”
Mississippi has just one remaining abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health, that only provides abortion services up to 16 weeks of pregnancy. The state argues that a ban starting at 15 weeks would not impose a significant burden on most women.
While Americans are broadly supportive of abortion rights, they appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.
Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.
“SB8 has the effect of making the Mississippi statute look quite moderate,” said Julia Mahoney, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “So in a sense, upholding the Mississippi statute looks now like kind of a middle ground.”
The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.
Girgis said the delay suggests the justices “hit some snags” in their negotiations and may have decided to resolve the dispute in tandem with the Mississippi case.
“If they end up reversing Casey and Roe, then obviously the question of the constitutionality of SB8 becomes a lot easier,” Girgis said.
In the meantime, access to abortion care for millions of women in the nation’s second-most populous state remains on hold and could be suspended for months longer. The court is not expected to issue a decision in the Mississippi case until June.
“We’re waiting on tenterhooks to hear from the court,” said Northup of Texas law SB8. “But it is just quite unconscionable that we’re so many months in, allowing this law to be in effect when it clearly violates Roe v. Wade.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh could be the key vote to watch in both cases, analysts said. He sided with the majority more than any other justice last term and notably broke with Chief Justice John Roberts in September to allow SB8 to take effect.
“From a tea leaf reading standpoint, we’re watching Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett,” said Mary Ziegler, Florida State Law professor and a leading abortion law historian.
“I think she may have some incentive, certainly not to save Roe, but to take her time in unraveling Roe rather than kind of delivering an immediate death blow,” Ziegler said of Barrett, the court’s newest and youngest member. “We don’t know what Brett Kavanaugh, who is no longer beholden to John Roberts to get the deciding vote, will say about abortion.”
The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.
“If the court follows the rule of law, we will prevail,” Northrup said. “But we are ready to fight on every front if there should be a reversal of Roe.”
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, said she had an “unproductive” call with Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., on Monday over her anti-Muslim remarks and claimed the Colorado Republican refused to publicly apologize for suggesting she was a terrorist.
Instead, Omar claimed in a new statement that Boebert “doubled down on her hurtful and dangerous comments,” which led Omar to “end the unproductive call.”
In a video posted to Twitter last week, Boebert referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad” and claimed that a Capitol Police officer thought she was a terrorist in an encounter in an elevator on Capitol Hill.
She was condemned by Democrats and some Republicans for the remarks and apologized on Twitter Friday “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended,” adding that she had reached out to Omar’s office to speak with her directly.
Apparently, that call did not go well.
Omar hung up on Boebert after the Colorado Republican refused to make a public apology to her, according to a statement from Omar and Boebert’s account of the call.
“I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate,” Omar said, adding that Boebert “doubled down” on her comments.
In an Instagram video recapping their conversation, Boebert said she refused to make a public apology directly to Omar and instead demanded the Minnesota Democrat apologize for her “Anti-American” rhetoric.
“Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101, and a pillar of the Democrat Party. Make no mistake, I will continue to put America first, never sympathizing with terrorists,” Boebert said in her video. “Unfortunately, Ilhan can’t say the same thing, and our country is worse off for it.”
Omar and Democratic leaders, issuing a rare joint statement last week, have called on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans to hold Republicans accountable for the anti-Muslim rhetoric, but the California Republican has said nothing publicly about the exchange.
In her statement on Monday, Omar demanded McCarthy “actually hold his party accountable” for “repeated instances of anti-Muslim hate and harassment.” Her office also said she is routinely subjected to harassment and death threats.
Omar added in a tweet on Friday that “normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims.”
ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who served under former President Donald Trump until his firing in the wake of the 2020 election, has sued the Department of Defense over redactions they made to his upcoming book.
Esper’s memoir, set to be released in May of 2022, is expected to chronicle his time in the Trump administration, in which he served first as Secretary of the Army and then as Secretary of Defense until Trump tweeted about his firing on Nov. 9, 2020, following weeks of contention.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington on Sunday, said that Esper engaged in “extensive coordination” with the Department’s Office of Pre-publication and Security Review.
Esper alleges the review “dragged on” for six months and when he finally heard back on Oct. 7 after reaching out in May, there was no explanation given for some redactions.
“No written explanation was offered to justify the deletions,” Esper wrote in an e-mail to current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “My follow-on conversations with the DOPSR official handling my case confirmed my assessment. He similarly has been unable to assert that the redacted items contain classified information or compromise national security.”
