Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, sworn in as senator
Darline Graham Nordone speaks during a press conference outside the Governor’s South Carolina State House office on July 13, 2026 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Grant Baldwin/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, was officially sworn in to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon to finish the remainder of her late brother’s term.
Republican Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore of the Senate, presided over the ceremony.
Darline Graham was escorted by fellow South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, both Republicans, as she approached to dais to take the oath of office. The chamber, filled with a number of Democratic and Republican senators, applauded after she was sworn in.
Lindsey Graham, a four-term Republican senator, died over the weekend at the age of 71. Darline Graham will serve out the remaining months of his current term, which expires in January.
Darline Graham was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday. President Donald Trump supported her appointment, calling it a fabulous tribute” to Lindsey Graham, who at a young age became Darline Graham’s legal guardian after the deaths of their parents.
“Lindsey has always been there for me. And now I will be there for him,” Darline Graham said on Monday.
Who is Darline Graham?
Darline Graham, who lives in Lexington, South Carolina, has served since 2019 as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, according to a biography provided by Gov. McMaster’s office on Monday. She also serves on the South Carolina State Workforce Development Board and is president-elect of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind.
She also previously held roles with Clemson University, the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce and the South Carolina Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, the governor’s office said.
Darline Graham, a mother of two, earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of Charleston, a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling and is a certified public manager, according to the release.
After their parents died when Lindsey Graham was 22 years old, he took on a caretaker role for Darline Graham, then 13, and became her legal guardian. Talking to C-SPAN in 2015, Lindsey Graham said his sister’s success was “the highlight” of his life “by far.”
Their close relationship was evident throughout Lindsey Graham’s political career. Darline Graham appeared with him several times on the campaign trail and in campaign videos.
“It is such a privilege to get to finish some of his important work, and I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States,” she said on Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks in Arlington, Virginia. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump defended his proposal to give Americans a $5,000 “dividend” — which some dismissed as a stunt or bribe — seeming to suggest it as a “reward” for voters who he says endured the Biden administration.
The comments came in response to ABC News pressing him on why he would need to offer such a payment if his economic policies are working.
Trump was asked on the tarmac on his way back to Washington, D.C. — after he closed out night two of the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas — whether the proposed payment amounted to an incentive for voters to turn out in the midterm elections.
The proposed payment to all American adults — which some estimated would cost $1.3 trillion — was conditioned on Republicans retaining control of both houses of Congress in the midterms and the money being spent in the U.S.
The White House issued a press release on Thursday that suggests the checks could come from commitments the Trump administration has received from companies to invest in the private sector. It’s unclear how those investments, which have not yet materialized, would be made into dividend checks for Americans.
“The U.S. is still $40 trillion in debt, if your economic policies are working, why do you need an incentive for people to turn out to vote?” ABC News asked the president directly.
Trump rejected the premise that the payment was intended to encourage voter turnout.
“I think what you’re going to do — I didn’t do it for turning out the vote, I did it as a reward for people having to put up with five years-four years of horrible situation caused by Biden,” Trump said.
Trump then pointed to what he described as problems with the Biden administration’s economic and immigration policies.
“I mean, they had to put up with the four years, and they carried on for at least a half an additional year with horrible, just a horrible thing that Biden did to our country,” Trump said. “And that’s not only just from an economic standpoint. You look at the border, you look at the crime, and now we’ve got it under control.”
“But what, what a period of time,” Trump continued. “It’s almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden’s policy.”
Trump has said the proposed $5,000 payments would be funded through what he has described as “tremendous growth.”
“We have tremendous growth. We have growth like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said. “We have trillions of dollars coming in, and that will end up being not a very big problem at all.”
Many members of Congress have expressed opposition to Trump’s plan, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slamming the move.
“Trump’s presidency is so failed and broken, he is resorting to trying to bribe the American people for their votes,” Schumer wrote in a social media post.
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, who serves as the vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus, joked in a social media post that “If Democrats flip the House and Senate everyone will get a $10,000 dividend, and a pony, and free ice cream for life.”
Outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said he fears the payments would cause more inflation and accused Trump of trying to buy votes.
“Frankly, I’m insulted by the notion that my vote this November could be bought for 5k,” Massie wrote in a post on X.
Just last year, the president declared that every American would get a $2,000 rebate check paid for by tariff revenue.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote on his social media platform in November 2025. That has not happened yet.
Even the most generous accounting, such as Penn Wharton’s Budget Model, estimates the tariffs brought in roughly $300 billion. And that’s not counting the money the Treasury has had to pay back to American companies after the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariff regime illegal. As a result of those debts, the government is currently paying out more in tariff revenue than it is collecting.
ABC News’ Justin Fishel and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
Lettering and construction tarps on the exterior of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on September 19, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — An email sent to Kennedy Center staff earlier this week by the center’s executive director says the building will “remain temporarily closed” pending an ongoing safety assessment.
In the email, sent on Wednesday and obtained by ABC News, the center’s executive director and chief operating officer, Matt Floca, gave no indication that the building will be reopening anytime soon after the President Donald Trump-aligned Kennedy Center board voted last month to close it for renovations after a federal judge’s ruling blocked Trump’s name from appearing on the outside of the building.
Floca said no one can access the building’s grand hallways without permission and a hard hat, pointing to an ongoing “emergency egress assessment” of the building’s overhanging soffits — the underside of the building’s distinctive overhanging roof.
Floca said that the ongoing assessment will “determine whether, and under what conditions, the building can safely support occupants and be evacuated,” given that certain exits would be blocked during soffit repairs.
