2024 election updates: McConnell, Johnson rebuke Harris for calling Trump ‘fascist’

(WASHINGTON) — Lawmakers running for reelection loathe tough votes. And for senators up in purple states in two years, those tough votes are coming early.

President-elect Donald Trump is moving at a lightning pace to stock up his administration, mixing in conventional picks like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state with controversial moves like putting up Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for health and human services secretary. For frontline senators who hold the key to the next Senate majority, navigating their confirmations will be a minefield.

Republicans will be defending the seats of North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, while Democrats will be working to protect Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters. Their confirmation votes for Trump’s Cabinet picks offer a chance to prove bipartisan bona fides, but backing a nominee who is too controversial risks opening them up to attack in races that could be decided by razor-thin margins.

“If they’re smart, then it’s a major factor. The midterms are still a ways off. Generally, voters have short attention spans, and so it’s debatable how much of this stuff they’re going to remember. But I think it’s uniquely important for people who may take heat from the right,” said one GOP strategist.

Some of Trump’s nominees are not anticipated to run into significant roadblocks.

Rubio has already received praise from some Democratic senators, and members of the chamber are often given some degree of deference when facing confirmation to Cabinet positions. Waltz and Ratcliffe may face tighter margins than Rubio but are also considered to be among Trump’s more conventional picks.

But Gaetz and Kennedy, along with Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, named to run the Pentagon, will likely enjoy no Democratic support at all. With Republicans winning a maximum of 53 Senate seats this month, that leaves their margin for error small if they hope to be confirmed.

Already, Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski have sounded skeptical notes about some of Trump’s choices, and other Republicans, including Tillis, have remained noncommittal.

The pressure will be on for Republicans, though.

Trump won a comprehensive victory, and before he announced his more controversial cabinet picks, Republicans on Capitol Hill were touting the need for unity as they prepared to take over a unified government in January.

Collins is considered to be in a league of her own, sources said. A senior Republican who’s likely one of the few candidates, if not the only one, who can win her state, she’s expected to have especially wide latitude to oppose a candidate she deems unfit.

And with a base in such lockstep with Trump, any defiance from other GOP lawmakers could trigger outrage from the famously mercurial president-elect — fury that could in turn result in a primary challenge, and not just for swing-staters like Tillis.

At the same time, supporting a controversial nominee who pushes the envelope too far once confirmed risks becoming a general election issue.

“There will be Trump voters who remember how Republican senators handle these nominations. And so, I do think that for senators who are up this cycle, the base is watching how they handle Trump’s nominees,” the Republican strategist said.

“Any of these other safe-state Republicans who are in cycle, it’s within Trump’s power to cause problems for them on the right, if he chooses to,” the person added.

Still, underscoring the catch-22, any votes for nominees deemed too controversial could end up in ads from their ultimate Democratic opponents labeling them a “rubber stamp” for Trump, the source warned.

The pressure is on for House members, too.

House members will not have a vote in the confirmation process, but they will inevitably field a slate of questions about nominees like Gaetz. Those running in purple districts could opt to punt, noting their lack of a vote, or they could knock the more controversial contenders, also risking blowback from Trump.

“I would try and push it to the Senate first and see if you get away with that. And if you don’t get away with that, then I would strongly advise to stand by your principles and not to end up going down a path for someone else that you didn’t choose for yourself,” said William O’Reilly, a GOP strategist in New York, home to many endangered House Republicans. “Loyalty goes so far, the public is looking for legislators that have a little bit of backbone and common sense.”

Democrats are also in a pickle of their own.

Ossoff and Peters are Senate Democrats’ top frontline members up in 2026. Offering support to some of Trump’s picks like Rubio, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., for national security adviser and former Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, for CIA director, could bolster their bipartisan bona fides. But going too far risks turning off Democrats, a major risk when they’ll need every single supporter energized in states Trump won this month.

“Waltz, Ratcliffe and Rubio, if you’re Ossoff and you vote for them, independent voters see you’re a straight shooter, and he can claim he’s bipartisan, because he was,” said one Georgia Democratic strategist. “And then he says, ‘look, I voted for everybody except Gabbard on his national security team.'”

To be certain, there are several other factors at play across the key midterm races. Incumbents’ opponents are far from finalized, the midterms will take place almost two years after confirmation votes start in January, and some nominees might not even make it to a vote.

But already, the knives are out.

