Rep. Waltz: Negotiations to release Hamas hostages are underway
ABC News
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., said negotiations for a deal to free the hostages in the Hamas-Israel war “are literally happening as we speak.”
“Let’s allow our hostages to be set free. I want to see them walking across the tarmac, or at a minimum, some type of agreement before inauguration because President Trump is serious,” Waltz told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday. “Any deal will only get worse for Hamas, and there will be all hell to pay in the Middle East if we continue to have this kind of hostage diplomacy.”
Officials close to ceasefire negotiations told ABC News on Sunday that a high-level Israeli delegation led by the head of the Mossad has already arrived in Doha for a critical round of talks. Egyptian and U.S. officials are participating in the conversations, including Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser Steven Witkoff and President Joe Biden’s outgoing adviser Brett McGurk.
On U.S. relations with Russia, Karl asked Waltz about plans for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet.
Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin would welcome a meeting with Trump, but that it would most likely happen after he takes office. When asked about a potential meeting with the Russian president while attending a dinner with Republican governors, Trump said, “He wants to meet, and we’re going to, we’re setting it up.”
Waltz told Karl that “preparations are underway” for that meeting and that from Trump’s perspective, “you can’t enter a deal if you don’t have some type of relationship and dialogue with the other side, and we will absolutely establish that in the coming months.”
Concerning Ukraine, Waltz said the Trump administration will be asking about its military manpower, noting that it “could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers” if it lowered its draft age.
“They certainly have taken a very noble and tough stand, but we need to see those manpower shortages addressed,” Waltz said. “This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more checks. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilized so that we can enter into some type of deal.”
Trump has also repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, even not ruling out using the U.S. military to do so if he saw fit.
Asked if Trump was serious about using military power, Waltz said, “What he’s very serious about is the threats that we’re facing in the Arctic — the threats that we’re facing in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Enough is enough for having our adversaries coming into our Western Hemisphere threaten our, you know, our national security and President Trump is ready to take big, bold steps to ensure the United States is well-defended,” he said.
Further pressed by Karl on whether Trump would use military force to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, Waltz said the president-elect “is never going to take an option off the table, unlike, frankly, his predecessor, so when it comes to our national defense, that is paramount to the commander in chief.”
ABC News’ Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
(HELENA, Mont.) — The Montana House of Representatives advanced a bill to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not align with their sex assigned at birth, the first of this type of legislation to progress in the 2025 session.
It is one of 138 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. tracked by the ACLU so far this year.
This comes after a bipartisan effort in December to reject a measure that would have banned state Rep. Zooey Zephyr — the first openly trans lawmaker in the state — from using the women’s bathroom at the state Capitol.
The new bill states that a “restroom, changing room, or sleeping quarters … that is designated for females or males may be used only by members of that sex.”
The bill seeks to define sex “based on the organization of the body parts and gametes for reproduction,” adding that the sexes are defined by “sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex chromosomes, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth” and not any other definition of gender.
The bill does not include a definition or classification for those born intersex, or people with ambiguous genitals, chromosomes, hormones or reproductive organs that are neither clearly male nor female at birth.
The bill does not state how it will be enforced or how those using such facilities will be checked. However, the bill does state that residents can sue for attorney fees and other costs if “another individual of the opposite sex” is using a single-sex facility.
When her colleagues declined to support a similar bathroom ban in 2024, Zephyr applauded the rejection: “I’m happy to see that this proposed ban failed and am grateful for my colleagues — particularly my republican colleagues — who recognized this as a distraction from the work we were elected to do,” she posted on social media platform X. “I’m ready to represent my constituents & look forward to working on behalf of Montana.”
Critics of bathroom bans say they create a false “fear” of transgender people. They argue transgender people aren’t inherently dangerous and are four times more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender people, according to recent studies.
In a past interview, Zephyr told ABC News that she believes anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation have been a distraction from the issues facing average Americans.
“Leave trans people alone, let us live our lives and let our representatives get back to trying to make our states better places for all of us,” Zephyr said.
ABC News reached out to Zephyr for comment on the measure Wednesday.
Zephyr did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the measure Thursday.
Those in support of the bill argue that restrictions on bathroom use enhance safety and privacy for women.
