(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell fell during the Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday.
It was initially unclear if McConnell, 82, was injured or what the severity of the fall was. Two medical responders were seen briefly entering his office and then departed.
Shortly afterward, McConnell’s office put out a statement that he had sustained a “minor cut” to the face and a “sprained wrist” from the incident.
“Leader McConnell tripped following lunch. He sustained a minor cut to the face and sprained his wrist. He has been cleared to resume his schedule,” his spokesperson said.
Newly-elected Senate Republican Leader John Thune, who will take the mantle from McConnell in January, was asked about McConnell’s fall during the Republican press conference after the lunch.
“He’s fine, he’s in his office,” Thune said, deferring further questions to McConnell’s staff.
McConnell, who has walked with a limp after overcoming polio at a young age, has taken previous falls.
One fall in March 2023 at a hotel in Washington resulted in a prolonged absence from the Senate. McConnell suffered a concussion and fractured rib from the incident, requiring hospitalization and outpatient rehabilitation that forced him to miss six weeks on Capitol Hill.
McConnell also sparked concern after two episodes last year during which he appeared to freeze in front of television cameras, though he was later cleared to work by the Capitol physician.
The longtime Kentucky senator announced in February he was stepping down from the leadership role he’s held for two decades.
McConnell later Tuesday afternoon exited his office to cast a vote on the Senate floor.
McConnell wore a brace on his left hand and had a visible bandage under his left eye.
He said “good” when asked by ABC News how he was feeling.
(WASHINGTON) — A top government watchdog raised concerns Tuesday over the handling of leak investigations during the first Trump administration that targeted members of Congress and the media despite finding no evidence that the inquiries were politically motivated, according to a newly released report.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz initiated the investigation after public reports that prosecutors, during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, had obtained warrants to access communications records for members of Congress, congressional staffers and reporters at CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post to identify sources of apparent leaks of classified information.
The investigations were not publicly disclosed until after Trump left office, in part because prosecutors had secured court orders that prevented lawmakers, their staff and media members from learning about the searches.
While Rep. Eric Swalwell and now-Sen. Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, previously revealed their records had been seized as part of the investigation, Horowitz’s report revealed prosecutors also searched the records of 43 others who were congressional staffers at the time the leaked information was published.
But Horowitz’s report noted that the partisan affiliation of the staffers was not imbalanced — 21 staffers whose records were searched were Democrats, 20 were Republicans, and two worked in nonpartisan positions. The inspector general investigation determined the basis for the staffers’ records being searched was entirely due to their known ability to access the materials that were found to be leaked to the press, while the investigations into Schiff, then a congressman, and Swalwell were initially bolstered by information given to the department by an unidentified committee staffer who suspected them of leaking — but provided no evidence to support the claims.
While his name is not mentioned directly in the report, Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, was among the 43 people who were congressional staffers at the time of the Trump-era leak probe whose records were searched, a source familiar with the investigation confirmed.
Patel has also said publicly on multiple occasions that he was subject to investigation by Trump’s DOJ and was also informed by Google that the DOJ had sought information on his personal accounts.
Horowitz’s report expressed concerns regarding the congressional leak investigations largely related to a lack of existing policies at the DOJ to provide senior-level oversight over such investigations that implicate the separation of powers. Records reviewed by Horowitz said the inquiries into members of Congress were conducted by career prosecutors almost entirely without senior-level supervision or notification and that there was no evidence they were pressured to carry out the inquiries despite Trump and other Republicans repeatedly singling out Schiff and Swalwell as possible leakers.
According to Horowitz, that the department was able to carry out its sweeping investigation of the members of Congress and their staff solely on the basis of them having had access to the leaked information “risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch because it exposes congressional officials to having their records reviewed by the Department solely for conducting Congress’s constitutionally authorized oversight duties.”
As for the Trump-era leak investigations of reporters from CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, Horowitz found that officials in the department violated several policies that existed at the time then-Attorney General William Barr authorized the investigations. Prosecutors failed to convene a News Media Review Committee that would normally be consulted in the process of investigations of leaks to members of the media and, in one of the investigations, failed to obtain approval from the director of national intelligence, according to the report.
