Democrat Padilla will ‘of course’ attend Trump’s inauguration, willing to work with new administration

(WASHINGTON) — Since launching in 2021, America First Policy Institute has been known colloquially around Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump’s “cabinet in waiting” should the former president return to office. And now, as Trump’s second administration takes shape, AFPI seems poised to live up to its reputation.

Financial disclosure forms released over the past week show how people aligned with AFPI and its political arm, America First Works, are flooding into the upper echelons of Trump’s new administration.

Several Cabinet-level officials, including the incoming secretaries of education, agriculture, veterans affairs and housing, have worked for AFPI. Trump tapped the group’s president, Brooke Rollins, to lead the Department of Agriculture, and the chairwoman of its board, Linda McMahon, to run the Department of Education.

Rollins reported earning more than $1 million from AFPI in 2024, according to financial disclosures, and earned $560,000 the previous year. McMahon has not yet released her financial disclosures.

Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, reported earning $520,000 from the group last year. John Ratcliffe and Kash Patel, Trump’s incoming directors of the CIA and FBI, respectively, served as members of the group’s American Security Team.
Ratcliffe has reported earning $180,000 from AFPI in financial disclosures.

Other incoming administration officials aligned with AFPI are Lee Zeldin, selected to run the Environmental Protection Agency; Scott Turner, tapped for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Doug Collins, picked for secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; and Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to NATO.

All told, according to financial records disclosed so far — and many remain outstanding — AFPI doled out nearly $2.6 million to incoming Trump administration officials in recent years.

In its first years of operation, AFPI, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, emerged as a fundraising behemoth. According to its most recent tax forms, filed in November, the group raised roughly $30 million in 2023 and spent $23 million of that.

The Texas-based group regularly hosts forums and issues policy directives in line with the first Trump administration’s vision on foreign policy, national security, economic policy, justice reform and education. It also reportedly hosted training sessions last year for aspiring public servants in a second Trump administration.

At a women’s event hosted by AFPI in April 2024, Rollins revealed that the group has “298 executive orders drafted and ready for day one of the next president.”

Here’s a partial list of AFPI-affiliated picks and their recent earnings based on disclosure forms:

        Brooke Rollins, Department of Agriculture: $1,610,000 (two years)
        Pam Bondi, Department of Justice: $520,000 (one year)
        Kash Patel, FBI: (Not filed)
        Linda McMahon, Department of Education: (Not filed)
        John Ratcliffe, CIA: $180,000 (two years)
        Matthew Whitaker, NATO: (Not filed)
        Doug Collins, Department of Veterans Affairs: $104,000 (two years)
        Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency: $144,999 (two years)
        Scott Turner, Department of Housing and Urban Development: $24,000 (one year)

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(WASHINGTON) — Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president known as a champion of international human rights both during and after his White House tenure and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his lifetime of dedication to that cause, has died at 100, ABC News has learned.

Carter’s death was also announced by the Carter Center on X, which posted “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.”

Carter, whose wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96, is survived by the couple’s children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip) and Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff); and their daughter, Amy Lynn.

Carter had endured several health challenges in recent years. In 2019, he underwent surgery after breaking his hip in a fall. Four years earlier, Carter was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain, though just months later, he announced that he no longer needed treatment due to a new type of cancer therapy he’d been receiving.

In February of 2023, the Carter Center, the organization founded by the former president to promote human rights worldwide, announced that Carter, with “the full support of his family and his medical team,” would begin receiving hospice care at home.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center said in a statement.

Carter attended the public memorial service for his late wife on Nov. 28, 2023, some nine months after the announcement that he’d entered hospice care. Frail and in a wheelchair, he didn’t speak at the memorial. Instead, his daughter, Amy, spoke on his behalf, reading from a letter Carter sent to Rosalynn some 75 years earlier, when he was away serving in the Navy.

“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are,” the letter read, in part. “While I am away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be, as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again.”

Carter turned 100 years old on Oct. 1, 2024, an occasion that was celebrated with events both at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and in Carter’s Plains, Georgia hometown, though Carter himself was by that time too frail to attend them. Just 16 days later, the Carter Center announced that the former president had cast his ballot by mail in the presidential election. Carter’s grandson, Jason, previously told ABC News that his grandfather would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The son of a Georgia peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter first appeared on the national political scene in 1976 with a toothy grin and the simple words that would become his trademark: “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”

Among his administration’s most notable achievements were the Camp David Accords, which Carter brokered between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, and that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty the following year. Carter’s time in office also saw the first efforts toward developing a U.S. policy for energy independence.

However, the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for a total 444 days, beginning Nov. 4, 1979, battered Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign. He won just six states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 49 electoral votes compared to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan’s 489 electoral votes. Reagan also defeated Carter by more than eight million ballots in the popular vote.

Though political pundits of the era predicted he would be remembered as an average, one-term president, it’s often been observed that Carter’s reputation became more distinguished after he left the White House. He continued to champion international human rights and peace efforts, prompting Time magazine to declare in 1989, just eight years after the end of his presidency, that Carter “may be the best former president America has ever had.”

