Category: Politics

(TALLAHASSEE, FL) — Desmond Meade was recalling to a church congregation in Apopka, Florida, earlier this month a dark time in his life. “Not too long ago, I was standing in front of the railroad tracks, waiting for a train to come so I could jump in front of it,” he said.

That was in 2005, and Meade was addicted to crack-cocaine, homeless, jobless and recently released from prison after he was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon. Or, as he refers to his status during that time: a “returning citizen.”

The train Meade was going to jump in front of to take his own life never came. He saw it as a sign, crossed the railroad tracks and entered into rehab, later moving into a homeless shelter, earning associate degrees, a bachelor’s, and eventually a law degree from Florida International University.

Now he is the founder of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), an organization that fights for the voting rights of people released from prison and has successfully restored voting rights for more than 1.4 million Floridians through Amendment 4, a 2018 ballot initiative that gives people voting rights if they complete their sentences from felony convictions.

“We don’t use that ‘F’ word because there is a person’s mother, father, sister, brother that lives behind that scarlet letter of shame,” Meade told ABC News during a recent interview at the FRRC offices in Orlando, Florida.

“When you talk about a person who has been impacted by the criminal justice system, they’re not throwaways,” Meade said. “Rather than, when you look at me, see what’s wrong with this country, man, no, you can look at me and see what’s possible with this country. Man, that we are a nation of second chances; that we are a nation of overcoming against all odds.”

Meade travels around the state to different communities in an FRRC bus, implementing programs for people who finished their sentences to expunge their records, register them to vote, find legal services and pay for court fees. His work earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2023, a place on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2019 and a fellowship for the MacArthur Foundation’s class of 2021.

“The quicker we help a person reintegrate, the least likely they are to re-offend, and everybody benefits from that,” Meade said.

A year after Florida ratified Amendment 4, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 7066, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, requiring that even after serving their time, those leaving the system need to pay all of the related costs ordered by the court before being eligible to vote. People convicted of murder or felony sexual assault are an exception and are not allowed to vote.

Over the last eight years, Florida has had the largest number of people, out of any state in the country, who have come out of prison and are unable to vote — often because they cannot afford to pay the court-ordered monetary sanctions, according to The Sentencing Project.

In 2022, DeSantis established a new election crime and security unit and announced the arrest of 20 individuals who allegedly had voted after being convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense.

“The state of Florida has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state for voter fraud,” DeSantis announced at a press conference in August 2022.

Neither Gov. DeSantis nor Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd immediately responded to ABC News’ request for a statement.

“At the end of the day, my sons do not stop being my sons,” Meade said about his children when they disappoint him. “And I don’t think that any person should stop being an American citizen just because of a mistake they made, especially when that mistake is like 10, 15, 20 years ago. That doesn’t make sense.”

FRRC’s work is a family affair for Meade, his wife Sheena Meade and their five children, who canvass communities, door-knock and man a phone bank to spread voter education and register people to vote.

The FRRC has raised about $30 million to pay court fees for approximately 44,000 people in Florida who finished their prison sentences. But Meade said it’s not about who people vote for. Rather, he just wants them to get involved in the political process.

“If you’re fighting only for voting rights of people who you think might vote like you, you’re not engaging in democracy work, you’re engaging in partisan work,” Meade said. “Our democracy needs less partisanship and more collective participation.”

Neil Volz, deputy director for the FRRC, was convicted of felony corruption and fraud conspiracy while he was working in Washington, D.C., with now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to the Department of Justice. Volz first met Meade at an FRRC event in Florida.

“I’ll never forget the words he said. He said nobody’s got a monopoly on the pain caused by felony disenfranchisement,” Volz told ABC News during an interview in Apopka, Florida. “The vision that he was casting was much bigger than race, was much bigger than politics, was much bigger than economics.”

Meade said that restrictive voting laws for people who have come out of prison in Florida stem from archaic Jim Crow-era legislation passed when voter suppression of African Americans surged during Segregation. Back then, voting obstacles included poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation tactics – sometimes from law enforcement. But the FRRC founder said that he owes it to those who came before him to uphold the rights for which they fought.

“They did that not for them. They did it for me. And if I don’t vote, then what I’ve said is that they died in vain,” Meade said. “That I was not worth the sacrifice that they made. And I know I am.”