Upon disclosure of the news media leak investigations in 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland convened several meetings with newsroom leaders across Washington, D.C., and ultimately implemented new DOJ policy that bars prosecutors from securing search warrants for reporters’ records to obtain information about their sources.
The future of that policy, however, remains very much in question — given public comments by Trump and his top allies suggesting they fully intend to use the powers of the DOJ and the FBI to target political enemies and even possibly members of the media during his second term. While Horowitz’s report offered up several recommendations for internal policy fixes to the issued identified in the report, all of which were accepted by the Biden DOJ, it will be up to leadership in the incoming Trump DOJ to determine whether those recommendations will be implemented.
(WASHINGTON) — Although she was just in her mid-20s, Tulsi Gabbard’s hair had already started turning white shortly before she first set foot in the U.S. Senate as a legislative aide in 2006.
Coming from her native Hawaii, she had landed a job with longtime Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who would become her mentor.
Now, almost 20 years later, the former Democratic congresswoman returns to the Senate to meet with lawmakers, including members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence after appearing with him a number of times on the campaign trail and serving as an honorary co-chair of his transition team.
Gabbard spent the past week in Oklahoma on Army National Guard duty. She currently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel, something supporters argue qualifies her for the job as critics cite her lack of experience.
She’s also facing renewed scrutiny over her past comments on Syria and her meeting with now-overthrown dictator Bashar Assad.
From Hawaii to Kuwait to Congress
By the time she came to the Senate, Gabbard had already made history in Hawaii as one of the youngest lawmakers elected to a state legislature at age 21. Serving alongside her father, Hawaii state Sen. Mike Gabbard, she became part of the first father-daughter combination in a legislature in the country.
As a Senate staffer, Gabbard remained in Hawaii’s National Guard, drilling on the weekends.
During her first yearlong deployment at Joint Base Balad in Iraq, nicknamed “Mortaritaville” for being hit with daily attacks, she’s said fumes from a nearby burn pit would regularly sicken her fellow service members, causing flu-like symptoms they called the “crud.”
In 2007, she attended the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy, graduating at the top of her class as its first distinguished woman honor graduate. After two years working in the Senate, Gabbard volunteered for a deployment to Kuwait.
As a military police platoon leader and trainer for the Kuwait National Guard’s counterterrorism unit, Gabbard achieved another milestone in 2009, becoming one of the first women to set foot in a Kuwaiti military facility and the first woman to be honored by the Kuwait National Guard.
In her limited free time, Gabbard continued working on her bachelor’s degree from Hawaii Pacific University, taking online classes in an education tent.
Although her hair returned to its natural color, she told ABC News in 2019 she eventually kept a distinctive streak of white.
“It’s a reminder, every single day of the cost of war of those we lost and my mission in life to to seek peace and to fight for peace,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard later returned to Hawaii and ran for Honolulu City Council, serving from 2010 until 2012, before being elected to Congress as the then-youngest female member.
Bipartisan outreach
As a new member of Congress, Gabbard worked to forge relationships with members on both sides of the aisle.
She arrived armed with 434 boxes of macadamia nut toffee, homemade by her mother, for every member of Congress and an additional 435 boxes for staffers. Each box came with a handwritten letter, a form of diplomacy as a Democrat facing a Republican-controlled House.
During her freshman year in Congress in 2013, Gabbard was appointed vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, but stepped down from that position to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid.
She co-chaired the Future Caucus, a bipartisan effort to engage members of Congress under 40 years old. Gabbard also bonded with lawmakers over sports, playing on the Congressional Softball Team with New York Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and joining early morning workouts with colleagues such as Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin. She and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul co-sponsored legislation, including the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
After an unsuccessful bid for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination, she left the Democratic Party and became an independent and campaigned for Republicans, including Sens. Mike Lee and Chuck Grassley. She told Trump on a rally stage in October that she was registering as a Republican.
