Man punches election judge in the face while waiting in line to vote
Facebook / Orland Park Police Department
(ORLAND PARK, IL) — A 24-year-old Illinois man has been arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance in a voting line before punching an election judge in the face, police said.
The incident occurred on Sunday at approximately 11 a.m. when Orland Park police officers were dispatched to the Orland Park Township Office in Illinois due to a man — later identified as 24-year-old Daniel Schmidt — “causing a disturbance in the voting line,” police said.
“Officers on scene learned that Schmidt entered the township building and walked past numerous other voters waiting in line to enter the voting area,” the Orland Park Police Department said in a press release detailing the incident. “An election judge posted at the entrance told Schmidt to go to the back of the line and wait his turn, which Schmidt refused.”
Police said that another election judge was called at that point to help assist in the disturbance and Schmidt was once again instructed to go to the back of the line, which Schmidt declined to do.
“Schmidt attempted to push past that election judge and was prevented from entering by that judge and several other employees,” authorities said. “Schmidt began to yell profanities and punched the election judge in the face, knocking their glasses off.”
Several other patrons jumped in and managed to restrain Schmidt until officers arrived and found him inside the Township office where he tried to resist arrest, police said.
“At Orland Park Police Headquarters, the Cook County States Attorney’s Office was contacted and approved (2) counts of Aggravated Battery to a victim over 60 (Class 3 Felony), (2) counts of Aggravated Battery in a public place (Class 3 Felony), (5) misdemeanor counts of Resisting Arrest and one misdemeanor count of Disorderly Conduct,” said the Orland Park Police Department.
Schmidt was held overnight and transported to Bridgeview Courthouse for a detention hearing and the investigation is currently ongoing.
(WASHINGTON) — The House voted Wednesday to pass a bill that funds the federal government until Dec. 20 and averts a government shutdown at the end of the month.
Once again, Democrats helped Republicans get the bill over the finish line, with all Democrats voting for the bill and 82 Republicans voting against it.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to pass a funding measure that included the SAVE Act — a bill that would have required proof of citizenship to vote — failed last week due to Democratic opposition and several Republican defections. Earlier Johnson had pulled it from the floor when it was clear he didn’t have the votes to get it passed.
Before the vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pointed out that it has been House Democrats that have helped Republicans avoid shutdowns during the current Congress.
“Can anyone name a single thing that extreme MAGA Republicans in the House have been able to do on their own to make life better for the American people? A single thing? Just one,” he asked. “Can the American people name a single thing that extreme MAGA Republicans have done to make their lives better? Zip, zero. So that is the track record that will be presented to the American people,” he said.
Former President Donald Trump had called on congressional Republicans to allow the government to shut down over the SAVE Act.
Johnson told ABC News, “I am not defying President Trump” when asked if the former president approved of the new solution to avoid a shutdown.
“I’ve spoken with him at great length, and he is very frustrated about the situation,” Johnson said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “His great concern is election security, and it is mine as well. It is all of ours.”
Johnson asserted Trump “understands the current dilemma” with House Republicans and said, “there’s no daylight between us.”
The White House and congressional Democrats all slammed Johnson’s attempt to tie the voter eligibility legislation to government funding, noting that it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
But the “clean” short-term measure to avert a shutdown was praised by Democratic leaders and the Biden administration.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate would “immediately move” to pass the measure as soon as the House sends it over, and “if all goes well in the House, the Senate should be sending President Biden a bill before the end of today.
“Americans can breathe easy that because both sides have chosen bipartisanship, Congress is getting the job done,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “We will keep the government open. We will prevent vital government services from needlessly coming to a halt. We will give appropriators more time to fully fund the government before the end of the year. And I’m especially pleased we’re getting the job done with some time to spare.”
In addition to funding the government through Dec. 20, the bill includes funds to replenish FEMA and $231 million for the U.S. Secret Service in the wake a second apparent assassination attempt against Trump.
The White House Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday released a statement calling for “swift passage of this bill in both chambers of the Congress to avoid a costly, unnecessary Government shutdown.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(ARIZONA) — Former President Donald Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric at a rally in battleground Arizona on Thursday, calling the United States a “garbage can for the world.”
“We’re a dumping ground. We’re like a — we’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what, that’s what’s happened to us. We’re like a garbage can,” Trump said at a rally in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday.
Trump made the comments as he criticized the Biden-Harris administration for its handling of the border, a key voter issue — especially in Arizona, a border state and swing state that President Joe Biden flipped to edge out Trump by 0.3 percentage points in 2020. Trump also made the comments with less than two weeks until Election Day — and as the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris duke it out in what’s expected to be a close contest.
The former president went on to claim that criminals and other bad figures are from all over the world are coming into the country unchecked.
“First time I’ve ever said ‘garbage can,'” Trump said. “But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”
Harris told reporters in Houston on Friday that Trump’s assertion that America is a “garbage can for the world” “belittles our country.”
