Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin explains why she voted against Hegseth’s confirmation
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin explained why she voted against confirming Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was sworn into the role Saturday following a hair-thin vote in the Senate.
Slotkin told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz she had not been confident Hegseth would be more loyal to the Constitution than he would be to President Donald Trump.
“He couldn’t unambiguously say that he will push back if the president asked him to do something that wasn’t constitutional, and that, to me, is why I couldn’t confirm him,” Slotkin said. “There’s a lot of other things in his background I don’t like, but I look at what is the strategic and irreversible threats to our democracy, and that’s using the uniform military in ways that violate the Constitution.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump kicked off his second term with a flurry of executive actions on immigration, Jan. 6, health policy and more.
More orders are expected Tuesday amid fallout from his first moves, including his issuing pardons for more than a thousand rioters convicted in connection with the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and his effort to end birthright citizenship.
Meanwhile, lawmakers will continue to question and process the president’s Cabinet picks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been sworn in as other nominees, including Elise Stefanik for ambassador to the United Nations, face confirmation hearings.
‘For us and the whole world, it is still the Gulf of Mexico’: Mexican president
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s various decrees issued after the inauguration in a point-by-point statement.
Sheinbaum said Trump’s decrees concerning the emergency zone of the southern border and the Migrant Protection Protocols were no different than the orders made during Trump’s first term.
“We will always act in the defence of our independence, the defense of our fellow nationals living in the U.S. We act within the framework of our constitution and laws. We always act with a cool head,” she said in her statement.
Sheinbaum however pushed back on Trump’s decree to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
“For us and the whole world, it is still the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.
-ABC News’ Anne Laurent and Will Gretsky
Rubio promises State Department will focus on making America ‘stronger,’ safer,’ and ‘more prosperous’
After being sworn in as the nation’s 72nd secretary of state, Marco Rubio promised that every action taken by the department would be determined by the answer to three questions: “Does it make us stronger? Does it make us safer? And does it make us more prosperous?”
Rubio gave remarks in Spanish as well, giving thanks to God, his family present and not present, including his parents, who he said came to the U.S. in 1956 — and that the purpose of their lives was that their children could realize dreams not possible for them.
“It’s an incredible honor to be the secretary of state of the most powerful, best country in the world,” he continued in Spanish, giving thanks to Trump for the opportunity.
Rubio also echoed themes from Trump’s inaugural address and reiterated the president’s agenda.
“As far as the task ahead, President Trump was elected to keep promises. And he is going to keep those promises. And his primary promise when it comes to foreign policy is that the priority of the United States Department of State will be the United States. It will be furthering the national interest of this country,” Rubio said.
– ABC News’ Shannon Kingston
Confirmation hearing begins for Trump’s VA pick
Doug Collins, Trump’s choice to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, will face questions from lawmakers as his confirmation hearing gets underway.
Collins, a former congressman, is a Navy veteran who currently serves as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command.
He was the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, and had defended the president.
Rubio is sworn in by JD Vance as secretary of state
After being unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Monday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was officially sworn in by Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday morning.
Rubio joined ABC’s “Good Morning America” ahead of the ceremony, where he discussed Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 rioters, TikTok and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Rubio sidestepped directly weighing on the pardons, saying his “focus needs to be 100% on how I interact with our counterparts, our adversaries, our potential enemies around the world to keep this country safe, to make it prosperous.”
When asked about Trump’s campaign pledge to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Day 1, Rubio contended the matter is more complex and that negotiations would not be played out in public.
“Look this is a complex, tragic conflict, one that was started by Vladimir Putin that’s inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on Ukraine and also on Russia, I would argue, but also on the stability of Europe,” Rubio said. “So the only way to solve these things, we got to get back to pragmatism, but we also get back to seriousness here, and that is the hard work of diplomacy. The U.S. has a role to play here. We’ve been supportive of Ukraine, but this conflict has to end.”
White House signals Trump will make announcement on infrastructure
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this morning that Trump will be making a a major announcement on infrastructure at 4 p.m. ET.