Controversial views on Russia, Syria
Gabbard was one of the first to enter the crowded Democratic 2020 primary and was one of the last three remaining candidates. One of her rivals in that race, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, announced she would oppose Trump’s choice of Gabbard, alleging she had suggested NATO had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
“Do you really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly has been in Putin’s pocket? That just has to be a hard no,” Warren said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in November.
However, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri defended Gabbard in November on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” taking aim at accusations that Gabbard was a “Russian asset.”
“It’s a slur, quite frankly. You know, there’s no evidence that she is an asset of another country. She served this country honorably,” Schmitt said.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who entered the Senate as the first female combat veteran while Gabbard was doing the same in the House, has opposed her pick for DNI, alleging she’s been compromised.
“The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check,” Duckworth said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in November.
Mullin struck back at Duckworth’s comments, saying “That’s the most dangerous thing she could say — is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.”
“If she was compromised, if she wasn’t able to pass a background check, if she wasn’t able to do her job, she still wouldn’t be in the Army,” he said.
Now, with the rebel takeover of Syria and the fall of Assad, Gabbard is drawing renewed attention to her controversial visit to Syria in 2017 — what she called a fact-finding mission — and sympathy she expressed after meeting with the Syrian dictator, saying the U.S. should stop aiding the “terrorists” trying to overthrow him.
Gabbard noted in 2019 that a CIA program “was directly and indirectly helping to equip and train and provide support to different armed groups, including those who are allied with and affiliated with al-Qaeda, to overthrow the Syrian government.”
The “Stop Arming Terrorist Act” she worked on with Paul in the Senate said the U.S. should stop aiding the “terrorists” trying to overthrow Assad.
Assad has been accused of war crimes against his own people during the Syrian civil war, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed. A few months after meeting with Assad, Gabbard said she was skeptical he had used chemical weapons against his own people, despite evidence from the U.S. government that he had, to argue against military intervention during Trump’s first administration.
Gabbard warned in June of 2019 that she was concerned that the toppling of Assad’s regime could lead to terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda to step in to fill the void and “completely massacre all religious minorities there in Syria.”
In a 2019 interview on ABC’s “The View” while running for president, she called Assad a “brutal dictator,” but said the U.S. regime-change strategy had not improved the lives of the Syrian people.
-ABC News’ Selina Wang contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for top jobs in his administration were making the rounds on Capitol Hill on Monday ahead of potential confirmation hearings next month.
Some of the choices come with controversy — and face pointed questions from Republican senators.
Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth has had to deal with multiple allegations of misconduct and sexual impropriety, which he’s denied. Tulsi Gabbard, tapped to be the director of national intelligence, has been scrutinized over her views on Russia and a 2017 meeting with Syria’s Bashar Assad. Kash Patel, a longtime Trump ally chosen for FBI director, has vowed to take on the alleged “deep state” and Trump’s enemies.
Trump defended his selections during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired in full on Sunday.
Patel was meeting with Sens. John Cornyn, Joni Ernst, Mike Lee, Shelley Capito Moore and Chuck Grassley.
Cornyn, a key Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said after their meeting that he is inclined to support Patel and believes some of his more extreme views — such as firing agents or closing the FBI headquarters in Washington — are “hyperbolic.”
“My position, as I told Mr. Patel, is that no one should have to go through what President Trump went through by … a partisan Department of Justice and FBI — and my goal would be to restore the non-partisan functioning of the chief law enforcement agency in the country — the FBI and the Department of Justice. To me, that is the goal,” Cornyn said.
Hegseth was back for more one-on-one meetings with GOP lawmakers after four straight days last week trying to assuage concerns about reports of financial mismanagement, sexual misconduct and public drunkenness.
Trump’s defense secretary pick will meet again with Ernst, a top Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and herself a combat veteran and survivor of sexual assault.
Ernst notably was not ready to voice support for Hegseth after their meeting last Wednesday. Over the weekend, Ernst said she believed Hegseth should be thoroughly vetted and that she wanted to hear him address how he’d approach sexual assault in the military.
