Biden on Veterans Day calls for US to ‘come together as a nation’
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(ARLINGTON, Va.) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris observed Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday in what was their first appearance together since last week’s election.
The two participated in a full honor wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before Biden made remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater.
“This is the last time I will stand here at Arlington as commander in chief,” Biden said. “It’s been the greatest honor of my life to lead you, to serve you, to care for you, to defend you, just as you defended us.”
Biden, who began by quoting President Abraham Lincoln, said this is the moment to “come together as a nation.”
“The world is dependent on each of you and all of us, all of you, to keep honoring the women and the men and the families of borne, the battle,” he said. “To keep protecting everything they fought for. To keep striving to heal our nation’s wounds. To keep perfecting our union.”
Earlier Monday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden hosted veterans, members of the military and caregivers at the White House.
Biden touted his record on veterans affairs, including bringing down veteran homelessness and passing the PACT Act.
The White House on Monday announced new efforts to address toxic exposures for veterans, including an expansion of the cancers considered presumptive for VA disability benefits. The topic is a personal one for Biden, whose son Beau died from cancer in 2015. Biden said he believes exposure to burn pits overseas during Beau’s deployment to Iraq contributed to his death.
“For all the military families, all those with a loved one still missing or unaccounted for, all Americans grieving the loss of a loved one who wore the uniform, Jill and I want you to know we see you. We thank you. And we will never stop working to meet our sacred obligation to you and your families,” Biden said.
First lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff were also at Arlington to commemorate the holiday. They sat alongside Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Biden made his remarks.
Biden also raised the military withdrawal from Afghanistan during his address. The handling of removing troops from the conflict became a lightning rod for Republican criticism.
“Four presidents faced the decision after we got [Osama] bin Laden whether to end our longest war in history in Afghanistan,” he said. “I was determined not to leave it to a fifth.”
Former President Donald Trump visited the cemetery in August to mark the third anniversary of the Afghanistan airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members. An incident described as a confrontation between his campaign and a cemetery worker prompted an investigation that appeared ongoing as of late October.
Trump defeated Harris last week in the presidential race. The former president swept the seven swing states and he is projected to win 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226, and he is on track to win the popular vote.
Harris conceded on Nov. 6, saying she would help with a peaceful transition of power and vowed to continue the “fight that fueled this campaign.”
Biden, in his own remarks after Harris’ loss, praised her for running an “inspiring” campaign and implored Americans to “bring down the temperature.”
Biden and Trump are set to meet at the White House on Wednesday, restoring a tradition that Trump did not participate in after he lost the 2020 election.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary Pete Hegseth met on Wednesday with another moderate Republican whose vote will be closely watched in his confirmation battle.
Hegseth sat down with Maine Sen. Susan Collins as he continues to make the rounds to shore up support amid allegations of sexual impropriety and other misconduct, which he denies.
Afterward, he described it as a “great meeting.”
“Office after office, having the opportunity to spend time with these senators who have invested their careers in ensuring that our warfighters get what they need, has been amazing educational process,” Hegseth said. “And Senator Collins, like her colleagues before her reiterated that.
“It was a wonderful conversation focused on what needs to be done to make sure this Pentagon is focused on warfighting and lethality, and we look forward to stay in touch with her,” he added.
Hegseth added he was “certainly not going to assume anything about where the senator stands” as he was peppered with questions by reporters.
Collins called it a “good, substantive discussion” for more than an hour on everything from women’s role in the military and sexual assault in the military to Ukraine and NATO.
“I asked virtually every question under the sun,” Collins said. “I pressed him on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him.”
Collins did not voice support for Hegseth, instead saying she’d wait until further vetting of Hegseth before deciding how to vote.
“I, obviously, always wait until we have an FBI background check, and one is underway in the case of Mr. Hegseth, and I wait to see the committee hearing before reaching a final decision,” she said.
Their meeting came on the heels of his meeting on Tuesday with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is viewed as another possible GOP swing vote. Murkowski said they had a “good exchange” but did not indicate whether she’d been swayed to support him.
Hegseth is one of many Trump administration picks who’ve been on Capitol Hill this week.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security, met with various Republican senators on Tuesday.
When departing a meeting with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Noem was asked if she’d support Trump’s plan for mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission. Deportations were a central promise of Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“I am going to enforce the president’s agenda,” Noem responded.
