(WASHINGTON) — Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, her office confirmed to ABC News.
“Former President Barack Obama is confirmed to attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement.
This is the second presidential event in two weeks that the former first lady will have missed. She was noticeably absent from former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday, Jan. 9, at Washington National Cathedral, where she would have been assigned to sit next to Trump.
Michelle Obama’s planned absence was first reported by the Associated Press.
Michelle Obama has attended every inauguration since 2009, including Trump’s first swearing-in ceremony in 2017.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will attend the inauguration, as will former first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton. They all also attended Carter’s funeral service.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has been the ultimate GOP mover and shaker since 2015, using his sway to impact the party far beyond just his own political career. Now, Vice President-elect JD Vance has some early opportunities to make his own mark.
Vance, still Ohio’s junior senator, has shepherded some of Trump’s Cabinet picks around and can use his ties to his colleagues to promote others. He is also in touch with Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine as he mulls who to tap to replace Vance in the Senate until 2026, when that person would then have to run in a special election to serve the rest of the seat’s term.
It’s unlikely that Vance — or anyone — can emulate Trump’s unique ability to affect change in the party. But Vance is the country’s second-highest ranking Republican and considered Trump’s heir apparent, making the upcoming opportunities chances to glimpse the power the 40-year-old holds across the GOP to promote the incoming administration’s goals but also his own stock beyond his formal role.
“It’s pretty clear that he is in a pole position after Trump to help lead the party. So, he’s going to, I think, take these opportunities to show the party that he’s a loyal soldier to Donald Trump, but he’s also going to be a future force to be reckoned with,” said former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who remains in touch with Trump’s team.
Vance is not a sherpa for every single Cabinet pick, but he did escort former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s failed attorney general pick, and Pete Hegseth, tapped to lead the Pentagon, around Capitol Hill. He’s also making calls to Senate colleagues about some of Trump’s Cabinet choices, according to sources familiar with the matter.
He’s also in what one source described as semi-regular contact with DeWine as the two-term governor mulls who to appoint to the Senate seat that Vance is vacating. The decision is ultimately DeWine’s, and there currently doesn’t appear to be a favorite for the role, but sources said they would be surprised if the person was someone who rubbed Vance and Trump the wrong way.
“Ohio is his domain, so I think you can expect that his voice in the upcoming Senate race will be important,” one source close to Vance said. “There is a want to land on somebody that everybody involved will be happy with, DeWine, Trump and JD.”
To be certain, Vance can only move the needle so far with Cabinet confirmations and Senate appointments, decisions that are up to a Senate looking for chances to assert its independence and a governor who has clashed with Trump but remained electorally viable. There will also be tougher battles to come as the next administration works to muscle through its policy priorities, and Trump will still run the show as a dominant political figure who virtually blocks out the sun.
But the dual conversations over appointments could offer early indications of how much Republicans listen when Vance speaks, even as someone’s No. 2.
“He talks to [senators] a lot,” said one source in Vance’s orbit. “They’re his colleagues still for another four weeks. So, yeah, he works the phones. He was on Capitol Hill this week. I think he wants to see folks get in there so the administration can hit the ground running on day one.
“He’s a surrogate for when the President has to be in multiple places at the same time. He’s influential, but I don’t know that he’s more persuasive than the president as such. He’s augmenting,” the person added.
Already, Vance has seen some of his allies elevated in the incoming administration.
James Braid, who was Vance’s deputy chief of staff in the Senate, will be the White House’s formal liaison to Congress. Daniel Driscoll, another Vance ally, was tapped to be secretary of the Army. Trump picked hedge fund manager and Vance friend Scott Bessent as his treasury secretary after he donated millions to the presidential ticket.
And Vance has already proven his sway by helping now-Ohio Republican Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno win Trump’s endorsement in the Ohio Senate primary this year and then get him over the finish line against Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown who had defied political gravity for several cycles.
There have been setbacks, too — Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration after sexual misconduct allegations dogged his nomination, and Hegseth is facing headwinds over allegations of sexual assault and heavy drinking that he’s denied. However, it’s unclear how much outside help could improve their chances given the gravity of the allegations.
“This is a chance to see how many of Vice President-Elect Vance’s confidants end up in the Cabinet, and whether they are Cabinet secretaries, or the other place to take a very serious look is the undersecretaries,” said Steve Stivers, a former congressman who leads the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not just the Cabinet secretaries, but the undersecretaries that matter here, because those will be people filling their résumé being ready to move up.”
Still, there’s no guarantee that Vance will be able to be as big of a mover and shaker as normally possible for vice presidents in Trump’s White House.