“I have met once with Mr. Hegseth, and we will meet again this next week,” Ernst said at a security forum in California.
Arriving Monday for her first slate of meetings was Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and military veteran with no intelligence experience. Gabbard’s been accused of voicing support for U.S. adversaries like Russia.
She was set to meet with Sens. Mike Rounds, James Lankford and Lindsey Graham.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for education secretary, also was on Capitol Hill to meet with GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and other lawmakers.
McMahon told ABC News as she will “fall in” with Trump’s education policies if confirmed to the position. However, she distanced herself from Trump’s comments about shuttering the Department of Education.
“President Trump and I have had lots of conversations, and I think his views he’s making clear on his own,” McMahon said, adding “I’m not going to get ahead of his policy.”
ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump, in his first broadcast news interview since the election, said members of the House committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, should be jailed.
“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.”
Trump specifically singled out Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who chaired the committee, as well as former Rep. Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair who was ostracized from her party over breaking with Trump and ousted by a Trump-backed GOP challenger. Among other things, he’s accused them of deleting evidence, which the committee has vigorously denied.
Cheney hit back in a statement on Sunday: “Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power.”
“This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history,” Cheney said. “Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”
The Jan. 6 committee, after an 18-month investigation including more than 1,000 witnesses and several public hearings, identified Trump as the “central cause” of the Capitol attack by the pro-Trump mob. The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, voted unanimously to recommend charges to the Justice Department.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in connection with Jan. 6 and tried to recast the violent events as a “day of love” during his campaign. In his interview with NBC, Trump again promised, in the first day of his new administration, to look at pardons for those who’ve been prosecuted for their role on Jan. 6.
While Trump said he believed the Jan. 6 committee members should go to jail, he said he would not direct his top officials to prosecute them. He’s tapped Kash Patel to be his FBI director and Pam Bondi to be attorney general, pending Senate approval, two allies who’ve made comments about going after Trump’s political opponents.
“I think that they’ll have to look at that. But I’m not going to. I’m going to focus on ‘Drill, baby, drill,'” Trump said.
The president-elect also claimed in the interview that the House Jan.6 committee “deleted and destroyed all the evidence” related to its probe.
Cheney, in her statement, said Trump “knows his claims about the select committee are ridiculous and false, as has been detailed extensively, including by Chairman Thompson in this July 2023 letter.”
Thompson defended the archival process in the letter, noting the records such as interview transcripts and video exhibits have been preserved online and can be easily accessed by the public. Thompson also noted that they were consulting with the White House and Department of Homeland Security on some information that could be sensitive to national security or to witness safety.
“There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting — a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee — and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct,” Cheney added.
Democrat Adam Schiff, who on Monday will be sworn in as a senator, responded to Trump’s comments on social media.
“When Trump violated his oath, I stood up to him,” Schiff wrote on X. “When he tried to overturn the 2020 election, the January 6th Committee stood in defense of our democracy. Threats to jail us will not deter us. Nothing will stop me from doing my duty to the American people.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the second Republican on the committee, also pushed back on Trump.
“Let me be clear: we did nothing wrong. The January 6 Committee’s work was driven by facts, the Constitution, and the pursuit of accountability — principles that seem foreign to Trump,” Kinzinger wrote in a blog post shared on Substack.
“If Donald wants to pursue this vindictive fantasy, I say bring it on. I’m not intimidated by a man whose actions on January 6th showed a cowardly disregard for democracy and the rule of law,” Kinzinger said.
President Joe Biden is said to be considering preemptive pardons for figures who may be targeted in the Trump administration, a source previously told ABC News. On the list of possible names, the source said, were Cheney and Schiff.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail but has since nominated several authors or contributors from the controversial conservative presidential wish list to his administration.
Trump called the Project 2025 policy proposals — which include restrictions on abortion pills, birth control pills and Medicare access, as well as eliminating a couple of federal agencies — “extreme, seriously extreme” in a July 20 rally.