“President Trump and JD Vance are going to be running the Senate,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Trump ally, said on Fox Business this week. “If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a once-rising star in the GOP who fell out with her party over her criticism of Donald Trump, slammed the former president as an “unrecoverable catastrophe” in her call for other Republicans to vote against him this year.

“We see it on a daily basis, somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe, frankly, in my view, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he’s not reelected,” Cheney told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

“You have many Republicans out there who are saying, ‘Well, you know, we’re not going to vote for him, but we will write someone else in.’ And I think that this time around, that’s not enough, that it’s important to actually cast a vote for Vice President Harris,” Cheney added.

Cheney made her endorsement of Harris official this week, also announcing her father, former Vice President and liberal antagonist Dick Cheney, would follow suit.

The announcements from the Cheneys marked the highest profile endorsements from Republicans for Harris yet as the vice president looks to peel off disgruntled GOP voters frustrated with Trump’s hardline and personal brand of politics.

For his part, Trump appeared unconcerned with the endorsements, calling the former vice president “an irrelevant RINO, along with his daughter,” on his Truth Social platform. “RINO” stands for “Republican in name only.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded in kind when asked about the endorsements, replying, “who the f— is Liz Cheney?”

Liz Cheney cited both Harris’ policy stances this year — some of which have moved to the center since her first run in 2019 — and a speech Harris gave at the Democratic convention this summer which leaned heavily on themes of patriotism.

“I have never viewed this as a policy election, but I think that it’s very important point. If you look at Vice President Harris’s speech, for example, at the Democratic Convention, it is a speech that Ronald Reagan could have given. It’s a speech that George Bush could have given. It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation,” she said.

“I think that she has changed in a number of very important ways on issues that matter. And I would encourage independents to look at where she is on these policy issues today. I would encourage independents to compare where she is today with where Donald Trump is on these issues,” she added. “And on top of all of that, the Republicans have nominated somebody who you know is depraved.”

Cheney seemed to recognize the stark departure from carrying on a career as a conservative warrior in the House to now endorsing a Democrat for president, suggesting that the GOP has shifted its values while she has remained consistent.

When pressed by Karl if she’s still a Republican, Cheney responded, “I’m a conservative.”

“I am certainly not a Trump Republican. I am a conservative. I think that what’s happened to the Republican party today is indefensible, and I hope to be able to rebuild, as I said, after this cycle,” Cheney said.

“But I also think it’s really important for us as we’re thinking about rebuilding, as we’re thinking about the future the country, to recognize that at the end of the day, the vast majority of people in this country want to know fundamentally that their elected officials are going to defend the peaceful transfer of power,” she said. “And as someone who’s been a lifelong Republican, it’s heartbreaking to me to see what has happened to so many of the elected officials in my party, and I know we can do better.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(PITTSBURGH) — At the midway point of former President Donald Trump’s speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Megyn Kelly took the stage as a headliner to explain why she’s backing Trump.

“He will be a protector of women. And it’s why I’m voting for him,” Kelly said, suggesting the former president previously got mocked for making a similar statement.

The conservative media personality, who was previously a Fox News host, has had an at-times contentious relationship with the former president over the language he’s used to describe women. During the first debate of the 2016 campaign, Kelly as moderator had asked Trump about statements he’d made about women, including calling some derogatory names.

Eight years later, Kelly was on the stage in Pennsylvania on Monday helping Trump deliver what would be his final message before Election Day. Kelly suggested on Monday that she supports Trump because he takes care of the common man.

“He will look out for our boys to our forgotten boys and our forgotten men. Guys like you,” she said, adding, “Who maybe have a beer after work and don’t want to be judged by people like Oprah and Beyonce, who will never have to face the consequences of her disastrous economic policies.”

At one point, Kelly pointed to disagreeing with the “left’s version of masculinity,” mentioning advertisements in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign that called for women to vote for Harris without their husbands’ knowledge.

“You see that ad they did about Trump voters trying to encourage women to lie to their husbands so that they could vote for her instead of Trump,” Kelly said. “That’s their version of what marriage looks like, an overbearing husband who bullies his wife into saying she voted one way as opposed to an honest, open relationship.”

She added, “Oh wait, I’m talking about Kamala and Doug,” referencing the vice president’s husband, Doug Emhoff. “I’m not into their version of toxic masculinity or new masculinity. I prefer the old version,” Kelly said, alluding to Trump.

“I prefer a president who understands how to be strong and how to fight. I hope all of you do what I did last week. Vote Trump and get ten friends to vote Trump to.”

ABC News’ Jon Karl contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.