Noem also left the door open for a deal with Democrats to protect “Dreamers,” or migrants brought illegally to the U.S. as young children. Trump floated the idea during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” despite his attempts to undermine the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program during his first administration.
“You know, I appreciate the president’s word on this issue, and I know he wants our laws to be followed, so I’ll work with him to get his vision accomplished,” Noem said.
Noem was back for meetings on Wednesday, including one with Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Noem said she hoped for bipartisan support in her confirmation bid.
Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, and Tulsi Gabbard, his choice for director of national intelligence, have also been spotted walking the halls of the Hart Senate Office Building.
For Patel to fill the role, current FBI Director Christopher Wray would need to resign or be fired.
Several Republican senators expressed this week they’d be fine with Wray being forced out or stepping aside.
“I like Director Wray but I think it’s time for a fresh start at the FBI,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham.
“Obviously, Director Wray would be fired. That is obvious,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin.
(GREENBELT, Md.) — As Democrats in Maryland tell it, the state’s key Senate race isn’t about any particular person — even the candidates themselves.
On the campaign trail, you’ll hear Democrats vying to keep an open Senate seat blue knock former Gov. Larry Hogan, the GOP nominee. But you’ll also hear lamentations about Sens. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, firebrands who are primed for committee chairmanships in a potential Republican-controlled Senate.
In paid television ads, you’ll see videos painting Hogan as a partisan, not the moderate he cast himself as during two terms in Annapolis. But you’ll also see attacks on outgoing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, a vaunted political knife fighter and self-proclaimed “grim reaper” of liberal legislation.
That duality is a core feature of the campaign for Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee and Prince George’s County executive — as much as she’s talking about her opponent, she’s also sounding the alarm about a Senate she’s hoping to join.
There are few motivators in politics as potent as fear and anger. But Alsobrooks is at a disadvantage in that regard — Hogan left office in 2023 as a popular two-term governor with a reputation as a pragmatist before running for a Senate seat in a year when any race can determine the chamber’s majority.
And while Alsobrooks and her allies are still casting Hogan as a Republican whose values are misaligned with deep-blue Maryland, particularly on abortion, they’re also diverting some of their fire at prominent Senate Republicans and what they could do with committee gavels.
“Marylanders are very savvy. They understand that this race is about the 51st vote and about control of the Senate. It is bigger than Larry Hogan. It’s actually bigger than me,” Alsobrooks told ABC News Monday at an annual community barbecue her family hosts in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It is much bigger than any one person. It is about the future of our state and of our country and the kind of country that we want to build for our children.”
The Senate race is tight, especially by Maryland’s standards.
The 538 polling average shows Alsobrooks up by nearly 6 points in a state where Democratic presidential candidates typically romp by at least 25, a difference universally attributed to Hogan’s entry into the race.
Hogan has continued to reinforce his reputation as a moderate, saying he’d vote to restore abortion protections that existed under Roe v. Wade and serve as a check on the GOP’s more hard-line impulses. However, he has still said that as a lifelong Republican, he’d caucus with the GOP in the chamber, and Alsobrooks has made hay of his past record, including vetoing state legislation to expand abortion protections.
Still, the need to tie Hogan to bogeymen like Cruz, Graham and McConnell was underscored Monday, when conversations with nearly a dozen of Alsobrooks’ most vocal supporters revealed little negative to say about the former governor, but a greater eye on the levers of power in Washington.
“I guess he’s OK. He hasn’t really done a bad job since he’s been here in Maryland, but I think it’s time for a fresh face,” said Bertley Thomas, a retired teacher, about Hogan. “I am a lifelong Democrat, and so is Angela. Hogan happens to be a Republican, it doesn’t mean I don’t like him any less. However, I think we would like to see the Democrats control the Senate.”
Waymon Lynch, a small business owner, said she voted for Hogan twice, but praised Alsobrooks’ record as a local politician.
“He’s definitely not the Trump wing of the party, no, not at all. That’s not his history,” Lynch said of Hogan. “And if it were someone other than Angela running against Mr. Hogan, I might consider him. But in this particular case, it goes a little bit further than that.”
That’s not to say voters aren’t also considering the issues and where Hogan stands.
