DNC 2024 Day 2 live updates: Obamas set to help hand torch to Kamala Harris

(WASHINGTON) — When Congress returns to Washington on Monday after summer recess, lawmakers will be staring down a looming government shutdown on Sept. 30 when funding is set to run out.

But before they get down to brass tacks, Republicans and Democrats will face off in an election-year partisan battle over voter eligibility.

During a private phone call with the House Republican Conference on Wednesday, sources told ABC News that House Speaker Mike Johnson outlined his plan to avert a government shutdown — rallying House Republicans around a short-term government funding bill that extends funding into March 2025 but includes a major policy proposal Democrats warn will kill the money bill.

Sources said Johnson told members that he wants to hold a vote on his short-term funding plan early next week — although next week’s floor schedule has not been officially announced.

House leaders regularly attach priority items to must-pass stopgap funding bills as a means of pushing through measures their members demand.

This will be no different, as Johnson told members. According to sources, he’ll attempt to attach the SAVE Act — a bill requiring individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote — to the funding bill.

Johnson’s opening salvo to address the looming funding deadline likely won’t be a winning solution. But with a narrow majority and conservatives clamoring for the SAVE Act, he will attempt to lay down a legislative marker in the House — and give GOP members legislation to point to on the campaign trail.

Senate Democrats have already said the SAVE Act is a non-starter for them, but Johnson’s move sets up a showdown between the chambers with just months remaining until Election Day.

What is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act?

The SAVE Act, which has the backing of former President Donald Trump and the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is a bill that seeks to expand proof of citizenship requirements to vote in federal elections. It bans states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.

The House passed the SAVE Act on July 10 by a bipartisan vote of 221-198, with five election-year vulnerable Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with all Republicans. It’s unclear whether that same support would carry over into Johnson’s planed showdown vote over funding the government.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus calls the bill “extreme and dangerous” and warns it would purge millions of legal voters from state rolls and make it much more difficult for Americans to reregister to vote.

“Let’s call it what it is — this is a direct attack on hard-working families, including Latino communities,” the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a statement following House passage of the bill.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Republicans to drop the SAVE Act from their funding bill and to instead advance a clean short-term version, called a continuing resolution, or CR.

“We want to see a clean CR,” Jean-Pierre told ABC’s Karen Travers. “That’s what we want to see.”

The administration “strongly opposes” the SAVE Act, Jean-Pierre said. “It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. It’s already illegal.”

Senate Democrats almost sure to oppose

Johnson’s proposal is likely to set off a fierce fight between the House and the Senate, as Senate Democrats will almost certainly reject the stopgap bill because of the inclusion of the SAVE Act.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray called it a “poison pill” and a “nonstarter.”

“We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. Senate Democrats will continue to work in a bipartisan way to ensure we can keep the government funded and deliver responsible, bipartisan spending bills that can actually be signed into law before the end of the year,” Murray said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not yet outlined a plan for dealing with government funding, but he warned House colleagues against the inclusion of any partisan matters in a must-pass funding bill.

“As we have said each time we’ve had CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way and that is what has happened every time,” Schumer said in a statement to ABC News.

It’s also not yet clear whether the March 2025 extension date Johnson is proposing will sit well with Democrats, who may seek a much shorter stopgap that allows them to continue to debate and potentially lock in annual appropriations during the lame-duck session at the end of this year.

If it feels to you like we just did this, you’re not wrong.

Government funding expires annually at the end of the federal government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Passing annual appropriations for 2024 was especially calamitous. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his job over it. Johnson was installed because of it, but not without also facing threats to his position. Johnson ultimately implemented a never-before-seen two deadline system to help push the ball over the line.

Congress did not complete its work codifying current spending levels until mid-March, blowing months past the annual deadline. By the time all the bills were passed, they only funded the government for about six months.

Once again, the deadline is fast-approaching at the end of the month.

As of Wednesday, the House had passed five of the 12 individual government funding bills, including for Defense, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and State-Foreign Operations.

House GOP leaders hoped they would be able to clear all 12 bills, but the reality is that there is not enough time to do so.

Right after taking the gavel in October 2023, Johnson said in a letter obtained by ABC News to colleagues that he would not break for August recess until all 12 appropriations bills had passed the House.

“DO NOT break for district work period unless all 12 appropriations bills have passed the House,” Johnson wrote in his first letter as speaker.

That promise was not kept.

Meanwhile, to date, the Senate has not passed a single appropriations bill.

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(MOSCOW) — Ukrainian forces have yet to set up defensive lines as they continue their operation into the Kursk region of Russia, a U.S. official told ABC News on Wednesday.

While this might reflect Ukrainian confidence in further success for the offensive, there is concern among some American officials that failure to dig in soon could leave its troops vulnerable to a coming Russian counterattack.

“Russia didn’t take it very serious at first,” the U.S. official said. On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. had seen only a “small number” of Russian forces heading to Kursk.

But the U.S. now sees a significant second wave of Russian troops preparing to reinforce the region, coming from positions in both Ukraine and Russia, according to the official, who said some units could arrive within days, with the majority of reinforcements expected within two weeks.

It could be a costly tradeoff for Ukraine to seek incremental gains in the region at the expense of shoring up its defenses, according to Mark Cancian, former Marine colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They should draw the most defensible line inside this enclave and dig in … and then try to hold that,” Cancian said.

This advice is in line with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s stated goal of creating a “buffer zone” inside Russia.