Montana Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican, said the bill “reflects the values and priorities of Montanans, protecting privacy, safeguarding dignity, and ensuring safety for women and children in vulnerable places.”
She continued, “This bill is not about exclusion or hate, it’s about common sense boundaries that have served our society for generations.”
One study in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal was unable to find evidence that trans-inclusive policies on restrooms, lockers and changing rooms increase safety risks or related crimes.
Transgender people – who are estimated to make up less than 1% of the adult population – have been the focus of conservative-sponsored legislation across the country.
Last year, restrictions on transgender participation in sports, bathroom use, gender marker changes, pronoun use in schools and gender-affirming care made up a majority of the record-breaking 533 anti-LGBTQ bills tracked by the ACLU in the 2024 legislative sessions nationwide.
Zephyr won her bid for reelection to the Montana House of Representatives after she was censured and barred from the House floor for almost two years for protesting a gender-affirming youth care ban in her state.
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s nominated to become the next health secretary, asked the federal government to revoke its authorization of all COVID-19 vaccines in May 2021, just as vaccinated Americans began returning to a sense of normalcy after pandemic lockdowns.
The request came via a citizen petition filed by Kennedy and Meryl Nass on behalf of Children’s Health Defense, a group founded by Kennedy that advocates against the recommended vaccine schedule for children.
The petition, first reported by the New York Times, asked the Food and Drug Administration to “revoke Emergency Use Authorizations for existing COVID vaccines and refrain from approving and licensing them.”
It came five months after then-President Donald Trump proudly announced the FDA’s green light of the vaccine was imminent.
“They say it’s somewhat of a miracle, and I think that’s true,” Trump told reporters of the vaccine in December 2020.
Since then, the COVID vaccine has been credited with saving millions of lives and alleviating the burden on hospitals that became overwhelmed in the early days of the pandemic.
The FDA denied the petition in its response three months later, saying it found “no basis” in the petition to pull the vaccines from the market.
“FDA is not aware of any information indicating that the known and potential benefits of the authorized COVID-19 Vaccines are outweighed by their known and potential risks, nor has Petitioner provided any such information in the Petition,” the agency wrote at the time.
Kennedy is soon expected to testify publicly before a Senate panel in a bid to shore up support for his nomination. He’s expected to be pressed by Democrats and some Republicans on his past comments questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
In December 2021, Kennedy falsely claimed the COVID-19 vaccine was “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend the COVID vaccine, saying data shows those who are vaccinated are less likely to die from complications of the virus than those who are unvaccinated.
Days before Kennedy filed his May 2021 petition, the CDC had just announced that fully vaccinated Americans could go without masks because it believed at the time immunization reduced a person’s infectiousness. The agency would later reverse that decision after outbreaks occurred involving vaccinated individuals.
Pressed by an NBC interviewer in November whether he would have blocked the authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine had he been in government at the time, Kennedy said, “I wouldn’t have directly blocked it.”
“I would have made sure that we had the best science, and there was no effort to do that at that time,” he said.
Kennedy’s spokesperson on the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Kennedy aide who worked at Children’s Health Defense with him also did not immediately respond.
(WASHINGTON) — Dozens of Department of Education employees received letters as business hours closed Friday placing them on administrative leave, according to a copy of one letter obtained by ABC News.
While no specific reason was given, some employees told ABC News they believe the only common thread among them is that they attended a voluntary training called the “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program.”
The letter states that the administrative leave notice is not for disciplinary purposes. Rather, it’s being issued under President Donald Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and “further guidance” from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, according to the letter.
Per the letter, employees will receive full pay and benefits through the end of the administrative leave. They are not required to do work-related tasks during this time, nor are they required to come into the office. Employees who were placed on leave also had their government email access suspended as they received the letters. There’s no set time for the leave period, according to the letter.
The letters have caused a frenzy throughout the department, as some employees had been locked out of their accounts and had to check their private email addresses for the notice, according to Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252.
Smith told ABC News more than 50 employees in “extremely diverse roles” within the department received the email notices to their government email addresses or their private email accounts after regular business hours over the weekend.
ABC News spoke with three Department of Education employees who received the letters and described their leave as “paid administrative hell” since Friday evening.