The president-elect is famously wary of others enjoying too bright of a spotlight, and there could be other high-profile Republicans who are also anticipated to be power players after Trump leaves office, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick to lead the State Department, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is rumored to be in the mix for Pentagon chief if Hegseth’s nomination falls through.
“Obviously, he has a great opportunity here. But I think for folks to say it’s a fait accompli that JD Vance is somehow ahead of the rest of the field today, I just don’t think that’s accurate,” said one former senior Trump administration official.
“What is he going to do that’s outside of the Trump shadow, that is actually him, that is not him acting as a liaison for Donald Trump? And of those things, what does he do that pisses off Donald Trump? Because it’s a guy that doesn’t really like people operating outside of his shadow.”
But at the end of the day, Vance will have a more elevated platform than any other Republican in the country except for one, and Trump enters office as a lame duck because of constitutional term limits, possibly leaving Vance well-positioned for a potential vacuum in a party dominated by Trump for nearly a decade.
“Trump picked him for a specific reason, and that reason is to carry the mantle. Now, he’s 40 years old. That dude could be around for a while. Trump was looking ahead,” said Ohio GOP strategist Mike Hartley. “I think he’s going to give him every opportunity to succeed.”
(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Some gun violence prevention groups said Wednesday that they plan to double down in their fight for stronger firearm-control laws in the wake of former President Donald Trump recapturing the White House and promising to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb the national plague.
During his victorious campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, voiced opposition to most of Biden’s executive orders to combat the scourge that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found to be the leading cause of death in the United States for adolescents under the age of 19 for three straight years.
“The election of Donald Trump is deeply troubling for our safety and freedom from gun violence,” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement Wednesday. “And that’s why we are doubling down on our work and fighting harder than ever.”
Gun violence was a big issue during the campaign. In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released in August, gun violence was ranked eighth in importance among voters after the economy, inflation, health care, protecting democracy, crime and safety, immigration and the Supreme Court.
In preliminary national exit polls analyzed by ABC News, voters said they trusted Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, 50% to 48%, in handling the issue of crime and safety.
In his campaign, Trump often railed against what he described as a “surge” in migrant crime, including several high-profile homicides allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. A 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely than migrants to be arrested for violent crimes.
Brown said it won’t be the first pro-gun rights administration that has occupied the White House, adding that Trump’s previous four years in the Oval Office were marked by a “deadly period for Americans.” Among the mass shootings that occurred during Trump’s first term was the 2017 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival music concert in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and more than 850 people wounded; the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff; and the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that claimed 23 lives and injured nearly two dozen other people.
“So even though we won’t have a friend in the White House, Brady isn’t giving up an inch,” Brown said of her organization named after White House press secretary James “Jim” Brady, who was shot and permanently disabled in the 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and later died in 2014 as a result of his wounds.
Brown added, “The movement to prevent gun violence has always been larger than one office, and we’ll continue to work with activists, survivors, community leaders and elected officials in states across the country to fight for progress that makes the whole country safer from gun violence.”
Trump and Vance, who have said they oppose a national ban on assault weapons, were endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
In February, Trump told NRA members at a forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms” during his second term in office.
“During my four years, nothing happened and there was a lot of pressure on me having to do with guns,” Trump said at the time. “We did nothing, we didn’t yield. And once you yield a little bit that’s just the beginning, that’s [when] the avalanche begins.”
In May, Trump spoke at the NRA convention in Dallas and outlined some of the actions he’ll take in his second term.
“In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment — the attacks are fast and furious — starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House,” Trump said in the speech.
Trump also vowed during the speech to fire Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). House Republicans have also said they want to abolish or drastically cut funding for the ATF.
“At noon on Inauguration Day, we will sack the anti-gun fanatic Steve Dettelbach,” Trump told NRA conventioneers. “Have you ever heard of him? He’s a disaster.”
Gun control advocates said they expect Trump to try to water down the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major gun safety law enacted in 30 years that Biden signed in June 2022, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The BSCA enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns, and allocates $750 million to help states implement “red flag laws” to remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others.
Advocates also expect Trump to abolish the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention established under the Biden administration and overseen by Harris.
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action released a statement on social media Wednesday, saying her gun violence prevention group also plans to continue to fight for laws that protect Americans from gun violence.
“If this work has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, we always can and will secure victories to protect our communities from gun violence. This obstacle is no different. Today, we are crushed by this result,” Ferrell-Zabala said of Trump’s victory. “Tomorrow, we’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it — because they do.”
(WASHINGTON) — For the first time in four years, Democrats are leaderless. But chaos is a ladder, as the saying goes, and the party is packed with climbers.