Esper said he was asked not to quote his conversations with Trump or other foreign officials, although much of the material “was already in the public domain,” according to Esper.
His attorneys argue in the lawsuit that the Defense Department “has unlawfully imposed a prior restraint upon Mr. Esper by delaying, obstructing and infringing on his constitutional right to publish his unclassified manuscript entitled ‘A Sacred Oath.'”
The former defense secretary also said he had already met with Austin’s chief of staff and the Defense Department’s Director of Administration and Management, Mike Donley.
“I should not be required to change my views, opinions, or descriptions of events simply because they may be too candid at times for normal diplomatic protocol. After all, the DOPSR process is about protecting classified information and not harming national security — two important standards to which I am fully committed. Moreover, my Constitutional rights should not be abridged because my story or choice of words may prompt uncomfortable discussions in foreign policy circles,” he said in the suit.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby responded in a statement on Monday.
“We are aware of Mr. Esper’s concerns regarding the pre-publication of his memoir. As with all such reviews, the Department takes seriously its obligation to balance national security with an author’s narrative desire. Given that this matter is now under litigation, we will refrain from commenting further,” Kirby said.
In a memo reported first by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl in his new book Betrayal, the Presidential Personnel Office under the direction of John McEntee, a favorite aide of Trump, made a case for firing Esper three weeks before Esper was terminated.
Reasons outlined for his firing in the memo included that Esper “barred the Confederate flag” on military bases, “opposed the President’s direction to utilize American forces to put down riots,” “focused the Department on Russia,” and was “actively pushing for ‘diversity and inclusion.'”
(WASHINGTON) — With the COVID-19 omicron variant sending shockwaves around the world, President Joe Biden is set to address the nation surrounding the new variant following a morning briefing from his White House COVID-19 Response Team.
The president announced Friday that starting this week, the U.S. will restrict travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi. Experts predict it’s only a matter of time before the variant first detected in southern Africa is circulating in the U.S.
The omicron variant was first detected last week in Botswana and cases have since been confirmed in several countries including South Africa, Germany, Belgium, Japan and Canada. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the variant as one of concern on Friday.
In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, argued omicron gives Americans more reason to get their COVID-19 booster shots — or for getting the jab if they haven’t been vaccinated already.
“We just need to make sure that we know we have tools against the virus in general,” Fauci said.
Fauci told Biden in a meeting on Sunday that it would likely take two weeks for a better picture of omicron’s transmissibility and severity, according to a White House readout of the meeting. Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week” that it will also take time to determine if the current COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the new variant.
“The pharmaceutical companies are preparing to make a specific booster for this, but we may not need that,” Fauci said on Good Morning America.
Biden will address the public twice Monday. Following a meeting with CEOs from different business sectors, Biden will also deliver remarks about the supply chain and inflation concerns.
The president continues to face low polling numbers and mounting political pressure heading into the holiday season with several crises converging, from the ongoing pandemic to supply chain woes and rising consumer prices.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she’s confident President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan will be passed by Christmas, but Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy, are still firmly opposed.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the Build Back Better Act would help create jobs, which she said is crucial right now because of labor shortages in certain fields.
“We’ve got workforce issues, and that’s why this Build Back Better Act is so important,” Klobuchar said. “We need people, we need kids to go into jobs that we have shortages. We don’t have a shortage of sports marketing degrees. We have a shortage of health care workers. We have a shortage of plumbers, electricians, construction workers. This bill puts us on the right path.”
The House passed the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better Act on Nov. 19 along party lines, 220-213, with one Democrat voting “no.” The legislation includes $555 billion for climate initiatives, $109 billion for universal pre-K, $150 billion for affordable housing and $167 billion for Medicare expansion.
Cassidy, R-La., told Stephanopoulos the Build Back Better plan is “a bad, bad, bad bill.”
“There’s corporate welfare. It’s going to raise the price of gasoline at least about 20 cents a gallon. And it begins to have federal dictates as to how your child’s preschool is handled, the curriculum even,” he said.
President Joe Biden applauded the House for passing the Build Back Better Act and said in a statement it would help improve the economy if enacted.
“The United States House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act to take another giant step forward in carrying out my economic plan to create jobs, reduce costs, make our country more competitive, and give working people and the middle class a fighting chance,” he said.
The bill now heads to the Senate, but Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Joe Manchin D-W.Va. — key players in ensuring that the bill passes in the Senate — have not agreed to support the latest version of the bill yet.