Henry Walker, who was released from prison after serving three years for illegal possession of a firearm, will be voting for the first time ever in the 2024 election because of help from the FRRC.

“FRRC helped to give the opportunities. That’s all it takes is the opportunity to tell my story so that someone like me, a returning citizen, can see it,” Walker told ABC News during an interview in Orlando, Florida. “And tell themselves: ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’”

Barbara Haynes, a woman who finished her prison sentence and fought for 20 years to get her voting rights, was finally able to register to vote with the help of Amendment 4 and the FRRC, according to Meade. At that point, she had less than 6 months to live because of a terminal illness.

“Her dying wish was so basic; she just wanted to feel what it felt like to be a part of something bigger,” Meade said. “To be a part of this democracy.”

Haynes died weeks after registering to vote and before she could cast her ballot, according to the FRRC founder.

“And that just ripped my heart in pieces,” Meade said. “She didn’t get that opportunity. How many people didn’t get that opportunity?”

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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(PHOENIX) — Kristin and Dave Gambardella never expected the journey of growing their family to include an abortion procedure, but in summer 2023, the married couple nevertheless found themselves in a Planned Parenthood parking lot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a seven-hour drive from their home in Tucson, Arizona.

A week beforehand, a routine blood test at 17 weeks into Kristin’s pregnancy had come back with devastating results. A follow-up ultrasound confirmed her doctors’ fears. The fetus had a severe genetic abnormality.

“They told us it was really a guaranteed short life, full of pain and surgeries and constant medical care,” Gambardella said. “Dave is a stoic person,” she said of her husband, “and I remember he just broke down and lost it. And that’s when I really felt that feeling in my gut that was like, wow, this is pretty catastrophic.”

In deciding to end the pregnancy, the Gambardellas realized they weren’t only tasked with an agonizing decision for their family — they also had an Arizona law to contend with, which would prevent them from seeing any of their own doctors for the procedure.

“The doctor, I remember, she looked at me and her eyes just looked really sad. And she said, ‘No, you can’t come here. We can’t do that procedure for you. You’d have to leave the state’,” Gambardella said.

Arizona’s abortion ban

In Arizona — one of 21 states that has enacted abortion restrictions since the end of Roe v Wade — abortion is banned after 15 weeks, except for medical emergencies endangering the life of the mother. Gambardella didn’t qualify for that exception.

“As someone who has always believed in a woman’s right to make decisions about her own bodies, it was such a turning point in my understanding on just how much abortion care is interconnected with fertility care and the act of wanting to have a baby,” Gambardella said.

The experience inspired her to join the campaign to pass Proposition 139, a ballot measure that would enshrine in Arizona’s state constitution the right to an abortion until fetal viability.

Arizona is one of 10 states in the country that have such measures on the ballot this November, including Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nebraska.

This large push nationwide comes as abortion access remains one of the most important issues to voters this election — and the top issue for women under 30, according to an October survey by KFF, the nonpartisan health policy organization.

Where the candidates stand

Democrats hope that the issue could drive enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has centered her campaign on restoring reproductive rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for nominating the conservative Supreme Court justices that voted to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Trump, who has repeatedly shifted his position on abortion from supporting a federal ban to declaring that he would not pass one, while remaining open to other reproductive health care restrictions, maintains that he will “protect women,” but is sparse on details.

It’s not clear, however, if abortion-access ballot measures will alter the outcome of the presidential race in a swing state like Arizona. Voters could split the ticket — voting to enshrine abortion access, but prioritizing other issues in their presidential choice.

Trump is leading Harris in Arizona by two points, according to 538’s latest polling average, even as polling so far has shown the abortion access amendment in Arizona to be widely popular, with about 60% of likely voters saying they’ll support it.

That level of support is in line with the success of abortion rights ballot measures in other states over the last two years since Roe v. Wade was overruled. Reproductive rights ballot measures have passed every time they’ve been on the ballot, whether the state leans Republican, Democrat or is closely divided like Arizona.

Susan Ashley, a retiree and a volunteer for the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign, says her “fury” over Roe vs. Wade being overturned drove her to make the initiative her “full-time job right now.”

