Booker says shutdown standoff is a ‘tsunami of Donald Trump’s creation’
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(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said talks remain stalled on the fifth day of the government shutdown, with Democrats seeking to undo Medicaid cuts and restore Obamacare subsidies and Republicans demanding a clean funding bill to fund the government into November.
“It’s really a moment of health care crisis,” Booker told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Booker said he’s less concerned with which party is to blame for the shutdown and more focused on Americans’ health and personal finances that he said are at risk from the shutdown.
“I don’t care about the blame game. I care about Americans losing their health insurance, rates of death going up, hospitals being crushed, medical services ending in places in rural America. This is a tsunami of Donald Trump’s creation,” Booker said.
Here are more highlights from Booker’s interview:
On GOP criticism that Dems have supported past continuing resolutions They’re [GOP] not negotiating. Remember, the speaker of the House has kept the House out for the last two weeks. They’re not sitting down. And when he asks, “What’s different?” What is different is we are, for the first time in America ever, we’re on a moment where because of Donald Trump’s attacks on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, on the verge of tens of millions of Americans losing their health care and most of Americans experiencing a significant rise in their health care costs.
On whether he has any criticism of Democratic leadership
Raddatz: Do you have any disappointment in your party leadership?
Booker: You’ve seen Chuck Schumer go to the podium, negotiate with us, almost begging the president to bring the parties together, like he said, Donald Trump literally has said, it’s the president’s responsibility to bring the parties together and negotiate a way through.
Raddatz: So you’re fine, you’re fine with your leadership, with everything the Democrats have been doing?
Booker: I am proud of those people who are standing up right now and saying, we’re not doing business as usual in Washington with this many millions of Americans are literally going to be hurt because when they’re sick, they won’t be able to afford to go to a doctor, when they go to the emergency room, the lines will be two times as long we are in a crisis. We are in a crisis. We need a president to stand up and bring us together to help to solve the problems of American people.
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a statement Sunday the release of U.S. citizen Amir Amiry, who had been considered wrongfully detained in Afghanistan.
This is the fifth release of an American citizen from detention in Afghanistan this year. Amiry’s case was not previously known to the public.
In his statement, Rubio thanked and credited President Donald Trump for his leadership and commitment, and he also gave credit to Qatar for helping to secure Amiry’s release.
“Today, thanks to President Trump’s leadership and commitment to the American people, the United States welcomes home U.S. citizen Amir Amiry who was wrongfully detained in Afghanistan. We express our sincere gratitude to Qatar, whose strong partnership and tireless diplomatic efforts were vital to securing his release,” Rubio said in his statement.
Rubio said there are still other Americans “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan and Trump “won’t rest” until they are returned home.
Officials at the State Department have said they hope an executive order signed by Trump earlier this year will deter nations from wrongfully detaining American citizens and that it will help to secure the release of wrongfully detained Americans abroad. The EO enhances efforts to protect U.S. nationals from wrongful detention abroad by authorizing robust responses against foreign governments engaging in such practices.
Special envoy for hostage response Adam Boehler traveled to Kabul to personally oversee Amiry’s release and to make sure all went according to plan, according to an administration official.
The official notes that Amiry was an American citizen and had received a special immigrant visa (SIV), which is a U.S. immigration program for Iraqis and Afghans who worked for the U.S. government or military to become permanent residents. Examples of SIV holders include translators and interpreters. Details of Amiry’s employment were not provided.
The diplomatic talks and negotiations leading to Amiry’s release was a joint U.S.-Qatari effort. This was not a prisoner exchange and the U.S. did not give anything to the Taliban in exchange for Amiry’s safe return, a U.S. official said.
Amiry’s release and Boehler’s visit to the region comes one week after Trump urged the Taliban to give back control of Bagram Air Base to the United States, threatening “bad things” would happen to Afghanistan if it does not.
(WASHINGTON) — As President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops continued, protesters lashed out at three of his top officials who took time for a photo op with the guardsmen on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.,’s Union Station.
Protesters booed and jeered Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller as they came to the station, located blocks from the U.S. Capitol, to thank the troops. The crowd’s chants drowned out the voices of the officials.
“Free DC,” the protesters shouted as three officials arrived in their motorcade.
Vance, Hegseth and Miller stopped by at the station’s Shake Shack and bought and ate lunch for the guard members.
Vance and Miller dismissed the jeers of the protesters, which drowned out their press gaggle, calling them “crazy” and “communists.”
“They appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities,” Vance said.
Vance was asked why the troops were stationed at Union Station instead of parts of the city with higher crime rates. The vice president claimed that the station was being overrun with homeless people and visitors didn’t feel safe.
“This should be a monument to American greatness,” he said.