Carter “redefined the meaning and purpose of the modern ex-presidency,” Time wrote. “While Reagan peddles his time and talents to the highest bidder and Gerald Ford perfects his putt, Carter, like some jazzed superhero, circles the globe at 30,000 feet, seeking opportunities to Do Good.”

Carter was the third U.S. president, following Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 2002 after creating the Carter Center. Barack Obama became the fourth, in 2009. In selecting Carter for the honor, the Nobel Committee cited “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Peanut farmer to politician

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Georgia, on Oct. 1, 1924, to James Earl Carter Sr., a peanut farmer and businessman, and Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse who famously became known as ‘Miss Lillian.’ Though he was the first American president born in a hospital, Carter was raised in a farmhouse without indoor plumbing or electricity.

Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1946 and after spending seven years as an officer — he volunteered for submarine duty and was honorably discharged in 1953 — he returned to farming. He began his political career in 1962 when he was elected to the first of two terms as a state senator in Georgia. During his tenure, he promised to read every bill that came to a vote, even taking a speed-reading class to keep up.

After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966, Carter fell into a spiritual crisis, emerging as a born-again Christian. He later recalled this period as one that changed his life dramatically, saying on the campaign trail: “Since then, I’ve had an inner peace and inner conviction and assurance that transformed my life for the better.”

Armed with this renewed energy, Carter launched an aggressive gubernatorial campaign and won the office in 1970.

Carter announced his bid for the presidency in December 1974 as his term as governor of Georgia was ending. A relative unknown, Carter won early victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He became more well-known as he steadily picked up delegates and beat back challenges from Rep. Morris ‘Mo’ Udall and U.S. Sen. Henry M. Jackson to secure the nomination.

The deeply religious candidate caused controversy late in his campaign when he told an interviewer from Playboy magazine, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” While there was considerable criticism of that line and some of the other language Carter used in the interview, then-U.S. Rep. Andrew Young, whom Carter later appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter had “taken care of his religion problem once and for all.”

In November 1976, Carter defeated President Gerald Ford with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 241 to become the 39th president.

Energy and economy

From the moment of his inauguration, Carter set a different tone in Washington. He avoided formality, taking the oath of office as ‘Jimmy’ instead of ‘James Earl’ Carter. He and the first lady even walked the mile-and-a-half inaugural parade route to the White House, rather than ride in a limousine.

Once in the Oval Office, Carter continued to bring a common touch to the presidency. He discontinued limousine service for presidential staff and even personally controlled the schedule of the White House tennis courts. As America weathered an energy crisis, Carter ordered his staff to turn the White House thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer, an energy-conscious practice he continued throughout his public career.

Focus on foreign policy

Carter struggled with domestic policies, fighting near-record highs in inflation and unemployment. Among his few victories was the establishment of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, the latter in response to a continued energy shortage at the time.

Yet, while his domestic policies drew criticism, Carter found widespread success in foreign affairs. His administration attracted worldwide praise for distinguishing itself with a firm commitment to international human rights. Unlike his predecessors, Carter did not hesitate to criticize repressive right-wing regimes, saying in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame, “Because we know that democracy works, we can reject the arguments of those rulers who deny human rights to their people.”

The Iran Hostage Crisis and the end of an administration

The largest stain on Carter’s foreign policy record came in November 1979, when a group of Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostage 52 American citizens. The militants demanded the return to Iran of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from the U.S., where he was seeking medical attention, to stand trial.

Carter initially responded to the crisis by cutting diplomatic ties with Iran and blocking imports from the country. But when those measures failed, in April 1980, he ordered a secret armed rescue mission. It ended in disaster when several American helicopters malfunctioned and two aircraft collided, killing eight U.S. servicemen.

The hostages were freed Jan. 20, 1980, after 444 days in captivity. Perhaps as a final insult to Carter, Iran released the hostages just minutes after President Ronald Reagan had been sworn in. The new president sent Carter to Germany to greet the hostages.

Post-presidency legacy of public service

It wasn’t until years after he left the White House that many came to appreciate Carter. The former president embarked on a new phase of his career in public service, devoting his days to peacemaking and humanitarian efforts.

“He has made the post-presidency an institution that it had never been before,” said historian and author Steve Hochman, who helped establish the Carter Center. “He has been the most successful, most influential former president in American history.”

Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped spearhead a successful campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasitic infection spread by drinking water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. In 1986, the disease affected 3.5 million people per year in 21 African countries, but by 2017, it had been reduced by 99.99%, to just 30 cases, according to the Carter Center.

Carter told ABC News in 2015 that his goal was to eradicate the disease entirely. “I think this is going to be a great achievement for — not for me — but for the people that have been afflicted and for the entire world to see diseases like this eradicated,” Carter said.

Carter also became the highest-profile supporter of Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit devoted to creating affordable housing. The Carters personally helped to build, renovate and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries, according to the organization, which also called Carter and wife Rosalynn “two of the world’s most distinguished humanitarians.”

