Judge denies Meadows’ request to move Arizona ‘fake elector’ case to federal court
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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday denied former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ request to have the Arizona “fake elector” case against him moved to federal court from Arizona state court.
Meadows, along with 17 others, was charged in Arizona with forgery and conspiracy over alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state. He has pleaded not guilty.
In August, Meadows’ attorneys argued the case should be moved to federal court because the indictment “squarely relates to Mr. Meadows’s conduct as Chief of Staff to the President.” The argument is similar to the one Meadows has made for months in his Fulton County, Georgia, case, citing a law that calls for the removal of criminal proceedings when someone is charged for actions they allegedly took as a federal official.
U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tuchi said the state charges — nine felony counts for his role in the effort to overturn former President Donald Trump’s Arizona election loss — is “unrelated” to Meadows’ official duties.
“Although the Court credits Mr. Meadows’s theory that the Chief of Staff is responsible for acting as the President’s gatekeeper, that conclusion does not create a causal nexus between Mr. Meadows’s official authority and the charged conduct,” Tuchi said.
“The Court finds that Mr. Meadows fails to present good cause for his untimely filing of his Notice of Removal, and that in any event, an evaluation on the merits yields that he fails to demonstrate that the conduct charged in the state’s prosecution relates to his former color of office as Chief of Staff to the President,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement in response to the ruling. “The Court therefore will remand this matter to the state court.”
Earlier this summer, charges were dropped against former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis in exchange for cooperation in the case.
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead. Via Flickr
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump continues to announce his picks for top jobs inside his administration, most recently naming nominees for energy secretary and to helm the Federal Communications Commission.
Meanwhile, fallout continues for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s choice to serve as attorney general. The House Ethics Committee was investigating Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Calls are growing for the panel to release its report on Gaetz, who resigned from the House last week.
‘Dangerous’: Caroline Kennedy weighs in on RFK’s views on vaccines
Caroline Kennedy weighed in on her cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s views on vaccines during remarks on Monday after he was announced as the nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.
“I think Bobby Kennedy’s views on vaccines are dangerous, but I don’t think that most Americans share them. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” she said at the National Press Club of Australia.
“You know, I grew up with him,” she added. “So, I have known all this for a long time and others are just getting to know him.”
Kennedy added that her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, had fought for affordable health care, and that her family was proud of President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, which she said was built on Sen. Kennedy’s work.
“I would say that our family is united in terms of our support for the public health sector and infrastructure and has greatest admiration for the medical profession in our country, and Bobby Kennedy has got a different set of views,” Caroline Kennedy said.
–ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
Trump transition live updates: Ethics Committee expected to meet on Gaetz: Sources
President-elect Donald Trump continues to announce his picks for top jobs inside his administration, most recently naming nominees for energy secretary and to helm the Federal Communications Commission.
Meanwhile, fallout continues for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s choice to serve as attorney general. The House Ethics Committee was investigating Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Calls are growing for the panel to release its report on Gaetz, who resigned from the House last week.
‘Dangerous’: Caroline Kennedy weighs in on RFK’s views on vaccines
Caroline Kennedy weighed in on her cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s views on vaccines during remarks on Monday after he was announced as the nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.
“I think Bobby Kennedy’s views on vaccines are dangerous, but I don’t think that most Americans share them. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” she said at the National Press Club of Australia.
“You know, I grew up with him,” she added. “So, I have known all this for a long time and others are just getting to know him.”
Kennedy added that her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, had fought for affordable health care, and that her family was proud of President Barack Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, which she said was built on Sen. Kennedy’s work.
“I would say that our family is united in terms of our support for the public health sector and infrastructure and has greatest admiration for the medical profession in our country, and Bobby Kennedy has got a different set of views,” Caroline Kennedy said.
–ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
House Ethics Committee expected to meet to discuss Gaetz report
The House Ethics Committee is expected to meet on Wednesday and discuss its report of Rep. Matt Gaetz, multiple sources tell ABC News.
While the meeting can still be cancelled, sources said the committee could potentially take a vote on whether to release the report.
-ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Will Steakin
‘Morning Joe’ co-hosts say they met with Trump on Friday
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski said on Monday morning that they had met with President-elect Donald Trump on Friday at Mar-a-Lago.
The goal of the meeting, they said, was to “restart communications” among the liberal-leaning morning show hosts and the incoming administration.
“Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast, and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself. On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” Brzezinski said.
Scarborough said the hosts and Trump did not “see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so.”
“What we did agree on was to restart communications,” Brzezinski added, noting that Trump seemed “cheerful” and “upbeat.”
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(WASHINGTON) — Catholic voters have always been a key voting bloc in every presidential election, with candidates vying hard for their support.
And this year, the battle for their votes has gotten aggressive as former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Vice President Kamala Harris has been anti-Catholic.
While Harris has not said the same about Trump, she has sent a message to Catholic voters that her policies are in line with their social and political views and priorities. But in reality, academics who have been studying religion’s role in politics tell ABC News that it’s not easy to pin a single label on the nation’s Catholics.
“It’s really interesting that the Catholic Church is probably one of the few places where you find people with different perspectives sitting together at Sunday Mass,” Margaret Susan Thompson, a professor of history at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, told ABC News.
Thompson and others said that if past election results are any indication, Catholic turnout and the choices they make at the polls will depend on a variety of factors.
Changing demographics show schism in voting patterns
Thompson, who has been researching Catholic vote trends, said that, as a whole, Catholics have been voting more Republican in the last 44 years after abortion became a major campaign issue for the Christians as a whole.
But over those decades, she noted that the makeup of American Catholics has also changed as the number of non-white Catholics has grown.
Since 2007, the share of American Catholics who are white has dropped by 8 percentage points, while the share who are Hispanic has increased by 4 points, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
“It has changed the map a lot,” Thompson said. “Latino Catholics have risen in numbers in the South and in swing states like Arizona and have brought their own perspectives on their faith and their beliefs.”
Ryan Burge, associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, who has compiled data on the voting patterns of the county’s religious groups, agreed.
“The Catholic vote is full of contradictions,” Burge said. “There is a lot of cross-pressures that they face. They may be white, but also a union member. They may be against LGTBQ rights but want better immigration rights.”
Burge told ABC News that the increased diversity among Catholics has also reflected a shift in the presidential races.
In 2020, 56% of Catholic voters voted Republican, according to data he compiled from Harvard University’s Cooperative Election Study. However, when the community was broken down into race, 59% of white Catholics voted Republican last election while it was only 31% of non-white Catholics voted for the GOP.
“We see the same racial trends for most religious groups,” he explained.
Not in communion with the Catholic Church’s teaching
Thompson said the diversity also extends to Catholics’ political leanings.
For example, Pew found that 61% of all Catholics find abortion should be legal in all or most cases. An ABC News/Ipsos poll found 55% of Catholics would rather the federal government restore abortion access as it was before the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade.
“Just because the hierarchy says ‘this is right, this is wrong’ doesn’t mean that every Catholic is going to follow their lead,” she said.
Burge also noted that cultural ties outside of one’s religion have factored in individual leanings of certain Catholic groups.
For example, he noted that data has shown that Latino Catholics are less in favor of promoting LGBTQ rights and socialism ideals than their white and Black counterparts.
“I think they are pulled in two directions,” he said of Latino Catholics. “Traditionally they’ve been Democratic and we’ve seen them in a majority still vote Democratic but they’ve always been culturally conservative. I think that’s where you’re seeing the shift in some Latino circles voting Republican because of the party’s messaging on those issues.”
A recent ABCNews/Ipsos poll found that Catholic likely voters are closely divided in vote preference, 51-48% Trump-Harris.
“I think they seem to be a more moderate voting bloc. I don’t think they can be taken for granted,” Burge said.
Trump slams Harris over Catholic vote on the campaign trail
Since the start of the election season, the Trump, Biden and Harris campaigns have been trying to court various religious groups.
