Gaetz, Vance meet with senators ahead of House Ethics Committee meeting

(WASHINGTON) — Pete Hegseth told senators on the committee investigating his qualifications to be secretary of defense on Tuesday that “restrictive rules of engagement” have “made it more difficult to defeat our enemies” as Democrats on the panel suggested he undervalued the laws of war.

Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, told Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the committee, that it would be his priority “that lawyers aren’t the ones getting in the way” of military effectiveness.

Reed said Hegseth’s advocacy for pardons for convicted war criminals when he was a Fox News host raised questions about his respect for the military judicial process as the members of the committee questioned the nominee.

Reed referenced three acts of clemency Trump took at the end of his first administration and for which Hegseth made a public case for, including two convictions by courts martial, saying that in “two of these cases, the military personnel who served in combat with these convicted service members were not supportive of the pardons.”

“They did their duty as soldiers to report war crimes,” Reed said. “Your definition of lethality seems to embrace those people who do commit war crimes, rather than those who stand up and say, ‘This is not right.'”

Shortly before Trump’s pardons in November 2019, Hegseth said the president could take “imminent action” on the convictions of Army Lt. Clint Lorance and Green Beret Maj. Matt Golsteyn for war crimes and the demotion in rank of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was acquitted of killing a wounded Islamic State captive but sentenced to four months confinement and a reduction in rank for posing with a corpse during a 2017 deployment to Iraq.

“I’ve thought very deeply about the balance between legality and lethality,” Hegseth told Reed in Wednesday’s confirmation hearing, “ensuring that the men and women on the frontlines have the opportunity to destroy…the enemy, and that lawyers aren’t the ones getting in the way.”

Pressed later by independent Sen. Angus King, Hegseth agreed that the Geneva Convention was the “law of the land,” but that such laws of war existed “above reality” and there was a “tactical distinction” between international laws and fighting on the ground.

“By the time it trickles down to a company or a platoon or a squad level, you have a rules of engagement that nobody recognizes. And then it makes you incredibly difficult to actually do your job on the battlefield,” the combat veteran said.

“We follow rules. But we don’t need burdensome rules of engagement [that] make it impossible for us to win these wars,” he said.

Reed, also an Army veteran, asked Hegseth, “You’ve already disparaged in writing the Geneva Convention, the rules of law, all of these things. How you be able to effectively lead a military in which one of the principal elements is discipline, respect for lawful authority?”

The senator also demanded a derogatory term Hegseth used to describe Army lawyers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, or JAGs, whom he called “jagoffs” in his book “War on Warriors.”
“No infantrymen like Army lawyers,” Hegseth wrote at the time.

Hegseth first refused to elaborate when asked, but, pressed a second time by Reed, offered the term referred to “a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the warfighters, their promotions, their medals, in front of having the backs of those are making the tough calls on the front lines.
Reed replied sarcastically, “Interesting.”

Hegseth acknowledged that the Uniform Code of Military Justice is formed by “laws … set by Congress” when Sen. Elissa Slotkin asked if he’d seek to change them.

Slotkin noted Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was a “JAG officer for most of his life.”

Hegseth said he was only “speaking about particular JAG officers I’ve had to deal with” in his earlier writing.

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(WASHINGTON) — Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president known as a champion of international human rights both during and after his White House tenure and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his lifetime of dedication to that cause, has died at 100, ABC News has learned.

Carter’s death was also announced by the Carter Center on X, which posted “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.”

Carter, whose wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96, is survived by the couple’s children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip) and Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff); and their daughter, Amy Lynn.

Carter had endured several health challenges in recent years. In 2019, he underwent surgery after breaking his hip in a fall. Four years earlier, Carter was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain, though just months later, he announced that he no longer needed treatment due to a new type of cancer therapy he’d been receiving.

In February of 2023, the Carter Center, the organization founded by the former president to promote human rights worldwide, announced that Carter, with “the full support of his family and his medical team,” would begin receiving hospice care at home.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center said in a statement.

Carter attended the public memorial service for his late wife on Nov. 28, 2023, some nine months after the announcement that he’d entered hospice care. Frail and in a wheelchair, he didn’t speak at the memorial. Instead, his daughter, Amy, spoke on his behalf, reading from a letter Carter sent to Rosalynn some 75 years earlier, when he was away serving in the Navy.

“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are,” the letter read, in part. “While I am away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be, as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again.”