Guided by ‘deep Christian faith’

In addition to his extensive humanitarian work, Carter wrote more than two dozen books after leaving the White House, including “Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President” (1982), “An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of My Rural Boyhood” (2001), “The Personal Beliefs of Jimmy Carter” (2002), and “Faith: A Journey for All,” (2018). He also wrote poetry collections, as well as a fictional work about the Revolutionary War, titled “The Hornet’s Nest” (2003).

Carter referenced his Christian faith in the opening lines of his presidential inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1977, quoting the biblical Old Testament call “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Carter’s faith and seemingly limitless energy manifested themselves as he taught at his church’s Sunday school in his Plains, Georgia hometown, where congregants lined up to attend. He was also known for walking the length of every plane on which he traveled – he always flew commercial – to shake hands with every passenger.

Yet behind Carter’s easygoing Southern manner was an iron will and inexhaustible determination. Biographer Douglas Brinkley recalled the 39th president as “a kind of military man” who never seemed to get tired.

“I mean,” Brinkley noted, “the Secret Service nickname for him was ‘Dasher’ because he could move around so much.”

Jimmy Carter’s commitment to the principles that defined his life was, again, expressed in his presidential inaugural address: “Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved,” Carter declared. “The powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.”

ABC News’ Patricio Chile and Christopher Watson contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is no stranger to grilling nominees during confirmation hearings, but on Wednesday he’ll be the one in the hot seat as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the top U.S. diplomat moves forward.

Rubio is appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which he’s served since 2011 and is expected to sail through the confirmation process with bipartisan backing, potentially becoming the 72nd secretary of state as soon as Inauguration Day.

But that doesn’t mean his testimony and questioning before his colleagues in the Senate won’t produce any fireworks.

Here’s what to watch for:

New territory

Rubio’s well-documented public record, along with support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, may clear the way for lawmakers to ask the nominee more targeted questions about the foreign policy of the president he’ll serve under.

In recent weeks, Trump has made international waves by refusing to rule out using the U.S. military to fulfill his goals of acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal and saying he’ll use economic force to make Canada the 51st state.

Wednesday’s hearing is set to be the first time Rubio faces extensive questioning about Trump’s territorial ambitions — and whether he would work to make them a reality as secretary of state.

“I would imagine he’s going to be deferential to the president-elect,” said Richard Goldberg, a former official at the National Security Council and Senate foreign policy adviser. “These are his policy decisions, these are the president-elect’s statements.”

“[Rubio] will hopefully articulate what the American interest is in all of these places in a circumspect way,” Goldberg, who is also a senior advisor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, added.

On the Panama Canal, Trump has used overblown claims about China’s involvement in its operations to justify his interest in overtaking it — falsely claiming earlier this month that the waterway, which is operated by the Panamanian government, is actually run by Beijing.

But Rubio — a son of Cuban immigrants who has paid close attention to Latin America during his political career — has expressed fact-based concerns about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence over the Panama Canal that may resurface during the hearing.

“The Panama Canal is as an important transit route to intercept illicit activities, yet the canal is surrounded by #CCP enterprises,” he tweeted in 2022. “We must continue to make clear that Panama is an important partner & warn against CCP attempts to establish a foothold in our region.”

In early 2024, Rubio also led a bipartisan group of senators in urging the government of Panama to investigate tankers accused of smuggling Iranian through the canal.

“I think he has the experience, the depth of knowledge, and the political expertise to take any question and handle it pretty well,” Goldberg said.
 

Converging and contrasting views

Rubio — long known as a Russia and China hawk in the Senate — has been accused of dialing back his interventionist foreign policy approach to align with Trump’s positions and may face fresh criticism from opponents who believe he might prioritize serving as a yes man to president over serving the country.

In the early phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rubio was a staunch supporter of Kyiv’s war efforts. But over time, as Trump became a more outspoken critic of continuing American aid to Ukraine, Rubio appeared to change course — eventually calling for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.

There are still many foreign policy topics where there’s still plenty of distance between Rubio and Trump. While the president-elect is a near-constant critic of NATO, Rubio co-sponsored legislation with Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine aimed at preventing any commander in chief from exiting the alliance.

But ultimately, Goldberg says, Rubio’s role in the incoming administration will be advising the president on foreign policy matters and then carrying out what Trump decides.

“That’s the job he’s signing up for,” Goldberg said. “Ultimately, this President Trump’s secretary of state — no one else’s.”

In his prepared opening statement, Rubio says, “Ultimately, under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State must be and will be the United States.

“The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” he’s expected to say.

The ‘deep State’ Department?

Rubio’s confirmation may also present an opportunity to gain insight into how he intends to lead the State Department’s roughly 77,000 employees — and whether he might attempt to purge its ranks of those he or the president-elect view as political enemies, as incoming national security Adviser Mike Waltz reportedly plans to do at the National Security Council.

In an opinion piece published in The Federalist in April 2024, Rubio said there were many government employees who “do good work, day in and day out, but expressed concern about “others who act as self-appointed “protectors” of institutions against politicians they don’t like.”

“Looking ahead to another Trump administration, it’s clear why liberal elites want to protect the “deep state.” They hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for,” Rubio wrote.

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