Trump adds RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, two previous Democrats, have joined former President Donald Trump’s transition team, the campaign confirmed to ABC News.
“As President Trump’s broad coalition of supporters and endorsers expands across partisan lines, we are proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team,” Trump campaign’s senior adviser Brian Hughes told ABC News in a statement.
“We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness,” Hughes continued.
Kennedy, who was until recently Trump’s opponent in the presidential race and a subject of Trump’s name-calling, and Gabbard, the former congresswoman who represented Hawaii and left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run, have both endorsed Trump in the last few days.
It’s not yet clear what roles Kennedy and Gabbard will be playing in the Trump-Vance transition team.
Others leading the transition effort include some of Trump’s family members as well as his major donors, including former U.S. Administrator of the Small Business Administration Linda McMahon, billionaire and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, running mate Sen. JD Vance and sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
Gabbard joined Trump on the campaign trail in Detroit on Monday where she later endorsed him.
She will also join him and moderate a town hall in La Crosse, Wisconsin, later this week. Gabbard has been helping Trump prepare for his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, the Trump campaign previously told ABC News.
After suspending his campaign on Friday, Kennedy endorsed Trump and said he would remove himself from the ballot in states where his presence could hurt Trump.
The New York Times was first to report the new additions to the transition team.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump and his campaign are reeling from the surprise announcement that President Joe Biden was ending his reelection bid, forced to pivot their infrastructure toward a new candidate as Trump himself airs out his frustrations publicly.
Trump campaign officials have publicly expressed confidence they can defeat any Democratic candidate; however, privately, sources have aired out frustrations surrounding new advertisement and messaging strategies.
Since Biden’s announcement, Trump has taken to his social media platform to post more than 10 times, offering real-time insight into the changes Trump is going to have to make as he now has to prepare for competing against a new candidate, likely Vice President Kamala Harris.
The former president is still focusing much of his attacks on Biden, barely mentioning Harris, as he pushed unfounded claims that Biden isn’t actually recovering from COVID, questioned how Biden would be able to serve the rest of his term, and even argued the Republican Party should be reimbursed for the money they’ve spent on challenging Biden.
“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!” Trump first posted, continuing to post well into Sunday night — then started up early Monday morning.
Though campaign officials have already started to pivot their focus to Harris, posting new ads and highlighting her gaffes, Trump unveiled the realities of the wasted money and resources the Trump team now has to deal with.
“Now we have to start all over again. Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud in that everybody around Joe,” he said in a post Sunday night.
Sources have complained to ABC News that they won’t be able to use ads they had ready to go, including ones that highlighted Biden’s poor debate performance.
It’s unclear how much exactly the Trump campaign had spent on ads directly attacking Biden this election cycle, but pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., which has stricter disclosure requirements on ads than the campaign, had spent more than $30 million on ad placements attacking Biden.
However, the super PAC is already attacking Harris with several “flashbacks” using her own words in an attempt to remind voters on what they believe is a failed record — rolling out a $5 million ad campaign in battleground states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s decision, it appears the Trump campaign and his allies’ messaging is focused on linking the Biden administration’s policies to Harris as well as criticizing Democrats for the unprecedented actions to the electoral process.
Much of Biden’s campaign has been centered around labeling Trump a “threat to democracy,” pointing to his legal cases and continuously highlighting the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Now, Trump is flipping the argument, saying Democrats “stole” the race from Biden after primary voters chose him as the party’s nominee.
“The Democrats pick a candidate, Crooked Joe Biden, he loses the Debate badly, then panics, and makes mistake after mistake, is told he can’t win, and decide they will pick another candidate, probably Harris,” Trump said. “They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries — A First! These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”
Last week, Trump’s vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance floated that if Biden doesn’t seek reelection, then he should resign. Trump picked up this rhetoric following Biden’s decision to step down saying, “If he can’t run for office, he can’t run our Country!!!”
“If Joe Biden can’t run for president, he can’t serve as president. And if they want to take him down because he’s mentally incapable of serving, invoke the 25th Amendment,” Vance said during a sit-down interview with Fox News’ Jesse Waters taped on Saturday.
“You don’t get to sort of do this in the most politically beneficial way for Democrats. If it’s an actual problem, they should take care of it the appropriate way,” Vance continued.
Trump, who clinched the Republican nomination for a third time at the Republican National Convention, suggested that the election was stolen in 2020. He classified his new campaign as competing for a “fourth time.”
“Crooked Joe just got knocked out, so now I’ll have to do it a FOURTH TIME!!!” Trump posted.
While Democrats try to lock in enough delegates for Harris to assume the top of the ticket in the coming days, the Trump campaign is forced to move forward with a new campaign strategy this week. It’s a significant shift with a little more than 100 days until Election Day, in which Trump said he believed he would win by a “monumental landslide,” picking up wins in battleground states and expanding the map to Minnesota, New Jersey and Virginia.
(WASHINGTON) — Former president Donald Trump is facing criticism for recent comments made about the Jewish community in which he claimed a Jewish American who votes for a Democrat is “an absolute fool.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC), a global Jewish advocacy group, condemned Trump’s comments.