“I can confirm that the American people won’t be hearing from me today,” she wrote, indicating she would not hold a press briefing. “They’ll be hearing from the leader of the free world,” Leavitt said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“Once again, President Trump will be speaking to the press later this afternoon at the White House, and we will have a big infrastructure announcement,” she added.
Rep. Nancy Mace; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said Tuesday that the bill she introduced to ban transgender women from using biological women’s restrooms at the U.S. Capitol was “absolutely” in response to Rep.-elect Sarah McBride’s entering Congress.
“Yes, and absolutely. And then some,” Mace told reporters at the Capitol.
“I’m not going to stand for a man, you know, someone with a penis, in the women’s locker room,” she said.
McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, didn’t respond to questions on the topic as she entered the House Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday morning.
Monday night, she responded to Mace in a post on X, saying, “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”
Outside the Republican conference meeting, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called McBride a “biological man” and said she had confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson at during the House Republican Conference meeting Tuesday morning about what “men in leadership” would do to address their concerns.
“You know, Sarah McBride, as he calls himself, formerly Tim McBride, is a biological man, and he should not be using any of our restrooms in the Capitols, in the in our office buildings. But Nancy Mace’s resolution doesn’t go far enough,” Greene said.
“A resolution is just a statement by Congress saying that Congress disagrees with something we need, something more binding. And that’s what I just brought up at the microphones there — in our conference, I directly asked Speaker Johnson what the men in our leadership are going to do about this, because this this has to be stopped,” Greene added.
Mace invoked her own experiences as a victim of rape as part of the reason she introduced the measure.
“That’s not okay. And I’m a victim of abuse myself. I’m a rape survivor,” Mace said. “I have PTSD from the abuse I’ve suffered at the hands of a man, and I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private spaces, so I’m absolutely 100% going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way,” she said.
Mace told ABC’s John Parkinson that she wanted to expand her efforts and push a measure that would ban transgender women from using biological women’s bathrooms on all federal property.
“Number one, I want to see this in the House Rules package. I want to make sure that no men are in women’s private spaces. And it’s not going to end here. This shouldn’t be going on any federal property. If you’re a school or an institution that gets government funding, this kind of thing should be banned. I think it’s sick. It’s twisted,” Mace said.
Mace said that her position was a feminist one.
“I have fought like hell for women’s rights. I mean, 25 years ago, this year, I became the first woman to break the glass ceiling and graduate from a military college that was formerly all male, and to see the way that I’ve been attacked today and last night for fighting to protect women and girls — it’s ridiculous. So, if that — being a feminist makes me an extremist, I’m totally here for it,” she said.
“And if McBride wants to go to the gym, she can go to Planet Fitness, where they allow biological men to be around in a room in a private space with underage girls like no thank you. It’s not going to happen, not on my watch,” Mace said.
During his weekly news conference Tuesday morning, Johnson declined to speak about McBride’s gender when asked by a reporter whether she is a man or woman. Johnson also would not say if he’d support Mace’s proposal to ban transgender women from women bathrooms in the Capitol.
Asked whether McBride is a man or a woman, he responded, “Look, I’m not going to get into this. We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people. I believe it’s a it’s a command we treat all persons with dignity and respect. We will. And I’m not going to engage in silly debates about this. There’s a concern about uses of restroom facilities and locker rooms and all that. This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before. We’re going to do that in deliberate fashion with every consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person.”
Then asked whether he would respond to Mace’s measure, he answered, “I’m not going to address plans on any of that. I just told you what I’m going to say about the issue. I’m not going to engage in this. We don’t look down upon anyone. We treat everybody. That’s a principle that would have pursued my whole life issue, a first impression for Congress, as we will any other thing. We’ll provide appropriate accommodation for every member of Congress.”
(WASHINGTON) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrives on Capitol Hill on Monday to kickstart several days of private meetings with more than two dozen senators and their staff in a bid to become the nation’s next health secretary.
Among the senators on Kennedy’s list is Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the GOP’s pick to become the next Senate majority leader.