Carter turned 100 years old on Oct. 1, 2024, an occasion that was celebrated with events both at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and in Carter’s Plains, Georgia hometown, though Carter himself was by that time too frail to attend them. Just 16 days later, the Carter Center announced that the former president had cast his ballot by mail in the presidential election. Carter’s grandson, Jason, previously told ABC News that his grandfather would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The son of a Georgia peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter first appeared on the national political scene in 1976 with a toothy grin and the simple words that would become his trademark: “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”

Among his administration’s most notable achievements were the Camp David Accords, which Carter brokered between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, and that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty the following year. Carter’s time in office also saw the first efforts toward developing a U.S. policy for energy independence.

However, the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for a total 444 days, beginning Nov. 4, 1979, battered Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign. He won just six states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 49 electoral votes compared to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan’s 489 electoral votes. Reagan also defeated Carter by more than eight million ballots in the popular vote.

Though political pundits of the era predicted he would be remembered as an average, one-term president, it’s often been observed that Carter’s reputation became more distinguished after he left the White House. He continued to champion international human rights and peace efforts, prompting Time magazine to declare in 1989, just eight years after the end of his presidency, that Carter “may be the best former president America has ever had.”

Carter “redefined the meaning and purpose of the modern ex-presidency,” Time wrote. “While Reagan peddles his time and talents to the highest bidder and Gerald Ford perfects his putt, Carter, like some jazzed superhero, circles the globe at 30,000 feet, seeking opportunities to Do Good.”

Carter was the third U.S. president, following Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 2002 after creating the Carter Center. Barack Obama became the fourth, in 2009. In selecting Carter for the honor, the Nobel Committee cited “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Peanut farmer to politician

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Georgia, on Oct. 1, 1924, to James Earl Carter Sr., a peanut farmer and businessman, and Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse who famously became known as ‘Miss Lillian.’ Though he was the first American president born in a hospital, Carter was raised in a farmhouse without indoor plumbing or electricity.

Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1946 and after spending seven years as an officer — he volunteered for submarine duty and was honorably discharged in 1953 — he returned to farming. He began his political career in 1962 when he was elected to the first of two terms as a state senator in Georgia. During his tenure, he promised to read every bill that came to a vote, even taking a speed-reading class to keep up.

After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966, Carter fell into a spiritual crisis, emerging as a born-again Christian. He later recalled this period as one that changed his life dramatically, saying on the campaign trail: “Since then, I’ve had an inner peace and inner conviction and assurance that transformed my life for the better.”

Armed with this renewed energy, Carter launched an aggressive gubernatorial campaign and won the office in 1970.

Carter announced his bid for the presidency in December 1974 as his term as governor of Georgia was ending. A relative unknown, Carter won early victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He became more well-known as he steadily picked up delegates and beat back challenges from Rep. Morris ‘Mo’ Udall and U.S. Sen. Henry M. Jackson to secure the nomination.

The deeply religious candidate caused controversy late in his campaign when he told an interviewer from Playboy magazine, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” While there was considerable criticism of that line and some of the other language Carter used in the interview, then-U.S. Rep. Andrew Young, whom Carter later appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter had “taken care of his religion problem once and for all.”

In November 1976, Carter defeated President Gerald Ford with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 241 to become the 39th president.

Energy and economy

From the moment of his inauguration, Carter set a different tone in Washington. He avoided formality, taking the oath of office as ‘Jimmy’ instead of ‘James Earl’ Carter. He and the first lady even walked the mile-and-a-half inaugural parade route to the White House, rather than ride in a limousine.

Once in the Oval Office, Carter continued to bring a common touch to the presidency. He discontinued limousine service for presidential staff and even personally controlled the schedule of the White House tennis courts. As America weathered an energy crisis, Carter ordered his staff to turn the White House thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer, an energy-conscious practice he continued throughout his public career.

Focus on foreign policy

Carter struggled with domestic policies, fighting near-record highs in inflation and unemployment. Among his few victories was the establishment of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, the latter in response to a continued energy shortage at the time.

Yet, while his domestic policies drew criticism, Carter found widespread success in foreign affairs. His administration attracted worldwide praise for distinguishing itself with a firm commitment to international human rights. Unlike his predecessors, Carter did not hesitate to criticize repressive right-wing regimes, saying in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame, “Because we know that democracy works, we can reject the arguments of those rulers who deny human rights to their people.”