“I’ve been an active voter, but I’ve never been involved in an event where there were so many passionate volunteers. And so this struck a nerve,” Ashley said.

Efforts on the ground

Athena Salman, a former Arizona state representative and director of Arizona campaigns for Reproductive Freedom for All, was at Ashley’s side for door-knocking in mid-October, in the 90-degree heat.

The two women spoke to nearly a dozen registered Independents in a neighborhood of Chandler, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Each voter they spoke to said they were supporting the ballot measure.

“I think it really shows that Arizonans are just fed up with their reproductive freedom being up in the air and they’re ready to take action and get the government interference out of our personal decisions,” Salman said.

Though Arizona currently bans abortion at 15 weeks, the state saw all abortions halted for four months in the summer of 2022 when a ban from 1864 was revived. It nearly took effect again in the spring of 2024, but the Arizona state legislature repealed it after massive outcry from residents and a push from the Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes.

To Cindy Dahlgren, spokesperson for the campaign against the abortion access ballot measure, the legislature’s decision to repeal the near-total abortion ban and keep a 15-week ban should put people at ease.

“Proponents play on those fears and that confusion by saying there’s a ban when there’s not a ban,” she said, arguing that the current law only curtails the procedure but doesn’t fully ban it. “I would also point out that it was the legislature that repealed that law. And there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to put that law back in.”

Her campaign, called “It Goes Too Far,” argues that enshrining abortion access until fetal viability would remove too many restrictions around abortion, leaving it too unregulated.

“The choice really in November is not between abortion or no abortion. It’s between limited abortion and safety precautions and a doctor and parents involved or unlimited and unregulated abortion,” Dahlgren said.

Asked about cases like Gambardella’s, where pregnancy complications arise in the second trimester, or women who experience rape or incest and do not qualify for an exception, Dahlgren said, “we do not have to enshrine a very extreme abortion amendment to care for those victims.”

But Dr. Misha Pangasa, an OB-GYN with Planned Parenthood, one of only nine clinics in Arizona providing abortion care, said she doesn’t want to leave reproductive rights up to the political makeup of the state legislature anymore.

“The idea that Arizonans health care is at the whims of whichever legislature is holding the majority is never going to be the best way for people to get the best care,” Pangasa said.

There are currently around 40 laws that restrict abortions in the state of Arizona, which Pangasa said have already significantly impacted her ability to provide care to pregnant patients.

“Pregnancy is complicated and decisions at various stages are hard. And I am the one there helping support them. And what I wish that our government would do is just let me,” Pangasa said.

Pangasa said she sees patients like the Gambardellas on a regular basis.

“To be honest, it’s a really heartbreaking moment to be in when I talk to my patients and say, if you were in a different state with me right now, I would tell you that these are your options. But because we’re in Arizona, an abortion is just not an option,” she said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The origins of the video that falsely showed individuals from Haiti voting in Georgia is the work of Russian influence actors, the intelligence community assessed on Friday.

“The IC assesses that Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia,” according to a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA).

“This judgment is based on information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. The Georgia Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claims as false.”

CISA is the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

The intelligence community also found that Russian actors falsely shared a video of an individual associated with a democratic campaign falsely taking a bribe from an entertainer.

“In the lead up to Election Day and in the weeks and months after, the IC expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans,” the joint statement said.

This is the second time in two weeks the intelligence community has alerted Americans of a Russian influence operation.

Last Friday, intelligence officials assessed that a video purporting to show ripped ballots in Pennsylvania was also part of a Russian influence operation.

Russia, along with Iran and China are seeking to sow discord and undermine confidence in the 2024 presidential election, according to the CISA director.

“We have to understand what these adversaries want,” CISA Director Jen Easterly told ABC News’ Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas on Thursday. “They all want just two things. They want to undermine American confidence in our elections and trust in democracy, and they want to stoke partisan discord. They want to pit Americans against each other, and they are looking for any opportunities to create rage, and we know that enragement equals engagement.”

Easterly said the government will be “leaning forward” in debunking foreign influence operations.

Since the summer, the intelligence community has warned that foreign adversaries will try and influence the election.

Just hours prior to the notification was made by the intelligence community on Friday, a senior CISA official was briefing reporters: election security is national security, and said CISA is monitoring both the physical and cyber threats ahead of the 2024 election.