Kennedy’s chances of getting confirmed by the Senate aren’t clear. His past comments questioning vaccine science and the food industry could lose — and gain — votes on either side of the aisle depending on how he talks about his plans for the incoming administration.
Here are three questions surrounding his nomination:
Would he try to limit access to certain vaccines like the polio shot or encourage schools to drop vaccine mandates?
Kennedy has said he’s not opposed to all vaccines. He says he’s fully vaccinated, with the exception of the COVID-19 shot, and that he has vaccinated his children.
Kennedy also has falsely claimed that childhood vaccines cause autism, even though the study claiming that link has been retracted and numerous other high-quality studies have found no evidence that vaccines are tied to autism.
Kennedy also has questioned the safety of the polio vaccine and enlisted the help of a longtime adviser and anti-vaccine advocate, Aaron Siri, to vet potential job candidates for the incoming administration.
Siri petitioned the Food and Drug Administration in 2022 to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine on behalf of an anti-vaccination advocacy group.
Dr. Richard Besser, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an ABC News contributor, said senators should ask Kennedy if he would consider using his new post to discourage local school districts from requiring vaccinations.
While state — not federal — laws establish vaccination requirements for local schools, they rely heavily on the recommendations by the CDC and FDA, which Kennedy would oversee as health secretary, if confirmed. Currently, all 50 states and Washington, D.C. have laws requiring vaccines to attend schools, although some offer exemptions.
“What will you do to make sure that parents can feel comfortable sending their children to school protected from measles, whooping cough and other vaccine-preventable diseases if vaccines are no longer required?” Besser said senators should be asking Kennedy.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history and a polio survivor, said last week that anyone seeking Senate confirmation would “do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”
Will Kennedy use ‘confirmation bias’ to review government data
Confirmation bias is the idea that people often seek out information that supports their own deeply held beliefs, rather than be open to accepting new information that might challenge their ideas.
When it comes to the polio vaccination, Kennedy has said he’s willing to say that he’s wrong but that he has yet to see information that would convince him.
“If you show me a scientific study that shows that I’m wrong… I’m going to put that on my Twitter and I’m going to say I was wrong,” he said in a podcast last year with Lex Fridman.
It’s likely several senators will ask Kennedy whether he’d be willing to change his mind on vaccines based on data, or if he’s already convinced that the data is wrong or manipulated.
Critics say Kennedy is willfully ignoring the information that’s out there already. In a letter obtained by The New York Times, more than 75 Nobel Prize winners urged U.S. senators to block his nomination, citing the his “lack of credentials or relative experience” in matters of medicine, science and public health.
“In view of his record, placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of [the Department of Health and Human Services] would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences, in both the public and commercial sectors,” the laureates wrote.
How would he try to change what Americans eat?
Kennedy finds the most political consensus when he talks about America’s obesity crisis and blames the high levels of sugar, sodium and fat in ultra-processed foods. A longtime environmental advocate, he’s also taken aim at the use of additives pushed by food companies — earning him kudos from some Democrats.
“We’re prioritizing corporations feeding us unhealthy products instead of family farmers growing fresh, healthy foods – and we let too many dangerous chemicals flood our food system,” said Sen. Cory Booker last month after Kennedy’s nomination was announced.
“We all must come together to build a system that works for all,” he added.
But one big question many senators will likely ask is how Kennedy plans to turn around America’s eating habits in a way that doesn’t hurt U.S. farmers or heavily regulate agricultural businesses that are key political supporters of President-elect Donald Trump. During Trump’s first administration, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue rolled back Obama-era rules that sought to limit sodium and sugar in children’s school lunches that accept federal subsidies.
FDA Administrator Robert Califf, who will step down when Trump takes office in January, testified recently before a Senate committee that there’s a lot we still don’t know about food science and safety. When the FDA does move ahead with regulation, he said the rule is often challenged in court.
“What sounds simple, given the current state of judicial affairs, First Amendment rights, [is] the fact that corporations have the same rights as individuals — every little thing we do, unless specifically in detail instructed by Congress — it’s not just that we lose in court, but we lose years,” he said.