“I was really kind of concerned when all of a sudden he came out to run against her. I just feel that Democrats serve me and my needs, and I am for women’s rights,” said Valerie Callender, a dermatologist. “I know Angela is going to fight. She’s a mother, and she believes in women’s rights. And to take total control of their body, as a physician, I feel that’s very important.”
Nevertheless, the race’s dynamics have left Alsobrooks with limited ability to run against her actual opponent, instead making future colleagues of the very chamber she hopes to join top antagonists in the race.
“Angela Alsobrooks is playing the best card she has to play. She is never going to win a contest of personality or popularity with former Gov. Hogan. He is just far too known and too well liked for her to change public opinion on that front. So, she has to run exclusively on the notion that, regardless of how one feels about Gov. Hogan personally, he can and would be the deciding vote in favor of tipping the Senate over to Republicans,” said Maryland Democratic strategist Len Foxwell.
The argument requires voters to generalize the importance of the race beyond their state’s borders, but Democrats are betting that Marylanders — living in proximity to Washington and many working for the federal government — are more attuned than the average voter on the current 51-49 Senate majority and the importance of chamber control.
“The beauty of it is that the voters we’re talking about are voters in Maryland, and this is about one of the most savvy electorates that you can find, not just in the Washington suburbs, but throughout the state,” said Maryland Democratic Party Chair Ken Ulman. “We know what this is about.”
At the same time, Alsobrooks has work to do to define herself more concretely outside of her powerbase in Prince George’s County, particularly in the vote-rich areas in and around Baltimore.
Alsobrooks is working to boost her own policy bona fides with a new ad out Wednesday, noting the threat of GOP Senate control but adding what she would “also” do as Maryland’s senator, including taking on “price gouging” and standing “up for a woman’s right to choose.”
Hogan and his allies are trying to do the same, with a well-heeled supportive super PAC releasing an ad Wednesday hitting her over a CNN story alleging she improperly took tax deductions on properties in Maryland and Washington.
“Raising her name ID, especially in the Baltimore suburbs, is really important. When you see the polling, you still see Hogan has pretty universal name ID. We’ve got room to grow her ID,” Ulman said.
To be certain, Alsobrooks is still viewed as having an advantage.
Vice President Kamala Harris is anticipated to win Maryland, one of the nation’s bluest states, by as many as 30 points, possibly creating tailwinds long enough to carry Alsobrooks over the finish line and forcing Hogan to lean on a potentially unrealistic number of ticket splitters, voters who support one party for president and another in down-ballot races.
“If Larry Hogan doesn’t win this race, from what I’ve seen thus far, it has very little to do with whatever Angela Alsobrooks is doing,” Doug Mayer, a former Hogan aide. “If Larry Hogan doesn’t win this, it’s just because it’s extremely difficult to have a million switch voters. If anyone can do it, it’s him.
And while operatives of all stripes agreed that Hogan is the only person who could make the race competitive, Democrats’ emphasis on the threat of Republicans who Marylanders are less familiar with and more aligned with former President Donald Trump could help Alsobrooks lean into her state’s existing partisan advantage, experts said.
“With the base energized in a presidential year, I find it implausible to think that there will be enough ticket splitters, and we’re reminding people every day what the stakes are,” said Ulman, who was the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee in 2014 when Hogan won his first term. “Nobody will take the former governor more seriously than me, having seen his success in the past, but it just makes the math very, very hard in a presidential year.”
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven’t been appointed to key positions.
ABC News spoke to more than a half dozen longtime and new African American conservatives and Republicans within Trumpworld, in and outside of Washington.
Last month, the president-elect appointed Scott Turner, who was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term, to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
One area of frustration for many Black Republicans was speculation that if Trump did nominate an African American to his administration, it would be at HUD, the department that has had the most Black secretary appointments of any.
One Black Southern Republican told ABC News, “Why is every Black person given HUD?” adding that it was “the literal Black job of the administration.”
ABC News reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment on his selections but did not get a reply.
Six African Americans have served as HUD secretaries, including Robert Weaver, the first. His appointment in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson also made him the first African American appointed to a Cabinet-level position.
The first African American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet was Patricia Roberts Harris, who was the first African American Health and Human Services director and later HUD secretary. She served under President Jimmy Carter.