The official did not single out any one individual, but did say that anyone who knowingly puts out disinformation is “putting election officials at harm.”

When someone puts out misinformation they are “doing the work of our foreign adversaries, and it’s an important reminder to know that these are the tactics that they’re out there leveraging,” and added that there are real-world sometimes violent consequences to the disinformation.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — As Election Day nears, tens of millions of voters have already cast their ballots throughout the country.

Whether through mail-in ballots or early in-person polling stations, more than 68 million Americans, roughly 43% of the 2020 turnout, had voted against standing in line on Election Day as of Friday afternoon, according to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Academic experts, reporters and pundits have been going through basic and limited data gleaned from the early voting numbers, trying to get clues about next week’s outcome.

That picture, however, is not exactly black and white, according to Charles Stewart, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s election data science lab.

“It’s like talking about the weather,” he said. “The candidates, the press, etcetera — really are trying to draw conclusions just on the face value of the data, but there really isn’t a lot there to say who is winning.”

That said, Stewart said the early voting data does provide some insights when it comes to this year’s voting patterns and overall turnout — indicators that could help explain how the election turns out.

A flip in the ways people early vote

Voting trends have shown that more people have been choosing to cast their ballots before Election Day, and this has increased in numbers over the last 30 years, but 2020 turned out to be a major outlier, according to Stewart.

In the last presidential election, 69% of the 158 million total votes were cast before Election Day either through the mail, which included mail ballots dropped off in person, or at early voting poll sites, according to data from MIT.

Some 43% of the 2020 early votes came from mail ballots, according to the data.

Stewart said the COVID-19 pandemic forced many voters, who were already heavily engaged and wanted to be safe, to opt into using mail ballots or smaller voting lines if available.

“There was a speculation of what would happen with the shift once the pandemic was over,” he said.

However, in this year’s early voting there’s been a drop in voters choosing mail-in voting, Stewart said.

“The main trend I’m seeing is that the interest of voting by mail has shifted to voting in-person,” Stewart said.

He noted that shift is apparent in Georgia, which has seen record early voting numbers, with over 3.8 million ballots cast as of Friday. Roughly 92% of those were cast at in-person polling places and the rest via mail, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

Stewart said some states, including swing states Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, only offer early voting through in-person absentee options. Under this option, a voter must request an absentee ballot, fill it out, and then deposit it in either a ballot box or at a designated location, and they are counted as a mail ballot voter.

Some voters may not have the time or energy to go through those extra steps to cast their ballots early, and are likely going to vote in-person Stewart said.

“If you have to vote early in person you have to figure out where that precinct is but you have to find out which is closer to your house or errands. With voting by mail, you have to take the effort to apply, to fill it out and return it and hope that the mail is delivered on time,” he said. “With Election Day voting you likely have a polling site that is much closer to you.”

Early-voting method preference hasn’t the only thing that’s seen a flip, according to Stewart.

Partisan numbers do not give any indication of outcome

Stewart said historical trends show that the majority of early voters made their decisions a long time ago and are likely politically active.

This year’s data shows that to be the case, he said, bit noted a major change in partisan turnout in several battleground states, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Registered Republicans have seen a higher early voting turnout in battlegrounds Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina in this election compared to 2024 as of Friday, according to the data.

Typically, Democrats have had an advantage in early voting. However, Trump has pushed his supporters to cast their vote earlier and that appears to have an impact, Stewart said.

While Republican officials have been touting these higher numbers as a sign of growing support, Stewart warned there is more nuance to the data.

He noted it shows, so far, that a large number of the registered Republicans who cast their votes eary came from people who voted on Election Day in 2020 and were not new voters.

Stewart said this would mean there would be fewer Republican voters casting their ballots on Election Day and thus their votes may not be reported until much later on election night or even for days afterward.

In 2020, many swing states saw their Democratic tallies rise throughout the election night and into the week, creating a “red mirage” effect on the outcome.

That mirage and “blue wave” could be muted this time around, Stewart said.

“Whatever the blue shift is, there will probably be less of a steep slope to it,” he said.