“This is someone who is a former president of the United States, who has a bully pulpit, and this is how he uses it, to tell the rest of the world that somehow the United States of America is trash,” Harris said. “And I think, again, the president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invest in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who is constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are.”
While the “garbage can” remarks may be a first for Trump to utter at a rally, it’s not the first time he has used anti-immigrant rhetoric — now a common element at his events. Since he began campaigning for president this cycle, Trump has said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and called them “criminals” who will “cut your throat.”
Earlier this year, Trump repeated false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating the dogs and cats of the town’s residents. Notably, Trump mentioned the baseless claims — which were amplified by right-wing politicians, including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance – on the presidential debate stage.
Earlier this month, the former president used anti-immigrant rhetoric during an interview on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” to disparage many of the legal Haitian migrants living in Springfield Ohio, referring to their temporary protective status as “a certain little trick.”
“Look at Springfield, where 30,000 illegal immigrants dropped, and it was, they may have done it through a certain little trick, but they are illegal immigrants as far as I’m concerned,” said Trump. “They’re destroying the town … they’ll end up destroying the state. We cannot let this happen.”
He has also called for the round up and deportation of millions of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.
Also in October, the former president suggested he believes that migrants have it “in their genes” to murder people, adding “we got a lot of bad genes in our country.”
“How about allowing people to come through an open border — 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” Trump said during an interview on the “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
Despite the fact that U.S. citizens commit crimes at higher rates than undocumented immigrants, Trump painted them as “criminals” who will “cut your throat” at a campaign stop in Wisconsin in September.
“And you remember when they say no, no, these are migrants and these migrants, they don’t commit crimes like us,” Trump said. “No, no, they make our criminals look like babies. These are stone-cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”
Trump also featured anti-immigrant rhetoric in his 2016 White House bid — often casting them as rapists and drug traffickers.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Fritz Farrow and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report.
People inspect the remains of an Iranian missile that fell into the home of a Bedouin family in the Negev desert near Arad, Oct. 2, 2024, in the aftermath of an overnight Iranian missile attack on Israel. (Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Even as Iranian missiles were streaking across the skies over Israel this week, U.S. officials say they were actively engaging with their Israeli counterparts to game out an appropriate response to the attack and underscore the need to avoid escalation.
Now that the fog of war has subsided to reveal that Iran’s barrage on Tuesday did not incur massive loss of life or widespread damage, several Biden administration officials tell ABC News they’re more optimistic they can persuade Israel to carry out a measured response — but said they still fear a significant counterattack could trigger additional military action from Iran that leads to spiraling escalation in the Middle East.
One U.S. official said Israel aims to reestablish deterrence through its response by putting on a show of force. However, the official said Israel is unlikely to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities — a move that would spark ire from Tehran and one President Joe Biden made clear he does not support following a conversation with other members of the G7.
“We’ll be discussing with Israelis what they’re going to do,” Biden said Wednesday. “All seven of us agree that they have a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion.”
Another U.S. official said Israel could opt to go after other targets critical to Iran’s economy, like the country’s energy grid or its oil production infrastructure, but that striking a military installation would be the route with the lowest risk of escalation.
They added that the Biden administration believes Israel is still evaluating its options and has not yet set a firm timeline for its response.
An Israeli official told ABC News on Wednesday that its retaliation would be “significant” and “come fast.”
The Iranian regime has issued a range of messages following Tuesday’s attack on Israel, blaming the presence of the U.S. and some European nations in the Middle East for the turmoil in the region and declaring that peace depends on “rooting out the evil of these countries” while also declaring Tehran doesn’t want a broader war.
“We don’t seek war, it is Israel that is forcing us to react,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a press conference in Qatar on Wednesday.
Tehran said its attack was incited by the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil in July, which was widely attributed to Israel, and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli strike last week.
The Biden administration has lauded the killing of Nasrallah, saying Israel acted to bring the leader of a designated terror organization to justice. But the killing of the Iranian proxy group’s leader has also complicated the leverage the U.S. has over Israel.
In April, Tehran launched a drone and missile attack at Israel to settle the score following an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria. Then, the tit-for-tat ended with a murmur — a muted counterblow from Israel on a single Iranian military site.
But in the spring, Israel still wished to avoid provoking Hezbollah, making the country more amenable to the Biden administration’s pleas for caution. Now, Israel is actively carrying out ground incursions into Lebanon and has greatly diminished the militant group’s capability.
The Biden administration initially responded to Israel’s actions in Lebanon by urgently calling for a cease-fire.
Now, U.S. officials say they are still pursuing a diplomatic solution, but the public messaging from Washington has pivoted back to one of support for Israel rather than calls for truce in Lebanon.
“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully supportive of Israel,” Biden said.