Former HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce was the only Black Cabinet official in the Ronald Reagan administration. Dr. Ben Carson at HUD was Trump’s sole Black cabinet member in his first term.
In mid-November, Carson posted that he was “excited to speak with President Trump about how I will continue to advance the America First agenda, and I am meeting with him in the near future.”
“However, contrary to reports, I will not be serving as the Surgeon General,” he said.
The departments of Treasury and Interior remain the only departments that have never had a Black secretary.
Another key position Black conservatives believe needs to be filled by an African American is assistant to the president, a senior-level role within the White House. Trump previously appointed Omarosa Manigault Newman, a contestant on his “The Apprentice” TV series, as the sole Black assistant to the president.
“I do think if you’re really talking about Black influence inside the White House, does Trump want his only legacy of having the only AP for two terms be Omarosa” one Black Republican strategist asked.
After Newman’s departure, Ja’Ron Smith served as a special assistant on legislative affairs before rising to deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. Ashley Bell, a prominent Black Republican, served as a White House adviser on entrepreneurship and a regional administrator for the Small Business Administration. Bell’s former boss is former SBA Administrator Linda McMahon, who Trump announced as his pick for the Department of Education. McMahon also is co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team.
Some of the former president’s most ardent defenders have grown restless with the lack of Black appointees, as Trump selected several others who would be firsts in those positions. If confirmed, Sen. Marco Rubio would be the first Hispanic secretary of state; Scott Bessent would be the first openly gay Treasury secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard will be the first Asian American and youngest-ever director of national intelligence.
“I can’t tweet that we need more Black conservatives because the left will attack me saying it’s a DEI hire,” the southern Republican said.
However, one Black Republican operative told ABC News it is still very early when it comes to appointments.
“The Republican Party has never really fallen into the category of ‘representation matters.’ Our strength comes from diversity, but that is not our bumper sticker slogan. We’re not going to nominate Black folks for the sake of nominating Black people,” the Republican operative said.
The operative noted that Black Republicans have made strides in leadership across the country. Sen. Tim Scott will chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee; Rep. Byron Donald is speculated as possibly running for governor or U.S. Senate in Florida; and Winsome Sears is seeking to become the first Black female governor in the country in Virginia.
Donalds on CNN last month took aim at President Joe Biden’s focus on diversity within his administration when asked about the lack of diversity among Trump’s nominees, saying “if you look at how the Democrats filled Joe Biden’s cabinet, they wanted to have a piece of every identity. But did they get the job done? Did they actually serve the interest of the American people?”
“What Donald Trump’s election is about, is bringing competency and reality back to D.C. in the White House, regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, regardless of their creed.” the Florida congressman added.
Although some Black leaders inside and out of politics are highly qualified, another barrier that Black conservatives face is added scrutiny because of their dual identity.
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a non-partisan organization that studies diversity in government and congressional staff, said that the Trump administration differs vastly from past Republican administrations.
“Trump isn’t a traditional Republican, he doesn’t use traditional Republican institutions in the same way that past presidential candidates have, so there isn’t a kind of pipeline, long-term relations,” Asante-Muhammad said.
“Being a part of Trumpworld isn’t easy. It is almost a personal blacklist thing in the outside world. So it is risky, in my opinion, to be a part of this organization for Black people that may want to be a part of the cause, but it’s not worth their bottom dollar,” one Black Republican strategist added.
“When Black people are put underneath this microscope of being Trump-affiliated, they look past your color and you are public enemy number one,” a Black Republican operative said.
The Republican strategist said Black Republicans face a different set of expectations — they don’t necessarily thrive in spaces that are massively disruptive, such as the second Trump term.
“I don’t think disruption really leans into our skillset the way things are currently set up, we have to play things a little bit differently. There’s no Black Republican version of Matt Gatez. They don’t last,” the strategist added.
“Those of us who have survived and been there for years and made it work have done so by being steady, consistent, reliable, and trustworthy, ” the strategist said.
The majority of Black Republicans who spoke to ABC News acknowledged that while the optics of Trump being surrounded by mostly white people aren’t ideal, they believe if Trump delivers on a better economy, securing the border, Second Step Act, and judicial reform it could be transformative for the Black community, but they do want the former president to hire more Black conservatives.