What do gender, race say about the early vote

Democrats have been touting the gender gap as a factor in their favor in the early voting numbers, as over 54% of women have cast their vote as of Friday, according to the University of Florida data.

Stewart said that assumption is not noteworthy.

Women have always been the majority of the electorate in presidential elections, going as far back as 1980, according to the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Stewart said this is also true of early voters.

“It’s not always obvious to the public that there’s always been a gender gap,” he said.In 2020, many swing states saw their Democratic tallies rise throughout the election night and into the week, creating a “red mirage” effect on the outcome.

That mirage and “blue wave” could be muted this time around, Stewart said.

“Whatever the blue shift is, there will probably be less of a steep slope to it,” he said.

What do gender, race say about the early vote

Democrats have been touting the gender gap as a factor in their favor in the early voting numbers, as over 54% of women have cast their vote as of Friday, according to the University of Florida data.

Stewart said that assumption is not noteworthy.

Women have always been the majority of the electorate in presidential elections, going as far back as 1980, according to the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Stewart said this is also true of early voters.

“It’s not always obvious to the public that there’s always been a gender gap,” he said.

When it comes to race, white voters are more likely to cast their votes by mail than Black voters, according to the MIT data.

Stewart said this stems from traditions going back to the civil rights movement.

“African Americans fought and sometimes died for being able to march into the voting booth. That’s been instilled in the community,” he said.

This practice is one factor in large numbers of Black voters heading to in-person early voting poll sites in states such as Georgia and South Carolina, where that option is available.

Churches, civil rights groups and other organizations with ties to the Black community have been pushing voters to head to the early voting polls, using campaigns such as “souls to the polls” so that they can avoid any complications on Election Day.

Groups in Georgia in particular have stressed voting early to circumvent some of the restrictive voting laws that have been put in place since the 2020 election.

As of Friday evening, more than 1 million Black voters have cast their ballots, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

“The mobilization efforts have clearly proven effective,” Stewart said.

Signs point to high turnout

Stewart said the one definite conclusion that can be drawn from the early voting data is that this year’s overall turnout will be “on par” with 2020’s, which was the highest voter turnout by percentage in over 100 years.

“It could be the high 160 (million),” he estimated.

Stewart said that the early-voting trends have shown that voters under 25 have not yet voted and they will typically line up on Election Day.

“Those populations are really heavily represented on Election Day,” he said.

Stewart reiterated that with the pandemic over, a good number of the 2020 early voters will likely shift back to Election Day voting, especially if it presents itself as the easier option for their locations and schedules.

As for the future, Steward predicted that the rise in Republican voters voting early will continue in future cycles along with the overall trend of the electorate opting for early voting.

“The data is showing this organic increase in early voting even after the pandemic,” he said. “Voters want more options, and they will seriously consider voting if they have more choices.”

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(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams will stand trial on federal corruption charges starting on April 21, 2025, a judge said Friday.

The date upset the defense, which argued for a schedule that could end the trial no later than early April to accommodate “grave, grave Democratic concerns,” namely the mayor’s reelection campaign.

The defense argued Adams needed resolution of the criminal case by the time the New York City ballot is set in the spring.

“There is a point in early April when people know who is on the ballot,” defense attorney Alex Spiro said during a hearing on Friday. “He’s either running with this hanging over his head or he’s running with this over.”

Judge Dale Ho said he appreciated the interest in a speedy trial “that any defendant has, but particularly that Mayor Adams has given the election cycle.”

“But I also have to be realistic about what I think can get done,” he continued.

Adams has pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that accused him of accepting years of luxury travel gifts in exchange for, among other things, persuading the fire department to approve the opening of the new Turkish consulate in Manhattan despite the lingering safety concerns of inspectors.

Defense tries to get bribery charge dismissed

The defense argued during the hearing Friday that a bribery charge should be dismissed because the alleged conduct does not meet the legal definition of bribery.

With Adams silently looking on in court, defense attorney John Bash argued federal prosecutors failed to show Adams did anything more than broker meetings and set up phone calls.

“The agreement has to relate to something specific and it has to relate to government power,” Bash said. “They had no agreement for a specific action.”

The defense argued Adams could not take an official action on behalf of his Turkish patrons because, at the time, he was in a largely ceremonial job of Brooklyn borough president and not the mayor with authority over the New York City Fire Department.