Trump, in particular, has been sounding off in rallies, social media and interviews against Harris, calling her anti-Catholic. He’s claimed in a Truth Social post that she lost the Catholic vote due to her stance on reproductive rights and that she was “persecuting” the group.
“Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined,” he said in a Truth Social post in September.
Harris has rarely made direct comments about the Catholic vote during the campaign and did not attend the annual Al Smith Dinner hosted by the Archdiocese of New York, saying it was due to schedule conflicts.
Even though she was the first presidential candidate not to attend the dinner in 40 years, she provided a video speech that included a skit with “Saturday Night Live” alum Molly Shannon.
“The Gospel of Luke tells us that faith has the power to shine a light on those living in darkness and to guide our feet in the path of peace. In the spirit of tonight’s dinner, let us recommit to reaching across divides, to seek understanding and common ground,” she said.
Trump, in breaking with the dinner’s soft-hearted roasting, continued his attacks on Harris at the dinner.
“You can’t do what I just saw on that screen, but my opponent feels like she does not have to be here, which is deeply disrespectful to the event and in particular to our great Catholic community. Very disrespectful,” he said.
Rhetoric does little to sway Catholic voters
Despite the media attention, the experts said that Trump’s rhetoric and back-and-forth with Harris over the Catholic vote isn’t going to move the needle.
Thompson said that there are very few undecided voters left and most voters’ preferences are locked in at this point.
She also noted Trump’s attacks and messaging are no different from the language he’s used for other religious groups, such as Jewish voters, Latino voters and Black voters.
“It’s his go-to phrase: ‘They should have their head checked,'” she said.
Thompson also noted that the sentiment applies to the Vatican.
Pope Francis weighed in on the election in September and appeared to take a middle ground, claiming “One must choose the lesser of two evils.”
“Who is the lesser of two evils? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know,” he told reporters during a news conference.
Francis did not directly name Trump or Harris or either political party, but even while noting the church’s opposition to abortion, he also emphasized a more moderate stance on social issues.
“To send migrants away, to leave them wherever you want, to leave them … it’s something terrible, there is evil there. To send away a child from the womb of the mother is an assassination, because there is life. We must speak about these things clearly,” he said.
Thompson said that the pope has contributed to a major schism among Catholics, with more conservative members dismissing his progressive stances on LGBTQ rights and the environment and more liberal members calling him out for not shifting the church’s stance on reproductive rights.
“There is selective listening to the pope by everyone,” she said. “I don’t think that his non-endorsement is really going to change people’s minds, either.”
Burge said that, at the end of the day, the moments that are going to affect the Catholic vote are in the rhetoric and actions of the candidates in the final days.
“Politicians have always had a problem speaking about religion without sounding pandering,” he said. “The public just cares about where they stand and how they are going to tackle the issues they feel are important.”
(NEW YORK) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff has slammed Donald Trump over antisemitic comments made by the former president.
In a new interview with GMA anchor Michael Strahan, the second gentleman, who is Jewish, accused Trump of having a “record” of saying “vile, antisemitic things.”
Strahan asked Emhoff what he thought of Trump’s July interview with WABC in which he claimed Vice President Kamala Harris, Emhoff’s wife and Democratic candidate for president, “doesn’t like Jewish people.”
“It’s typical Donald Trump gaslighting,” Emhoff told Strahan. He “is a guy who has had a record of saying incredibly vile, antisemitic things. So, for him to say that — I just almost laugh at — at how– the chutzpah, as we would say.”
Emhoff has repeatedly attacked Trump over his rhetoric towards Jewish Americans, calling him an antisemite in May after Trump claimed Jewish people who voted for President Joe Biden needed to “have to have their head examined.”
On Wednesday, Emhoff headlined two separate fundraisers for the Harris-Walz campaign, where he defended his wife against comments made by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said at a Trump town hall on Tuesday in Michigan that Harris “doesn’t have anything to keep her humble” because she does not have biological children.
“We know that all parents, no matter how you become one, make the same sacrifices and revel in the same joys of raising children as any parent anywhere,” Emhoff said, adding, “Women in this country will never humble themselves before Donald Trump.”
