California Democrat flips final House seat, dealing Republicans narrow majority
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(WASHINGTON) — ABC projects that Democrat Adam Gray will win the race for California’s 13th Congressional District, unseating incumbent Republican John Duarte and flipping the final unresolved seat in the 2024 election.
With all 435 House races projected, ABC News estimates Republicans will hold 220 seats and Democrats 215 in the 119th Congress.
But it’s not clear how vacancies — or, illness or other absences — will impact the day-to-day division of power when the House convenes on Jan. 3.
President-elect Donald Trump initially tapped three House Republicans for positions in his upcoming administration: Florida Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Gaetz has already resigned from Congress and withdrew last month from consideration to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general. And though he won reelection to his seat last month, he said he won’t serve another term.
Republicans could have a 217-215 majority while their seats are vacant — the narrowest GOP majority in history — and special elections to fill those seats can take months to complete.
In this case, any single Republican can hold Johnson hostage: Losing just one Republican on a vote would result in a 216-216 tie.
The speaker acknowledged the thin majority, which could pose a challenge in passing Trump’s agenda.
“Well, just like we do every day here, we’ve developed an expertise in that. We know how to work with a small majority. That’s our custom now,” Johnson said. “So, yes — do the math. We can, we have nothing to spare. But all of our members know that we talked about that today, as we do constantly, that this is a team effort that we’ve got to all row in the same direction.”
But several elderly Democrats have missed votes recently, which could give Republicans a little more breathing room next year.
In California’s 13th District, Duarte conceded to Gray on Tuesday, according to the Turlock Journal.
“I’m a citizen legislator, and I didn’t plan on being in Congress forever,” Duarte told the newspaper. “But whenever I think I can make a difference, I’ll consider public service in different forms, including running for Congress again.”
Gray released a victory statement on X Tuesday evening, extending his gratitude and saying the “final results confirm this district is ready for independent and accountable leadership that always puts the Valley’s people ahead of partisan politics.”
-ABC News’ Marilyn Heck and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said on Friday he prays the Trump administration continues the focus on the federal response to the deadly wildfires that have ravaged Southern California.
Biden said he expected the death toll to rise as he was briefed by federal and state officials in the Oval Office. At least 10 people have been killed, and more injured, as fires continue to burn through the Los Angeles area.
With just days left in office, Biden said they’ve been coordinating with the incoming administration on the federal actions being taken to assist in fire management and help victims recover.
“My hope is that they’ll have — at least acknowledge we have some significant experience in this, we’ve done really well on it. I’m praying that they continue the focus,” the president said.
More than 30,000 acres have been burned this past week as five fires sprawled from the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena. Roughly 150,000 people were under evacuation orders and thousands of structures have been destroyed, including local landmarks.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who is on the ground in Los Angeles, said the tragedy is one of the worst disasters she’s witnessed in her four years leading the agency and that the rebuild will be complex.
“This recovery journey is going to be long, but we are going to be there with them to support them every step of the way,” Criswell said as she virtually joined the White House press briefing.
Criswell said FEMA had enough money to immediately respond to the fires, highlighting the $27 billion provided for the agency’s disaster fund by Congress in December.
Pressed by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on what the cost may be compared to other natural disasters, Criswell said it was hard to put an exact number as they continue to survey damage but that they “know that this is going to be billions.”
Criswell, discussing the transition, said FEMA has a dedicated staff that will continue to support Californians and a “whole team” dedicated to working with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition operation.
“They’re providing regular briefings to them on a daily basis and so we’re providing whatever information that they ask for,” she said.
Trump has pointed blame at Democrats, including Biden and Newsom, and spread some misinformation as the fires unfold. Criswell was asked if any such misinformation came up during their briefings with his team, though she did not directly respond.
President Biden on Thursday announced the federal government would cover 100% of the recovery costs for Los Angeles for 180 days. That would include debris removal, which the administration expects to be incredibly costly, as well as temporary shelters and pay for first responders.
“I mean, they look like a bomb hit,” Biden said on Friday on the devastation. “They look like they’re actually been blown up, entire sections of the cities blown up.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans defended the Trump administration’s sweeping revamp of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) led by Elon Musk. But some lawmakers downplayed the billionaire’s power over the president.
“In terms of any decisions made, those are made by the president or the secretary,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told ABC News on Tuesday. “If Musk wants to make recommendations, wants to go and say, you know, ‘We ought to cancel this, we ought to cancel that,’ that’s fine.”
Hawley dismissed Musk’s framing that he has more authority, calling it “a form of self-promotion” and saying the efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are more of an audit.