“The pressure must in some sense arise from the official’s governmental authority,” Bash said.

Federal prosecutors disagreed. They argued that even if Adams had no authority over the fire department, his position still gave him access.

“You don’t have to have a supervisory role to pressure,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten said, calling the alleged bribery “as clear as day.”

The prosecutor argued Adams knew when he accepted the travel gifts “he is entering a transactional relationship.”

Scotten said, at most, Adams is entitled to a clarifying jury instruction and not an outright dismissal of the charge.

The judge has not issued a ruling yet on the defense’s request.

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(WASHNIGTON) — Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney is firing back at Donald Trump after the former president darkly suggested Cheney be put in the line of fire as he criticized her as a “war hawk.”

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death,” Cheney posted Friday on X. “We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

Trump attacked Cheney at an event with Tucker Carlson in battleground Arizona on Thursday night.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said of the former Wyoming congresswoman as he went after her and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.

“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?” Trump said. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Trump continued, “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send a — let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”

The Harris campaign called Trump saying “nine barrels” a reference to a traditional nine-gun “firing squad.”

Cheney, a Republican but a vocal critic of Trump over his behavior after the 2020 election and on Jan. 6, 2021, has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

While campaigning alongside Harris, Cheney cast Trump as a danger to democracy and the Constitution.

“We see it on a daily basis, somebody who was willing to use violence in order to attempt to seize power, to stay in power, someone who represents unrecoverable catastrophe, frankly, in my view, and we have to do everything possible to ensure that he’s not reelected,” Cheney told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week” earlier this fall after publicly backing Harris.

Trump’s remarks against Cheney are the latest in a string of increasingly dark and violent campaign rhetoric.

The former president doubled down on his “enemy from within” language after he previously suggested Democrats are more of a threat to the U.S. than top foreign adversaries such as China and Russia when it comes to the 2024 election.

“We do have an enemy from within,” he told Carlson on Thursday. “We have some very bad people, and those people are also very dangerous. They would like to take down our country. They’d like to have our country be a nice communist country or a fascist in any way they can. And we have to be careful of that.”

Harris campaign senior adviser Ian Sams responded to Trump’s comments during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, during which he called the former president “all-consumed by his grievances.”

“I mean, think about the contrast between these two candidates,” Sams said. “You have Donald Trump who is talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad, and you have Vice President Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet. This is the difference in this race.”

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s spokesperson, claimed on Friday Trump’s words were being taken out of context.

“President Trump was CLEARLY explaining that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,” Leavitt wrote on X.

ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soorin Kim, Kelsey Walsh and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A jobs report scheduled to be released on Friday will mark the final piece of major economic data before Election Day.

Hiring data typically provides a clear-eyed snapshot of the nation’s labor market, but the latest report could prove one of the murkiest in recent memory.

Last month, two hurricanes and a major labor strike at Boeing may have disrupted the survey of employers that the government uses to estimate the nation’s hiring.

Economists expect the U.S. to have added 90,000 jobs in October. That figure would mark a sharp slowdown from 254,000 jobs added in September, but the new report is widely expected to be an undercount due to the one-off disturbances last month.

“Workers who weren’t paid during the survey period due to work disruptions won’t be counted as employed, and workers and businesses may be too busy dealing with the aftermath of the storms to respond to surveys,” Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale University and former director of economic research at Indeed, told ABC News in a statement.

The unemployment rate is expected to have ticked up to 4.2% in October from 4.1% in September.

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane on Oct. 9. It ultimately left millions without power and much of the state’s gas stations without fuel. In late September, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, prompting recovery efforts that have continued for weeks afterward.

Additionally, roughly 33,000 Boeing workers walked off the job in mid-September, an action that’s expected to manifest as missing jobs for the first time on the October report.

In all, the combination of hurricanes and work stoppages is estimated to have pushed the level of hiring 50,000 jobs lower than where it otherwise would have stood, Bank of America Global Research said in a note to clients this week.

“This probably weighed on payrolls across the board, especially leisure and hospitality,” Bank of America Global Research said, pointing to Hurricane Milton. “There was also likely a minor drag from Helene,” the bank added.