Vance added that he believed that crime statistics do not report the full scope of crime on the streets, however he declined to talk about evidence that backed his claim up and told a reporter to “You just got to look around.”
The event happened at the same time that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was giving a news conference on Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) — House Oversight Republicans released a blistering report Tuesday morning that details their findings into former President Joe Biden’s mental acuity and his use of the autopen — calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine all executive actions taken during the prior administration, as well as scrutinize the actions of three senior officials who refused to comply with the panel’s closed-door interviews for fear of criminal prosecution.
Democrats quickly dismissed the report as a “sham” — with Biden’s post-presidency office calling it “baseless.”
The 100-page report includes links to transcripts and video of their closed-door depositions conducted with 14 top Biden administration officials, including three senior officials — Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini and Dr. Kevin O’Connor — who invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves rather than answer the committee’s questions.
The committee previously released videos of those three officials declining to testify following their respective depositions. Other aides repeatedly defended Biden’s mental fitness, maintaining that he was mentally engaged in the decision-making process in the White House.
“The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history,” Oversight Chairman James Comer said in a statement.
Comer claimed Biden’s inner circle “sought to deceive the public” and conceal “his decline.” He said the report reveals how several of Biden’s aides “colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished.”
A Biden spokesperson criticized the report, claiming there was no wrongdoing at the Biden White House.
“This investigation into baseless claims has confirmed what has been clear from the start: President Biden made the decisions of his presidency. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, and no wrongdoing,” the Biden spokesperson said. “Congressional Republicans should stop focusing on political retribution and instead work to end the government shutdown.”
Biden has previously defended the use of autopen.
“The autopen is, you know, is legal. As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that, you know, we’re talking about a whole lot of people,” Biden said.
Comer said that executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen should be “null and void.”
“We have provided Americans with transparency about the Biden Autopen Presidency, and now there must be accountability,” Comer stated.
Comer’s comments echo some of President Donald Trump’s remarks about Biden’s use of autopen — including saying that the pardons Biden approved should be voided because they were signed using an autopen. Trump has said he has used an autopen for some trivial matters, but criticized its use for pardons.
The House committee claimed it found “substantial evidence” that Biden “experienced significant mental and physical decline during his presidency,” while senior White House officials “actively sought to conceal his deterioration from the public.”
Bondi said in a Tuesday post on X that her staff has “already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons” and called the report “extremely helpful.”
Speaker Mike Johnson commented on the report Tuesday morning, repeating Comer’s calls to void “every executive action signed by the autopen without written authorization from President Biden.”
“This is an unprecedented situation in American politics and government,” Johnson said Tuesday when asked whether documents signed by the autopen on Biden’s behalf should be “null and void,” as the report concluded. “There is no legal precedent because no previous president … had the audacity to have people signing things on their behalf when they didn’t even know what was in it.”
Oversight Democrats have dismissed the investigation throughout the monthslong probe — complaining about the GOP’s “obsession” with the former president.
“Despite this sham investigation, every White House official testified President Biden fully executed his duties as President of the United States. The testimonies also make it clear the former President authorized every executive order, pardon, and use of the autopen,” House Oversight Ranking Member Robert Garcia said in a statement to ABC News.
House Oversight Democrats released a short 14-page counter report on Tuesday — arguing that the Republicans have “failed to produce any evidence to support their allegations against President Biden.”
Trump has continued to criticize and troll Biden’s use of the autopen — even hanging a picture of an autopen signing Biden’s signature alongside portraits of past presidents in the new Presidential Walk of Fame on the White House West Colonnade.
The committee also sent a letter to Dr. Andrea Anderson, chair of the District of Columbia Board of Medicine, calling on her to investigate whether the actions of O’Connor, Biden’s White House physician, should disqualify him from future practice in the nation’s capital.
“Based on the nature and extent of Dr. O’Connor’s actions, the Committee recommends that the Board of Medicine impose discipline, sanction, or revocation of his medical license,” the letter states. “If Dr. O’Connor failed to meet his minimum standard of care to the president, intentionally misled the American public, or authored false health reports on President Biden, then the Committee believes Dr. O’Connor should be barred from the practice of medicine in the District of Columbia.”
ABC News has reached out to O’Connor’s lawyer for comment.
When O’Connor spoke before the committee, his lawyer, David Schertler, said in a statement that the doctor “asserted the physician-patient privilege, as well as his right under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in declining to answer questions from the staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding his service as Physician to the President during the Biden Administration.”
Oversight Republicans also knocked Democrats for passive participation in the investigation — clocking the total time of their questioning to “only about 3 hours and 30 minutes’ worth of questions” over nearly 47 hours of depositions and transcribed interviews.