“At a time when antisemitism is at record levels, the statement by the former president is divisive and potentially dangerous,” the AJC told ABC News in a statement.
“Jews as a group should not be targeted for their beliefs or how they choose to vote. Even more problematic is when individuals are singled out or targeted,” the latter referring to recent comments made specifically about Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish.
In a July 30 interview with New York radio host Sid Rosenberg on the radio station 77WABC, owned by Red Apple Media, Trump said that “any Jewish person that voted for her or him or whoever it’s going to be … should have their head examined,” referring to likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump continued: “If you love Israel, or if you’re Jewish, because a lot of Jewish people do not like Israel, and they happen to be in New York, you know that. But if you are Jewish, regardless of Israel, if you’re Jewish, if you vote for a Democrat, you’re a fool, an absolute fool.”
Rosenberg then made derogatory comments about second gentleman Doug Emhoff, calling him “a crappy Jew” as Trump appeared to agree.
“Doug Emhoff, Mr. President, is Jewish,” Rosenberg said during the interview. “He’s Jewish like Bernie Sanders is Jewish. Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah,” Trump responded.
“He’s a crappy Jew,” Rosenberg continued.
“Yeah,” Trump again said.
“He’s a horrible Jew,” said Rosenberg.
In a March interview, Trump claimed that “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.”
Emhoff responded at the time on X, writing: “Donald Trump uses stereotypes to demean Jewish Americans. He called Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville ‘very fine people.’ And his former Chief of Staff said he even praised Adolf Hitler. This hateful and antisemitic rhetoric is toxic. Donald Trump is the one who should be ashamed.”
Trump’s most recent comments follow his claim at a July 26 speaking event that Harris doesn’t like Jewish people, despite her being married to a Jewish man.
“She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. She’s not going to change,” he said at a conservative Christian event in Florida.
The former president’s comments come amid rising incidents of antisemitism across the U.S., with federal and local law enforcement agencies warning about the heightened tensions stoked by the Israel-Hamas war overseas.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign responded on July 26 to Trump’s comments claiming she doesn’t like Jewish people, calling his vision for the country “bitter, bizarre, and backward looking” and arguing he “insulted the faith” of Jewish voters.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for further comment.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., slammed Trump for repeating what Schumer called an “old antisemitic trope” about the loyalties of Jewish voters.
“It’s been used for a very long time to drive Jews out of their homes, to paint them as untrustworthy to deny the basic dignity,” Schumer said in a July 31 speech.
Schumer continued: “Donald Trump then repeated the sick idea that if you’re a Jew, and if you happen to support Democrats, you should ‘have your head examined’ and that you’re a bunch of ‘fools.’ Sadly, we’ve been here before, but it must be said again: Donald Trump’s comments were reprehensible, dangerous, and prove that he is disturbingly at ease with antisemitic rhetoric.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Isabella Murray, Will McDuffie, and Gabriela Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Amid escalating rhetoric from former President Donald Trump threatening to prosecute his enemies should he win the 2024 election, Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered remarks to the Justice Department workforce on Thursday urging they continue to adhere to longstanding principles intended to protect DOJ from improper politicization.
“Our norms are a promise that we will fiercely protect the independence of this Department from political interference in our criminal investigations,” Garland said.
Garland added, “Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this Department to be used as a political weapon. And our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.”
The remarks come as Garland has sought to refute allegations from Trump and his allies of weaponization of the department through its prosecution of individuals involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dueling prosecutions of Trump himself for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Those close to Garland have disputed those accusations as baseless — pointing in part to DOJ’s prosecution and conviction of Democrats like disgraced New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez on corruption charges as well as the separate Special Counsel prosecutions of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Trump and his allies, in turn, have ramped up in recent months their promises to use the Justice Department as a tool of retribution against his political enemies — with Trump in a Truth Social post over the weekend threatening “long term prison sentences” for “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” he baselessly accused of being involved in “cheating” in the 2020 and 2024 elections.
Garland forcefully rebuked what he describes as a “dangerous — and outrageous” spike in threats targeting DOJ employees under his tenure.
“Over the past three and a half years, there has been an escalation of attacks on the Justice Department’s career lawyers, agents, and other personnel that go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and necessary oversight of our work,” Garland said. “These attacks have come in the form of conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out, and threats of actual violence.”
Garland used his remarks specifically to point to steps taken during his tenure he says have been aimed at isolating the department from allegations of politicization, such as re-implementing policies intended to limit contacts with the White House.
Those policies, however, were complicated by the Supreme Court’s July ruling that effectively granted Trump immunity in his federal election subversion case over his alleged efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the election. The court’s conservative majority determined that Trump and other presidents should be shielded from any criminal liability for contacts with the DOJ, that they said clearly fall within the chief executive’s core powers.
As a result, Special Counsel Smith returned a superseding indictment two weeks ago against Trump that stripped out any mentions of the alleged DOJ plot.