“Sen. Manchin is still at the negotiating table, talking to us every day, talking to us about voting rights, getting that bill done, restoring the Senate,” Klobuchar said. “He’s talking to us about this bill.”
Cassidy argued that the social spending bill will fuel inflation, which is currently at a 30-year high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Stephanopoulos pointed out that the Biden administration has brought forward 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists who said the bill won’t increase inflation, but Cassidy argued that, according to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, those economists “said that was the bill they had then, not the bill they have now.”
“They point out that if you are going to avoid inflation, then you’ve got to be able to pay for it,” Cassidy said.
The Washington Post spoke to six of the 17 economists who signed the letter in support of the bill when the package totaled $3.5 trillion. The Post found that while “some indicated that the proposed changes [to the bill] have lessened the potential impact on inflationary pressures,” none of them backed away from their signing of the letter.
Inflation has been a mounting concern among Americans. Democrats are concerned, too, as Biden’s polling numbers drop, with 55% of Americans disapproving of his handling of the economy and 50% blaming Biden directly for inflation, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll.
On Tuesday, Biden announced that he would authorize a release of 50 million barrels from the U.S. strategic oil reserve, hoping to lower surging gas prices.
“I look at it this way — we’ve got an increased demand, shortage of supply. The petroleum reserve was a temporary measure,” Klobuchar said.
Cassidy has blamed the Biden administration for the high gas prices and in a tweet referred to Biden tapping into the strategic oil reserve as a “Band-Aid fix.”
Lawmakers are also facing another challenge. In October, Congress voted to temporarily raise the debt ceiling by $480 billion and put off the risk of the United States defaulting on its debt — which the treasury secretary said would be “catastrophic” — until mid-December.
Now, the time has come for negotiations to ramp up, but Republicans and Democrats are still butting heads.
“You know, if the Republicans want to scrooge out on us, and increase people’s interest rates and make it hard to make car payments — go ahead, make that case,” Klobuchar said. “We’re going to stop them from doing that.”
With only a couple weeks left until the U.S. reaches the debt limit, Stephanopoulos pressed Cassidy on why he’s against raising the debt ceiling.
“You mentioned the tax cuts. Republicans passed a huge tax cut under President Trump — that’s one of the things that extending the debt limit has to pay for,” Stephanopoulos said. “So why are you against extending the debt limit?”
“The debt limit in the past has been the result of bipartisan negotiations, bipartisan both about the spending, bipartisan both about the debt limit,” Cassidy said. “If you haven’t noticed, Republicans have not been invited in at all to discuss this.”
(COLORADO) — Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) issued an apology on Friday for remarks she made that used anti-Muslim tropes to refer to Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota and one of only three Muslim members of Congress.
Later on Friday, Omar sent a tweet calling for House leadership to take “appropriate action.”
Omar added that “normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims.”
In an undated video that went viral on Thursday, Boebert said that she was getting into an elevator with one of her staffers when a Capitol police officer rushed over to the elevator with “fret [sic] all over his face,” trying to open the door as it was closing.
She then claimed that, upon seeing Omar to her left, she said: “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,” implying that Omar could have been carrying explosives in a backpack — an anti-Muslim trope.
Boebert also called Omar a part of a so-called “jihad squad” twice in the video.
“I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction,” Boebert tweeted on Friday.
I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.
Omar said on Thursday that Boebert made up the story, and said that anti-Muslim racism should not be allowed in Congress.
“Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up,” Omar tweeted on Thursday night. “Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”
Omar received support from some fellow representatives, including Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who called Boebert’s remarks “shameful, deeply offensive and dangerous.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), another Muslim member of Congress, wrote on Thursday night, “These pathetic racist lies will not only endanger the life of @IlhanMN, but will increase hate crimes towards Muslims. The continued silence & inaction towards this hate-filled colleague and others is enabling violence. It must stop.”
One representative across the aisle, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), retweeted the video with the comment, “Boebert is TRASH.” Republican congressional leaders have not commented yet on Boebert’s remarks.
Edward Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN on Friday morning that Boebert’s comments were “beyond the pale.”
“You’ve gotta remember, Lauren Boebert is not some comedian at a club. She is a sitting member of Congress speaking to her constituents… I will say the more disturbing thing is that the audience applauded, and laughed, and that Republican leaders did not condemn this yet,” Mitchell said.