“I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to know anything about it,” he previously said, despite having many connections to its authors and contributors.
Democrats pounced on Trump for Project 2025 during the election season, calling it a warning of what is to come under a second Trump term.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the Biden campaign stated.
Project 2025 is an over 900-page playbook of policy proposals created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation intended to guide the next conservative administration. The organization behind the document told ABC News in a past statement that it was not intended to speak for any candidate during the election.
Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda47 share similarities — including proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, increase fossil fuel energy production, and begin mass deportations.
At the ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump reiterated his earlier sentiment on the project. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas, I guess some good, some bad, but it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it].”
Now, several Project 2025 authors and contributors are not just connected to Trump, but also nominated for roles in his administration.
Here’s a look at which Project 2025 contributors may have a place in the incoming Trump administration:
Russ Vought
Russ Vought, who is cited as authoring a chapter on “Executive Office of the President” for Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” has been nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget. He was also the RNC platform committee’s policy director.
During Trump’s first term, Vought led the Office of Management and Budget, a department meant to oversee the president’s vision across the executive branch for everything from budgeting to managing certain agencies.
He could return to the post after authoring an entire chapter of Project 2025, where he argues federal regulatory agencies that aren’t under the control of the White House should have less autonomy: “A President today assumes office to find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences — or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country,” the chapter read.
In the chapter, he outlined ways his office could help consolidate executive power by using existing tools to impose a crackdown on federal spending and work with Congress to pass policy and reforms that would rein in what he calls the “administrative state.”
In a November interview on the “Tucker Carlson Show,” Vought claimed he helped the president-elect to exert executive power during his first term: “The president wanted to fund the wall. We at OMB gave him a plan to be able to go and fund the wall through money that was Department of Defense and to use that because Congress wouldn’t give him the ordinary money at the Department of Homeland Security.”
Pete Hoekstra
Pete Hoekstra, who is listed as a contributor to Project 2025, has been tapped to be the ambassador to Canada.
Most recently, Hoekstra served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. He previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump’s first term.
Stephen Miller
Stephen Miller, the former Trump aide, led an interest group that advised Project 2025 on policy. Trump has named Miller as his Deputy Chief of Staff for his second term.
Miller told ABC News in July that he has “zero involvement” with Project 2025, only making an advice video for students.
America First Legal, founded by Miller, was previously listed as an advisory board member for the project.
Brendan Carr
Brendan Carr, Trump’s nomination for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is credited as the author of Project 2025’s FCC recommendations which include: a ban on TikTok, restrictions on social media moderation, and more.
Carr would be tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Trump has suggested that he would expand the White House’s influence over the FCC and potentially punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesn’t like.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel and as the senior Republican for the FCC. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.
John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, listed as a contributor who assisted “in the development and writing” of Project 2025, has been nominated to serve as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ratcliffe is a three-term Republican congressman from Texas and served as the director of national intelligence from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term.
Project 2025’s Intelligence Community chapter, credited to The Heritage Foundation’s intelligence research fellow Dustin J. Carmack, notes that the “CIA’s success depends on firm direction from the President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior leaders must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.”
Tom Homan
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan has been designated as Trump’s “border czar” — which is not an official Cabinet position.
Homan, who is expected to be in charge of the mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025 who assisted in its “development and writing.”
Project 2025’s Department of Homeland Security chapter, credited to Trump’s former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, calls for full use of ICE’s “expedited removal” authority and further development of immigrant detention spaces. This all aligns with Trump’s immigration proposals on mass deportations and funds for the construction of detention centers.
Other links to Project 2025
Christopher Miller is credited with the project’s Department of Defense recommendations. Miller served as Acting Secretary of Defense and Special Assistant to the President under Trump from November 2020 to January 2021.
Ben Carson is credited with the project’s Housing and Urban Development recommendations. He served as the Secretary of HUD under Trump’s first administration.
Adam Candeub is credited with the project’s Federal Trade Commission recommendations. He served under the Trump administration as Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunications and Information.