Other lawmakers defended the administration’s decision to gut a congressionally appropriated agency. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said it was a long time coming.
“This idea that people are concerned in these agencies, there’s a lot of great people that work there, but we’ve gone astray, I think a lot of this spending across the world, the American people are tired of it,” he said.
Elon Musk called the USAID “hopeless,” and said he was “in the process” of “shutting [it] down” — which he said President Donald Trump supports.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk wrote on X.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told ABC News’ Rachel Scott on Tuesday, “My message to my Democratic friends and to the tofu-eating ‘wokerati’ at USAID is, ‘I hear your question, but you need to call somebody who cares.”
A week ago, there were lingering questions on Capitol Hill about whether a handful of Republicans would tank the president’s most controversial nominees or if any Republicans would raise concerns about the sweeping changes across federal agencies, but these questions have since quieted.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he doesn’t have any concerns about Musk’s role in the federal government, saying that Musk reminds him of a “strategist.”
“He is throwing out big ideas. And if anybody thinks that all of these big ideas are going to be implemented to conclusion, they don’t understand the process of disruption,” Tillis said. “Everybody is acting like Congress doesn’t exist anymore. Many of the things he’s thinking about will require Congressional approval to actually structurally change them.”
But when asked why the changes wouldn’t then go through Congress, Tillis called that the “old way of doing things.”
“We’ve got oversight. If it goes too far, I’ll be the first person to step up — he went too far.”
Democrats pounced, continuing to sound the alarm and arguing that it’s only a matter of time until congressional Republicans and Musk are at loggerheads.
“There’s going to be a contest here of who’s really in charge,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said. “Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, the idea that you can go back to last year’s appropriations and just shut it down cold, without any recourse, is wrong.”
“Elon Musk’s role is not only unprecedented, it is unconscionable for him to be exercising the kind of influence and power that he is with his conflicts of interest and his financial benefits flowing to him from the kind of destructive impact,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “It’s not disruptive, it is destructive.”
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Monday evening, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called DOGE’s actions “flatly illegal” and raised questions about whether the U.S. truly believes in the rule of law.
“I’ve got agencies I don’t like … agencies that I think are spending too much money or too little money. Do you know what I do about that? I introduce a bill to change that because I believe in the American system of government,” Schatz said.
While speaking on the floor, Schatz got passionate, raising his voice and pounding his fist on the lectern as he expressed frustration about the situation unfolding. He also suggested that the move to unilaterally act without notifying Congress, in violation of congressional appropriation, was unAmerican.
Schatz questioned why assessments of efficacy could not be made while aid work continues.
“People are dying now,” he emphasized, arguing that changes could be made “while you keep the agency open.”
“What they did is they stormed into the offices of a federal building, sent everybody home, broke into the secure conference facilities, broke into the SCIFs, locked people out of their emails. Does that sound like the United States of America” Schatz added, painting a picture of what occurred at the USAID offices over the weekend. “It really honestly does not sound like the United States of America to me. These people were not elected.”
Schatz’s speech came after the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, blocked an effort by Coons that asserted the belief that USAID is “essential for advancing the national security interests of the United States.”
“I’m supportive of the Trump administration’s efforts to reform and restructure the agency in a way that better serves United States national security interests,” Risch said.
In a fiery press conference Monday, Senate Democrats said they were “pulling the fire alarm” to warn about the dangers posed by DOGE and Elon Musk’s access to the Treasury’s payments system.
“Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s administration will announce on Friday another $4.28 billion dollars in student loan relief for nearly 55,000 public service workers.
The announcement will bring the total loan forgiveness by the Biden administration to “approximately $180 billion for nearly 5 million Americans,” according to a fact sheet from the Department of Education.
The forgiveness will be delivered to individuals enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF), which allows for debt forgiveness for people in jobs like firefighting, nursing and teaching after 10 years of continuous payment.
The Biden administration has made fixes to this program that had failed to deliver student loan relief to many due to poor implementations and errors in the program, officials said.
“The public servants approved for debt cancellation today include teachers, nurses, service members, law enforcement officials, and other public service workers who have dedicated their lives to giving back to their communities and who are finally earning the relief they are entitled to under the law,” Biden said in a statement.
Of the nearly 5 million borrowers who have had more than $180 billion in debt relieved by the administration, more than 1 million were through the PSLF. The relief for those PSLF borrowers totals about $78 billion, the administration said.
“From Day One of my Administration, I promised to make sure that higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in the statement.
He added, “Because of our actions, millions of people across the country now have the breathing room to start businesses, save for retirement, and pursue life plans they had to put on hold because of the burden of student loan debt.”