“We currently expect the assessment to be completed within the next one to two weeks and will share an update when it is complete, or sooner if the expected timing changes,” Floca wrote in the email. “This is an assessment timeline, not a reopening date. The immediate safety determination is separate from the scope and schedule of the broader renovation program.”
Floca said the main corridors of the building — the Hall of States, Hall of Nations and Grand Foyer — remain off limits, and that entry “requires express authorization and compliance with all prescribed safety controls, including hard hats and any other required personal protective equipment.”
Wearing such safety equipment “does not, by itself, authorize entry,” Floca noted.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered an update on the center’s closure by Friday, and Floca is expected to provide the judge with the same information he put in his Wednesday email, which was first reported by NBC News.
Floca, in a court filing last week, cited several “documented hazards” within the building as well as corrosion on the soffits around it.
In May, Cooper issued an order blocking the planned two-year closure of the center for renovations, saying the board had not properly weighed the impact of the closure on the center’s finances and programming when it voted on the plan in March.
The Justice Department has since asked the judge to dissolve that order so planned renovations can proceed. However, Cooper has yet to rule on that motion.
Trump has appealed the judge’s order that the board cannot re-add Trump’s name to the building.
In a TIME magazine interview out Thursday, Trump said he would be willing to save the Kennedy Center, but that it’s in “terrible, terrible shape,” adding that his administration should be recognized for stepping in to renovate.
He also refused to commit to not demolishing the performing arts center without the consent of Congress.
“I’m not committing to anything,” Trump told TIME. “We’re going to see how it plays out in court.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during an event at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building, October 5, 2026 in Washington. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
Democrats are urging Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop the Trump administration’s proposed changes to Head Start, calling the reforms to the early childcare and education program illegal and “antithetical” to the mission of Head Start.
Head Start, the largest federal childcare program, aims to ensure that more than 700,000 kids receive a high-quality pre-school education for students ages 3-5 and improve welfare outcomes for children and their families. The reforms transfer federal oversight to state programs.
In a letter led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, a bicameral coalition of lawmakers accuse the federal health department of proposing to “gut” the program by rolling back 90% of its performance standards and it asks Kennedy to withdraw the changes outlined in the agency’s recent announcement.
But the new administrative changes could diminish program quality, reduce disciplinary standards, eliminate jobs for educators and healthcare providers and weaken protections for students with disabilities and unhoused families, according to the letter that was first obtained by ABC News.
“This proposed rule is a brazen attempt to dismantle Head Start without regard for the hundreds of thousands of young children and working-class families who depend on these programs and services every year,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Kennedy’s office on Wednesday.
In addition to Sanders, who serves as the ranking member on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Education Committee ranking member Bobby Scott and more than 150 other Democrats signed onto the letter.
The lawmakers allege that the proposed changes violate the Head Start Act — the law that authorizes the eligibility and standards for the program — and illegally eliminate the program’s core components of giving vulnerable students and families a boost in life. For more than 60 years, the program has provided early childhood education, health, nutrition and family support services to low-income children and families.
Head Start has undergone major revisions under previous administrations, including the largest reduction in funded Head Start slots in program history.
Since FY16, Head Start enrollment has declined from over 1 million children to 771,121 in FY25, according to government data. The National Head Start Association supports the government’s intent to reduce unnecessary burden on Head Start programs and educators but the organization said the proposed rule exceeds its deregulatory approach.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services contended that any Head Start program that likes its current performance standards under the federal government’s previous guidance is welcome to maintain those standards.
“Head Start teachers and staff are exceptional professionals who have in many cases dedicated their lives to serving children and families,” the spokesperson wrote. “It is a shame that some elected leaders in Washington do not trust Head Start directors, teachers, and parents to make wise decisions for the children they serve but instead believe Washington must tell all 1,600 Head Start centers across the U.S. exactly how they have to run their programs.”
Early childhood advocates stress that new regulations requiring English-only instruction, caps on administrative spending, and shifts in health screenings could also harm future Head Start participants.
Wednesday’s letter comes as the 60-day open comment period for the changes ends. Kennedy’s uncle, Sargent Shriver, founded the program in 1965. The secretary has said that the reforms will remove unnecessary bureaucracy for hundreds of thousands of American families to renew the “promise of Head Start for the next generation” by allowing local Head Start centers more authority over their programs.
In their letter, the lawmakers scolded the proposal saying Kennedy “made a commitment to Congress to ‘preserve’ Head Start,” during his confirmation hearings — “yet this proposed rule is the latest attempt by the Administration to deteriorate and ultimately eliminate the program by gutting the core standards and services that have long-defined and ensured its success.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s goal to make the largest revision to federal childcare policy in decades aligns with current administration priorities. If implemented, the new regulations would empower parents, implement the new federal dietary guidelines and physical activity standards, shift early childhood governing authority to the states, and eliminate duplicative layers of compliance, according to the health department. The department also awarded over $200 million to Head Start for nutrition, facilities, and other services last month.
For now, as federal funding remains intact and programs are still operating, Head Start proponents told ABC News that fewer federal regulations should not mean fewer results for its families.
Bernadine Futrell, who served as the Biden administration’s Head Start director, told ABC News that the program is life saving and provides critical services.
“It’s more than early learning,” Futrell told ABC News, adding “It is an early childhood program. It’s focusing on brain development, health and nutrition, healthy habits, financial literacy, economic mobility for parents, and it’s a two-generational approach – where it’s not just a child being served; it’s the entire family that is moving to another level.”