The hiring data is set to arrive at the end of a week in which new releases showed an economy growing at a robust pace while inflation returns to normal levels.

U.S. GDP grew at a 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data on Wednesday showed. That figure fell slightly below economists’ expectations, but demonstrated brisk growth that was propelled by resilient consumer spending.

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge showed that prices rose 2.1% over the year ending in September. Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of about 9% in 2022, though it remains slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%.

The jobs report is set to arrive four days before Election Day. It also marks the last piece of significant economic data before the Fed announces its next interest rate decision on Nov. 7.

The Fed is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are being poured into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite these issues being among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the intensified campaign will sow fear and hate against a group that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population, per an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — and which already experiences high rates of discrimination and violence.

“After the election, trans Americans will have to deal with the dangerous fallout from the shameful lies and misinformation that far too many political candidates are intentionally spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In the ads, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has said he will end transgender care in prisons and jails, and restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports, and more.

In interviews, Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as being part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — has said she will follow the law when it comes to transgender care and has expressed support for the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the issues and how each candidate expects to legislate transgender policies.

Claim about ‘transgender operations’ in prisons, jails

Trump’s campaign has seized on Harris’ past comments affirming her support for transgender inmates to receive care.

In 2019, she did support “providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

The Harris campaign, however, hit back against recent criticism from Trump, noting that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration had a policy in place to allow incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care if it’s required based on an individual assessment of needs. BOP documents confirm the policy.

“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Harris during an interview in October.

“I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “You’re probably familiar with now, it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, of the hundreds of incarcerated transgender people in BOP custody each year, no one had received gender-affirming surgery until the first instance in 2023.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates have ever obtained surgeries.

Claims of transgender ‘operations’ for children at schools

Trump has often depicted hypothetical or unfounded scenarios about children getting an “operation” at school without parental permission while on the campaign trail. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any proof, that schools purportedly secretly send students for surgeries, saying: “There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is needed for any form of gender-affirming care given to minors, including puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found — a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis.

Physicians say they work with patients and their parents to build a customized and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for trans patients, meaning not every patient will receive any or every type of care. They also said receiving this care is typically a lengthy process.

Numerous medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the CDC — have said access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender-diverse people.

Harris, when asked in October during an NBC News interview about whether transgender Americans deserve to have access to gender-affirming care, said she would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”

Additionally, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as Minnesota governor protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state in March 2023.

Claims about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker, or Mark William Calaway, Trump also pushed false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif was the target of controversy after reports falsely surfaced claiming Khelif is a transgender woman; she is not and was assigned female at birth, according to the International Olympic Committee.

Carini abandoned the Olympics bout after only 46 seconds, further sparking false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC spoke out about the misinformation on Khelif’s gender and sex.

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, has a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced a San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming a trans athlete on San Jose State’s team — as he repeatedly misgendered her — injured other female players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.

“They had the one guy on the one team, and he was so high in the air, and he smashed that ball, you know, you don’t see that, and this ball came at her at a speed that he’s, you know, she’s never seen — get really whacked her. But other volleyball players were hurt,” Trump said.

Trump has additionally vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” in many of his stump speeches, making it a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that trans women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading — with sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimating to CNN that trans women make up less than 40 athletes of the 500,000 in the NCAA.

For more insight into the candidates’ LGBTQ policy history, read here.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Deep distrust in the American election system among Republican voters has inspired a wave of general election poll watchers purporting to protect against fraud in battleground states, where some officials fear a turn toward vigilantism before and on Nov. 5.

“Their presence alone is kind of a deterrent, because everybody knows somebody is watching,” said Jeff Fuller, a retired Army Special Forces officer, self-described 2020 election denier, and organizer of a GOP poll watching effort in Prince William County, Virginia.

Part of American elections for generations, poll watchers are volunteers appointed by both major parties to observe how ballots are cast, handled, and counted. They report alleged irregularities to party lawyers for possible further investigation.

“Poll watchers can provide transparency. They can raise issues that poll workers might not see as they deal with all sorts of other busy jobs on Election Day,” said Andrew Garber, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan election watchdog. “The concern becomes when poll watchers go in either to fulfill partisan goals or to spread disinformation.”