Bernard L. McNamee is credited with recommendations on the Department of Energy and Related Commissions. He was nominated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Trump in October 2018.
Cuccinelli — who wrote the Department of Homeland Security section — was also part of Trump’s former administration as the Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.
The RNC platform committee’s Deputy Policy Director Ed Martin is also president of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which is listed on the project’s advisory board.
Others connected to Trump, including Trump’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women appointee Lisa Correnti, are listed among the contributors.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump announced that Alina Habba, his senior adviser and attorney, will serve as counselor to the president.
The appointment was shared through a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening, in which he wrote, “Alina has been a tireless advocate for Justice, a fierce Defender of the Rule of Law, and an invaluable Advisor to my Campaign and Transition Team. She has been unwavering in her loyalty, and unmatched in her resolve – standing with me through numerous ‘trials,’ battles, and countless days in Court.”
“As a first generation American of Middle Eastern Heritage, she has become a role model for women in Law and Politics, most recently being named Chaldean Woman of the Year,” the post continued, before congratulating Habba and her family on the appointment.
In his former administration, the position was held by Kellyanne Conway. It is not associated with the White House counsel’s office.
In additional social media posts the same evening, Trump announced several State Department roles, including Michael Anton as director of policy planning, Michael Needham as counselor and Christopher Landau as deputy secretary.
“Michael served me loyally and effectively at the National Security Council in my First Term,” Trump’s post regarding the director of policy planning position said.
“He spent the last eight years explaining what an America First foreign policy truly means,” it added.
For Needham, he wrote, “Mike has capably served Senator Marco Rubio for many years, and is a key leader in the America First Movement. He has been on the front lines of the fight for the Forgotten Men and Women of America for nearly two decades, and will do a great job at State.”
In while appointing the deputy secretary of the State Department, the president-elect posted, “Chris will work closely with our great Secretary of State Nominee, Marco Rubio, to promote our Nation’s security and prosperity through an America First Foreign Policy. Chris served as my Ambassador to Mexico, where he worked tirelessly with our team to reduce illegal migration to the lowest levels in History.”
“He is also one of our Country’s great lawyers, and clerked for both Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court,” the post continued. “He graduated from Harvard College, first in his Class, and Harvard Law School, and has argued nine cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.”
All four of the posts appeared on Trump’s account within the span of about one minute, just before 7 p.m.
(WASHINGTON) — Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump whom he tapped to co-chair the Republican National Committee for the 2024 election cycle, said she intends to step down from her position.
The move comes amid mounting speculation that she could be tapped to fill an upcoming Senate vacancy in Florida, whose Sen. Marco Rubio has been nominated for secretary of state.
“The job I came to do is now complete and I intend to formally step down from the RNC at our next meeting,” Lara Trump said in a post on X.
Should Rubio be confirmed as secretary of state in Trump’s incoming administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would need to choose a successor to serve out the rest of Rubio’s term, which expires in 2026.
“It is something I would seriously consider,” Lara Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press.
She added, “If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t know exactly what that would look like. And I certainly want to get all of the information possible if that is something that’s real for me. But yeah, I would 100% consider it.”
President Joe Biden addressed the nation Sunday afternoon after meeting with his national security team, calling the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s “abhorrent” regime a “historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria.”
“At long last, the Assad regime has fallen,” Biden said. “This regime brutalized, tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians.”
At the same time, it’s “also a moment of risk and uncertainty,” Biden added, saying that the U.S. would “support Syria’s neighbors, including Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel, should any threat arise.”
He also said the U.S. is “mindful” of the security of Americans in Syria, including American freelance journalist and Marine Corps veteran Austin Tice, who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012. Biden said it will “remain committed to returning [Tice] to his family.”
“This is a moment of considerable risk and uncertainty,” Biden said. “But I also believe this is the best opportunity in generations for Syrians to forge their own future free of opposition.”
President-elect Donald Trump had earlier called the situation in Syria a “mess” and urged against the U.S. getting involved in the conflict.