The Iran Hostage Crisis and the end of an administration

The largest stain on Carter’s foreign policy record came in November 1979, when a group of Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostage 52 American citizens. The militants demanded the return to Iran of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from the U.S., where he was seeking medical attention, to stand trial.

Carter initially responded to the crisis by cutting diplomatic ties with Iran and blocking imports from the country. But when those measures failed, in April 1980, he ordered a secret armed rescue mission. It ended in disaster when several American helicopters malfunctioned and two aircraft collided, killing eight U.S. servicemen.

The hostages were freed Jan. 20, 1980, after 444 days in captivity. Perhaps as a final insult to Carter, Iran released the hostages just minutes after President Ronald Reagan had been sworn in. The new president sent Carter to Germany to greet the hostages.

Post-presidency legacy of public service

It wasn’t until years after he left the White House that many came to appreciate Carter. The former president embarked on a new phase of his career in public service, devoting his days to peacemaking and humanitarian efforts.

“He has made the post-presidency an institution that it had never been before,” said historian and author Steve Hochman, who helped establish the Carter Center. “He has been the most successful, most influential former president in American history.”

Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped spearhead a successful campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasitic infection spread by drinking water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. In 1986, the disease affected 3.5 million people per year in 21 African countries, but by 2017, it had been reduced by 99.99%, to just 30 cases, according to the Carter Center.

Carter told ABC News in 2015 that his goal was to eradicate the disease entirely. “I think this is going to be a great achievement for — not for me — but for the people that have been afflicted and for the entire world to see diseases like this eradicated,” Carter said.

Carter also became the highest-profile supporter of Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit devoted to creating affordable housing. The Carters personally helped to build, renovate and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries, according to the organization, which also called Carter and wife Rosalynn “two of the world’s most distinguished humanitarians.”

Guided by ‘deep Christian faith’

In addition to his extensive humanitarian work, Carter wrote more than two dozen books after leaving the White House, including “Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President” (1982), “An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of My Rural Boyhood” (2001), “The Personal Beliefs of Jimmy Carter” (2002), and “Faith: A Journey for All,” (2018). He also wrote poetry collections, as well as a fictional work about the Revolutionary War, titled “The Hornet’s Nest” (2003).

Carter referenced his Christian faith in the opening lines of his presidential inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1977, quoting the biblical Old Testament call “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Carter’s faith and seemingly limitless energy manifested themselves as he taught at his church’s Sunday school in his Plains, Georgia hometown, where congregants lined up to attend. He was also known for walking the length of every plane on which he traveled – he always flew commercial – to shake hands with every passenger.

Yet behind Carter’s easygoing Southern manner was an iron will and inexhaustible determination. Biographer Douglas Brinkley recalled the 39th president as “a kind of military man” who never seemed to get tired.

“I mean,” Brinkley noted, “the Secret Service nickname for him was ‘Dasher’ because he could move around so much.”

Jimmy Carter’s commitment to the principles that defined his life was, again, expressed in his presidential inaugural address: “Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved,” Carter declared. “The powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.”

ABC News’ Patricio Chile and Christopher Watson contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday thanked supporters during a virtual call and vowed that the “fight’s not over” in her first remarks since conceding defeat to President-elect Donald Trump three weeks ago.

“The fight that fueled our campaign, a fight for freedom and opportunity, that did not end on Nov. 5. A fight for the dignity of all people? That did not end on Nov. 5,” Harris said. “A fight for the future, a future in which all people receive the promise of America No. A fight that is about a fight for the ideals of our nation, the ideals that reflect the promise of America That fight’s not over.”

“That fight’s still in us, and it burns strong,” Harris later added. “And I know this is an uncertain time. I’m clear-eyed about that. I know you’re clear-eyed about it, and it feels heavy. And I just have to remind you: Don’t you ever let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before Nov. 5 and you have the same purpose that you did and you have the same ability to engage and inspire. So don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.”

The grassroots call came immediately after Harris held a call with her campaign’s finance committee. The finance call was attended by more than 400 donors, according to a source familiar.

On the grassroots call, Harris also briefly discussed the historic sum of money that ran her campaign, though she did not address what went wrong as she and her campaign face intense scrutiny over how they could raise that money and lose to Trump so resolutely.

​​”The outcome of this election, obviously, is not what we wanted. It is not what we work so hard for,” Harris said. “But I am proud of the race we ran. And your role in this was critical. What we did in 107 days was unprecedented.”