“When you’re on the attack, you tend to take more casualties,” Cancian said. “And it would be fine if that opens up the front for some follow-on movement, but that’s doesn’t appear to be what’s going on. It looks like they’re just sort of plodding forward.”

Despite the danger posed by incoming Russian forces, and risks of being overextended, having foreword units cut off, or leaving other areas of the front undermanned, experts say Ukraine’s initiative in Kursk has already succeeded in forcing Russia to make hard decisions about how to allocate its finite resources; in boosting confidence in the Ukrainian military both domestically and with key allies; and in obtaining territory that could be used as bargaining leverage later on.

The Kremlin was by all accounts taken off guard by Ukraine’s incursion, but Kyiv might itself have been surprised by its quick gains.

“It was initially intended for psychological purposes, similar to the Doolittle Raid after Pearl Harbor, but it has evolved based on its success,” said Mick Mulroy, an ABC News contributor who served as a CIA paramilitary officer and deputy assistant secretary of defense.

Ukrainian forces have now been in the Kursk region for more than two weeks.

“Over the next couple days, we’ll see what the Ukrainians do and whether they keep this strategy of just nibbling away, whether they go on to the defensive, whether they try to make a big attack, which I think is unlikely, but not impossible,” Cancian said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris became the front-runner for the Democratic 2024 presidential nomination after President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race and endorsing her.

Harris has expressed many of the same views as Biden on health care issues, including access to abortion and lowering prescription drug prices, both while campaigning against Biden for their party’s presidential nomination during the last general election and as Biden’s vice president.

However, on the issue of health care, Harris has veered to the left of Biden and called for a transition to a single-payer system, something Biden has not endorsed.

“We can look back to 2019 and get an idea of what she views, but she also now has four years of being part of an administration,” Dan Mallinson, an associate professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, told ABC News. “So, she’s going to have to think about, how does she differentiate herself, right? As ‘This is who I’m going to be as president’ but also, she can’t kind of undermine the work that’s been done over the past administration, so she’s still connected to that.”

Here’s where Kamala Harris stands on various health care issues:

Single-payer health care system

Harris has previously expressed support for a single-payer health care system, sometimes referred to as “Medicare for All.”

Although she initially indicated during a 2019 presidential campaign debate that she would support eliminating private health insurance, Harris walked back her support and instead unveiled her own health care plan. It called for expanding Medicare access to all Americans and setting up a 10-year transition period that would automatically enroll newborns and the uninsured, allowing doctors time to enter the system and help employers choose from federally designated programs.

The plan also preserves a role for private insurance companies, allowing Americans the option to obtain health insurance through the public Medicare plan or through a Medicare plan offered by a private insurer.

“My understanding is this is another area where she is a bit more progressive than the president in that [she] is supportive of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion that occurred, but is among those who argue that a next step then would be to provide that kind of Medicare for All idea, or a public option,” Mallinson said. “Whether that has broad enough political support, even among and within the Democratic Party, is less clear.”

Biden has previously suggested he would veto a “Medicare for All” bill, arguing that it would raise taxes for the middle class. Instead, he has focused on strengthening the Affordable Care Act that was signed into law in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, when Biden was his vice president.

Reproductive rights

Similar to the president, Harris has been an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and has criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the federally protected right to abortion.

Both Biden and Harris have said they consider it a priority to protect reproductive freedoms, with Harris declaring, “To truly protect reproductive freedoms, we must restore the protections of Roe.”

However, Harris has been more amplified in her support for reproductive rights, becoming the first vice president to visit a clinic run by Planned Parenthood and criticizing Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance for seemingly backing a national abortion ban and blocking protections for in-vitro fertilization.

Additionally, Harris said during an MSNBC town hall in May 2019 that, if elected president, she would require any state-passed law limiting reproductive freedoms to undergo approval from the Department of Justice before being enacted.

“Biden, having a strong Catholic background, had been much more moderate on the issue of reproductive rights, but [he] has become much more vocal after the overturning of Roe versus Wade,” Mallinson said. “But Kamala Harris, on the other hand, [had a] much stronger profile on reproductive rights and [was] a much stronger vocal advocate, and I think will be on the campaign as well.”

Lowering prescription drug costs

Biden and Harris have also been aligned on lowering health care costs. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the cost of insulin has been capped at $35 per month for many Americans, and the federal government has begun direct price negotiations on 10 widely used drugs paid for by Medicare Part D, with plans to add more drugs to the list in the future.

As a candidate in 2019, Harris also supported a plan authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to set new price caps for all drugs sold in the U.S., based on prices charged in other developed countries for the same medications.

Additionally, if Congress declined to pass legislation to lower prescription drug costs, Harris proposed a potential executive action that would ask for a report on which pharmaceutical companies have drugs being sold at high prices. A warning would then be issued for those companies to lower their prices and, if they don’t, a lower-priced competitor would be placed on the market.

Mallinson said that if Harris does become president, she would likely attempt to expand both the effort to lower prescription drug costs and the negotiations to cover more drugs. However, Mallinson said he’s unsure if Harris would be able to exercise the executive actions detailed in her 2019 plan.

“You’ve seen both former President Trump, as well as President Biden, make a lot of promises about executive action, and then it’s actually difficult to follow through on that,” he said. “And also, what a lot of people don’t understand, is the president just can’t change anything through an executive order. They’re not they’re not kings and queens. Those orders only allow them to make changes that are already within their authority as the executive in a certain area.”

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