“In any event, Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Trump wrote in a post on X.
On Saturday, White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said the U.S. “has nothing to do with this offensive, which is led by Hay’at Tahir al-Sham (HTS), a designated terrorist organization,” and said that the U.S. would work together with its allies and partners to urge deescalation and to protect U.S. personnel and military positions.
Speaking at a defense conference Saturday, before rebels advanced into Damascus, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the speed and scale of the rebels’ rapid advance came, in part, because Assad’s chief backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah — had all been “weakened and distracted,” in recent months.
That has left Assad “basically naked,” Sullivan said. “His forces are hollowed out.”
Early Sunday, the rebel military operations command for the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, claimed the president was no longer in the capital, writing: “We declare the city of Damascus free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday morning that Assad “decided to leave the presidential post and left the country, giving instructions to transfer power peacefully.” Russia and Iran were the two most important foreign backers of Assad’s government.
Trump said Russia, which has long supported Assad’s regime, is “tied up in Ukraine” and apparently unable to intervene in Syria, and said Assad being forced out “may actually be the best thing that can happen” to the Russian government.
“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse,” Trump said.
In an interview with ABC News, retired Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led the U.S. Central Command during Trump’s first term, agreed with the president-elect’s assessment that the situation could spell chaos.
“I’m not sure it’s ultimately going to be good news for the people of Syria,” McKenzie said. “You know, we could have an Islamic State arise there which will have profound negative implications across the region. That is possible. There are other possibilities as well. And I think in the next 48, 72, 96 hours, we — this will begin to become clearer to us.”
“It’s a significant moment in Syrian history,” McKenzie added. “I wish I could be more hopeful that it will mean good news for the Syrian people. I think that’s very unclear right now.”
Asked about the safety of the 900 U.S. military members stationed in eastern Syria to contain ISIS, McKenzie said Assad’s fall could put them in a better place.
“Actually, there’s probably less danger right now than there was before, because what you see are the Iranians, Lebanese Hezbollah and, in fact, the Russians are all on their back heels now as a result of what has just happened in Syria,” he said.
After an onslaught of criticism toward the insurance industry following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., expressed sympathy for the victim, but acknowledged the debate it sparked over inequities in the health care system.
“There is no justification for violence,” Khanna told ABC “This Week” anchor Martha Raddatz. “But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”
Thompson’s killing led to an ongoing massive manhunt for the suspected killer and sparked rampant discussion online about the cost of health care and the insurance industry in the United States.
Khanna said he agrees with the assessment of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wrote: “We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for All.”
Khanna said that the U.S. should be moving toward Medicare for all.
“After years, Sanders is winning this debate,” Khanna said.
Khanna has said he supports Trump’s efforts to create a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut wasteful federal spending. The president-elect appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramawamy to lead the effort and the pair was on Capitol Hill this week to discuss their plans.
Khanna told Raddatz that “they should look at the extraordinary waste,” examining Medicare and private health costs, as well as defense spending.
“I think when it comes to defense, getting better defense for value and cutting costs, there can be huge bipartisan cooperation,” said Khanna.
The congressman emphasized that cuts to Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Medicare should not be on the table.
Despite bipartisan calls to address federal spending, the United States’ debt stands at more than $36 trillion.
Khanna said he has communicated with Musk regarding his cost-cutting efforts and praised the SpaceX founder’s work with the Obama administration for the private sector to engage in space exploration.
Khanna was also asked about his thoughts on the looming possibility of a ban of TikTok in the U.S. unless it finds a new owner following a Federal Appeals Court ruling on Friday that rejected TikTok’s bid to overturn the law.
In previous interviews on “This Week,” Khanna spoke about his opposition to a bill that would require TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a ban.
“I don’t think it’s going to pass First Amendment scrutiny because I think there are less restrictive alternatives,” he told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in April.
On Sunday, Khanna said he still believes that TikTok won’t face a ban, noting how many politicians themselves are on the platform.
“Let’s see where it goes with the Supreme Court,” he said.