Harris said that over the course of those 100-plus days, her campaign raised $1.4 billion, much of which was from grassroot donors: “Nearly 8 million donors contributed an average donation of about $56.”

“You gave all that you could to support our campaign. Because of your efforts — get this — we raised an historic $1.4 billion, almost $1.5 billion from grassroots supporters alone, the most in presidential campaign history,” she said.

“Being involved can make a difference, and that remains true. And that’s one of the pieces that I just want us to please take away — that our fight for freedom and for opportunity and for the promise of America, it included, for example, nearly almost 4 million first-time contributors to our campaign because of the work you did, of helping people know that they can be engaged and that they’re not outside, that they’re inside, that we’re all in this together,” she added.

Harris was joined by her former running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on both calls — a rare appearance from the two, though Harris joined the call from San Francisco and Walz from Minnesota.

Walz on the grassroot donor call also spoke to supporters’ feeling of loss following the election and repeated Harris’ claims that she is not finished with fighting.

“I think all of us saw the possibility, and I know there’s a bit of a feeling of loss because we saw what a real leader looks like,” Walz said.

“She did deliver the best of our better angels,” he added. “She delivered a vision where all of us mattered. She did it with grace and dignity and continues to do that every single day. She is still in this fight. She is doing it every single day. She is not done with her current job. She’s not done being part of it with all of you.”

Harris’ and Walz’s remarks follow some postelection analysis from Harris campaign senior officials during an episode of “Pod Save America” that aired on Tuesday, including some reaction to finances.

Harris campaign Chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said that during the cycle, the bulk of the campaign’s spending was used to reach out to “very-hard-to-find voters,” including low-propensity and young voters, while investing across all swing states because polling reflected that each was in play.

“We were trying to, yes, spend more resources on digital … because we’re trying to find young people, we’re trying to find these lower-propensity voters that were tuned out to politics,” O’Malley Dillon said.

“We had some unique things that we had to do in this race that I think were really critical to do early and spent a lot of resources at an earlier stage than we would have to,” she added, noting those resources were spent on both advertising and field programming. “We saw, up until the very end, that … every single state was in such a margin of error. There was nothing that told us we couldn’t play in one of these states.”

During the podcast, O’Malley Dillon and senior campaign adviser David Plouffe accused the Trump campaign of coordinating with its super PACs, a practice that is not legal, but noted the Democrats need to take note and do the same.

“We have to stop playing a different game as it relates to super PACs and the Republicans. Love our Democratic lawyers. I’m tired of it, OK? They coordinate more than we do. I think amongst themselves, I think with the presidential campaign, like I’m just sick and tired, OK? So, we cannot be at a disadvantage,” Plouffe said.

“I think our side was completely mismatched when it came to the ecosystem of Trump and his super PACs and ours,” O’Malley Dillon said.

“We had a super PAC that was helpful, very important and necessary for the work that they did because they were the kind of central recipients of a lot of the funding on our side and they staked a strategy and a plan, and we clearly could see it, and we knew what it was [going] to spend, but we did not have the ability to have people come in with us early. And so every ounce of advertising, every ounce of carrying these strategic imperatives, of defining the vice president and trying to bring down Trump’s numbers, all sat with us as a campaign,” O’Malley Dillon added.

Harris has rarely been seen since she delivered her concession speech at Howard University the day after the election. She attended the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery a week later and was seen making her first return to the White House a day after that. The vice president also spent the last week on vacation in Hawaii.

Walz, in the month since the election, has remained almost entirely out of the national spotlight, resuming his duties as the governor of Minnesota.

He delivered his final speech of the 2024 campaign cycle on Nov. 8 from suburban Minneapolis, joining a chorus of fellow Democratic governors who said they would protect their states from threats to reproductive freedoms, citizenship and other things under the Trump administration. The former vice presidential nominee also said he’d work to find common ground with swaths of people who voted “for the other side” on Nov. 5.

Harris and Walz remained mostly separate on the campaign trail in the roughly 15 weeks she had him as her running mate. The governor was present at Harris’ concession speech at Howard University the night after the election but did not speak or publicly interact with her. Before that, the two held a joint rally on Oct. 28 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, their first event together since late August, when they were seen together in Savannah, Georgia, on a bus tour.

Prior to that, their last time at a rally together was in Milwaukee for programming linked to the Democratic National Convention in August.

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