Democrats are still sifting through the rubble of last week’s election results, and many said that a period of grieving and soul-searching is due after Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss. But over a dozen operatives said that the leadership vacuum fueled by her defeat will attract members of the party’s deep bench who likely won’t wait long to cast themselves as the messenger Democrats need to bounce back ahead of the 2028 election.
“I have not seen any outreach from the national party to folks for 2028. I think they’re too busy playing the blame game, they’re too busy knifing each other,” said one person who has spoken to multiple potential 2028 candidates. “In terms of donors reaching out to their candidate of choice, that has been never ending over the course of the last four or five days. And then there’s a lot of local outreach to people.”
Democrats boast several governors, senators, House members and more rumored to have national ambitions.
Among them are California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker; Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear; Maryland Gov. Wes Moore; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker; Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman; California Rep. Ro Khanna; and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, could also play some role in guiding the party, though it’s unclear how much of an appetite there is in the party to allow the bench to take on a supporting role to members of the losing ticket.
Already, the jockeying is underway, albeit not yet in full force.
Shapiro has received calls from Democrats in his state, a source familiar with the matter confirmed, as has Beshear, who also wrote a New York Times op-ed examining his party’s woes. Newsom held a call with his grassroots donor network and is set to be a top Trump antagonist, and Khanna is mulling a media blitz and listening tour to areas that have borne the brunt of deindustrialization, sources familiar with their thinking said.
Buttigieg has traversed the country touting the administration’s infrastructure achievements, often goes behind enemy lines to appear on Fox News and moved his residency to Michigan, which has an open gubernatorial race in two years. Fetterman has been vocal about what he calls his party’s disconnect from working-class voters.
All have some kind of argument, whether it’s a blue-collar appeal the party has been missing, proven electoral experience in red or purple areas, or something else, and most hit the campaign trail for Harris this year. More maneuvering is expected to come, especially once Trump takes office and his policies go into effect, likely galvanizing Democrats’ base.
“I think that what you’ll probably see beginning in January, is people who are at least considering being candidates come out with really detailed, expansive programs. Some may be about jobs, some may be about education, some may be about who knows what else. But it will probably be policy-based,” said Dan Fee, a Democratic strategist and donor adviser based in Pennsylvania.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of a lot of governors and a lot of other folks do the speaking circuit thing, be going to events, certainly heading into ’26, you’re going to see a lot of people endorsing folks,” added one senior Democratic strategist, referencing the 2026 midterms.
There is no clear frontrunner in the beefy field, but some did see their personal stock rise during the Biden administration or as the result of the election.
Newsom, in particular, could benefit, given that his California roots and political base overlapped significantly with Harris’. But Buttigieg also boasts a beefier resume after four years in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, Shapiro and Beshear were vetted as part of Harris’ veepstakes, and many hit the trail — especially to the early primary state of New Hampshire — throughout the year, helping them building relationships with local groups and voters.
Still, anything can happen in four years.
Republicans, not too long ago, were walking in the political wilderness themselves after President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, sparking a famed autopsy. Four years later, now-President-elect Donald Trump won his first term, ushering in two years of unified Republican control but a series of fits ever since over the identity of the party and how much it should hew to his brand.
Democrats too were on a high after Biden’s win in 2020, a euphoria reinforced after the party defied the odds in the 2022 midterms to expand its Senate majority and limit its House losses. Now, they’re conducting a postmortem of their own.
What’s more, positioning oneself for higher office is more art than science. Appearing too eager risks turning off voters, while not stepping on the gas hard enough risks ceding ground to other aspirants.
But promoting oneself isn’t the only way to improve one’s standing amid the jockeying, and operatives predicted that the knives will be out.
“I think the [opposition research] books are probably already being built,” said the operative who has spoken to multiple potential 2028 candidates.
For all the preparation, though, would-be party leaders can’t make themselves so just by themselves. And party donors may not quite be ready to indulge a 2028 free-for-all as it analyzes its 2024 loss, especially after Harris’ team boasted of smashing several fundraising records only to get swept in all seven swing states.
“People were being told this is a toss-up, and so, their biggest problem is going to be getting fundraising,” said John Morgan, a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and causes. Donors “do not trust people with the money. Nobody does.”
That’s not expected to make a bench full of ambitious politicos collectively pump the brakes, though.
Several of the operatives who spoke to ABC News predicted a gargantuan 2028 primary field, even eclipsing that of 2020, which boasted over two dozen candidates.
“It’s gonna make the 2020 presidential primary look like it was a small gathering. This is going to be frenzied, it’s going to be competitive. There will be no punches pulled. And I think that’s a good thing,” a former Fetterman staffer said. “I hope we let it all out this time and the strongest person emerges.”