“It’s very, very, unsettling,” one department employee of over 20 years, who works in Washington, D.C., told ABC News. “I don’t get it. What’s my crime? What have I done?”
Smith said the positions of Department of Education employees placed on leave run the gamut, from senior civil rights attorneys to attorneys for borrower defense to press specialists. She said she feared more letters would be sent in the coming days.
An attorney who works for the department in Washington, D.C., said they were put on leave from their “dream job.” The employee has two children and received the notice after putting them to bed on Friday night, they said. The person said Friday was tough and the news was shocking to receive, but now they’re feeling “different levels” of sadness.
“My mood felt a little bit different just waking up knowing that I wasn’t going to be working,” the employee told ABC News.
“But I just feel like there’s a lot of information that I’m trying to process and, with small kids, it’s like you’re trying to balance a lot,” the employee added.
The letters came as the Trump administration worked to scrub the federal government’s DEI policies and programs. The president issued an executive order during his first week in office calling on agencies to “combat” private-sector DEI programs.
Trump’s rhetoric — including threatening for months to shutter the Department of Education — has created fear throughout the department, according to Smith.
“People took these jobs because they care about the mission,” Smith told ABC News. “And so it absolutely impacts us. You know, the very thing that brought us to these jobs we’re unable to do.”
The department employee with two small children has worked for the department for just over four years and comes from a family of educators. The employee said education is the “great equalizer,” and the Department of Education benefits everyone.
“I believe in the department,” the department attorney said, adding: “I always wanted to work here.”
In a statement to ABC News, Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann said the president was elected to enact “unprecedented reform” that is merit-based and efficient at serving the interests of the American people.
“We are evaluating staffing in line with the commitment to prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in schools and putting student outcomes above special interests,” Biedermann wrote.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Meanwhile, the three department employees who spoke to ABC News said they’re completely stumped on why they were issued administrative leave notices. The department employee with decades of experience in Washington also said it’s puzzling, in part, because during Trump’s first term, managers were evaluated on upholding DEI standards via a department performance rating system.
“We were expected to do DEI,” the employee said. “That’s what Trump and [then-Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos wanted us to do. They wanted to do that. They put it in our [performance] plans. We did not put that in our plans. And not only that, it is in every manager’s plan in the department, not just people that are on administrative leave.”
“Every single person in the Department of Education that’s a supervisor or a manager right now has [DEI] in their performance plan — that is programmed in by the department,” the employee added.
The administrative leave notices may have been tied to a two-day “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program,” a facilitator-led training, according to training document slides obtained by ABC News. The training took place over two days dating as far back as March 2019, under DeVos and during Trump’s first term, according to a February 2019 email obtained by ABC News with the subject “Diversity Change Agent Course.”
The training program aimed to create specific action plans to “drive diversity and inclusion” and increase creativity and innovation. The program also challenged employees to achieve greater results by championing the diversity of its workforce while creating and sustaining an inclusive environment, according to the training document slides.
Another department employee, who took the 2019 training and works remotely out of the New York offices, called the notice “bizarre,” especially since the 2019 training occurred during the president’s first term.
“The whole thing is bizarre,” the department employee told ABC News. “Betsy DeVos — and [Trump’s] prior administration — was a decent champion of these programs, and they didn’t come with any warning to me to say, ‘Hey, taking this training might lead to an adverse personnel action one day,’ right? So it’s just strange how they can retroactively apply something.”
The department employees on leave who spoke to ABC News said they have no official DEI responsibilities in their roles. All three department employees who spoke with ABC News also confirmed the only DEI-like program that would potentially be barred under Trump’s executive order would be the change-agent training sessions.
However, to their knowledge, the three employees on leave said there’s no official list or way of matching the employees on administrative leave with the training programs. Even though they’re convinced these trainings link them to the Trump administration’s definition of DEI, the employees haven’t confirmed why they’re on leave, according to the ones who spoke to ABC News.
The employee who works out of New York has more than a dozen years of experience in administering federal programs. Multiple other employees on administrative leave that this employee spoke to over the weekend said they also took the 2019 training, according to the employee.
“That’s the only thing we can think of that any of us did,” the employee said.
After reaching out to other colleagues with the same titles, the employee in New York said, they “pieced it together.” This employee said they took at least three training programs like the diversity change-agent training program since the initial training.