Several veteran election administrators called the 2024 Republican effort “very significant,” if not unprecedented, for its size and scope.

“We’ve got over 175,000 volunteers who have signed up, registered, or are going through trainings,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told ABC News Live last month of the party’s team of poll watchers, poll workers and lawyers.

Democrats have assembled a core legal team to counter the GOP operation and will also have volunteer poll watchers deployed in key states, though the party has not provided a total number.

Fuller described what he trains poll watchers to look out for.

“Is the voter, when he comes in, is he asked his name and address? Does he give his name and address? Can the poll watcher hear that and observe that dialogue? A lot of it is common sense,” he said. “If you see something that doesn’t make sense. You can ask a question about it.”

Fuller concedes he has seen “no” evidence of election fraud in Virginia so far.

In recent elections, a small but growing number of poll watchers have been accused of disruptive behavior and intimidation tactics leading some state election officials to fear this year could be worse.

In 2022, an armed poll watcher in Texas trailed election officials headed to count ballots. Others in Arizona, wearing masks, maintained an intimidating presence outside ballot drop boxes. Election staff in Wayne County, North Carolina, accused poll watchers of blocking access to voting machines and raising constant objections in an effort to disrupt the process.

“We all want our elections to be as secure as possible, but over the last couple of elections we’ve seen a growing trend of poll watchers spreading disinformation, of leaving the polling place and announcing that they witnessed fraud that didn’t really exist,” said Garber.

“There’s certainly concern about this election as well, that there are poll watchers who are going in and looking to make up claims about fraud, which can then be weaponized by losing candidates to say that there were problems in the election,” he said.

Poll watching recruitment efforts have tapped into lingering concern among conservative voters about alleged widespread fraud during the 2020 election — claims that have gone unsubstantiated but remain believed.

Thirty-three percent of registered voters — including 66 percent of Trump’s supporters — endorse Trump’s false claims that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win in 2020, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Just 6% of Vice President Kamala Harris supporters say they lack confidence that votes will be accurately counted in 2024, the poll found. Among Trump supporters it’s 54%.

“They’ve seen too many things that can’t be explained — data can’t be reconciled, other observations — and so they want to make a difference now,” said Mark Flaherty, co-founder of Citizens for New Jersey Election Integrity, a grassroots group that mobilizes conservative election volunteers. “They are no longer taking their elections for granted.

At a gathering of the New Jersey group over the summer, several participants explained why they felt compelled to volunteer to watch the polls or work as an official polling place staffer. “By and large, the elections are anything but transparent, reliable, or bulletproof,” said one man. Added another: “illegal immigrants — we need to prevent them from voting.”

Many veteran nonpartisan state election officials have said they fear an escalation of poll watcher tactics and have strategized on how to resolve confrontations which may arise.

“To come in with rhetoric — grand, immediate accusations — does not always go well because people are immediately saying you’re doing something illegal, you’re doing something fraudulent, and that just amplifies turns on from low temperature to boiling rapidly,” said Isaac Cramer, executive director of the Charleston County, South Carolina, Board of Voter Registration and Elections.

“The past couple of years, every election official has started to think about threats to them, their family, their election workers, and their staff,” said Kristie Burr, director of the Oconee County, South Carolina, Board of Elections. “It adds pressure to our job.”

Tina Barton, a Republican former election official from Michigan, received death threats after the state’s 2020 vote count did not favor Trump. She now travels the country to coach other officials on how to prepare.

“It impacts you forever,” Barton told ABC News in an interview. “You change the way you do things, how you talk about things, what you share on social media, how you arm your house, and arm yourself.”

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News warns that “threat actors” are “likely” to push unsubstantiated claims of election fraud “to drive 2024 general election-related violence” and notes that at least 12 individuals were sentenced “in relation to violent threats” directed at election officials or volunteers in 2020 and 2022.

Jeff Fuller says he doesn’t condone violence, but he insists an army of poll watchers looking over their shoulder is the only way to build back trust.

“I’m a partisan Republican, but I don’t buy threatening anybody or doing anything that is going to cause anybody to fear for their life,” Fuller said.

As for fears of vigilantism by some of the GOP’s army of 175,000 poll-watching volunteers, Fuller says he can understand the sentiment, but “It’s not true. It’s not true.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.