John Kelly comes out swinging against Trump

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — During an all-staff call earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign leadership urged staffers not to speak with reporters and addressed concerns about the future after her loss to Donald Trump in the election, two people on the call told ABC News.

Campaign Chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks implored staffers not to speak with reporters, with Fulks saying they still needed staffers “staying in this fight.”

One source noted that the call gave the same “gaslighty” feeling they received after President Joe Biden left the race in July. In an all-staff call following Biden’s departure from the race, staffers were caught off guard and were only given a one-minute heads up that he was exiting the race before he made it public.

ABC News has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the matter.

The call, which was shared more widely on Thursday, was a recording from an initial call that the campaign held on Wednesday following Harris’ concession speech at Howard University.

During the call, O’Malley Dillon told staffers that they ran a “very close” race. She said that state teams knocked on more than 50 million doors in the final days before Election Day and their field operation helped the Senate races in those states. O’Malley Dillon teared up toward the end of the call, a source confirmed.

Harris spoke on that call, noting that this moment “sucks,” a source told ABC News.

“We all just speak truth, why don’t we, right? There’s also so much good that has come of this campaign,” Harris said, according to the source.

Harris had a hopeful tone in her message to supporters at Howard on Wednesday, too, saying “sometimes the fight takes a while. … The important thing is don’t ever give up.”

During the call, leadership spoke about the next general steps for staffers and connecting with people for their next jobs.

Both sources noted how shocked they still felt about the loss, particularly with how wide the margins were in the battleground states.

Both sources said the moment on “The View” when the vice president wasn’t able to differentiate herself from Biden as a moment the entire campaign felt was a big mistake.

Last month on the show, when asked what she would have done differently than Biden over the last four years, Harris said, “there is not a thing that comes to mind,” before citing, much later in the interview, her pledge to put a Republican in her Cabinet.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHNGTON) — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general, met with Republican senators on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance, making his case for the job hours before the House Ethics Committee was set to discuss its report on him.

Several senators have called for the House Ethics Committee to release its report into Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before they consider his confirmation.

The Justice Department also spent years probing sexual misconduct allegations against Gaetz, as well as allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges. Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing related to the allegations investigated during the congressional and Justice Department probes.

After Trump announced Gaetz as his attorney general pick, the Florida congressman resigned from the House, meaning the House Ethics Committee no longer has the jurisdiction to continue its investigation into him — however Republicans and Democrats have argued whether a break in that precedent is necessary for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty to advise and consent to presidential nominations.

Republican Sens. Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, Marsha Blackburn, John Kennedy and John Cornyn met with Vance and Gaetz Wednesday.

Graham told reporters that the meeting went well and that Gaetz deserves a fair nomination process.

“Here’s what I told him, no rubber stamps and no lynch mob. I’m not going to be part of a process that leaks information that shouldn’t be leaked,” Graham said. “I’m not going to legitimize the process to destroy the man because people don’t like his politics. He will be held to account in the confirmation process. He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general.”

Hawley defended Gaetz’s nomination.

“My intention is to vote for all the president’s nominees,” Hawley said. “I think for my colleagues who are — who have concerns about the Attorney General nominee, my message would be, well, let’s have a hearing on this. You can ask whatever — if you’re a member of the committee, you can ask whatever question you want, give Gaetz the opportunity to answer questions, lay out his vision, answer concerns.”

Hawley said Gaetz understands his job, if confirmed, is to “serve at the pleasure of the president.”

“You gotta remember that cabinet secretary is not an exercise in individuality. I mean, you’re there to serve at the pleasure of the president. That’s the job, and he has a sense of what the president wants to do in terms of prioritizing law enforcement, getting the department out of the business of political prosecutions. So he wants a chance to lay that out,” Hawley said.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday to request the complete evidentiary file in the bureau’s closed investigation into Gaetz. Included in the ask is a request for forms that memorialize interviews conducted as part of the investigation.

The Democrats argued in the letter that there is precedent for the FBI providing these sorts of documents to Congress, including instances when Republicans obtained these documents.

As Vance and Gaetz met with senators, Trump attempted to blame Democrats for the allegations launched against some of his controversial Cabinet picks.

“They dirty them up, they destroy them, and then they spit them out. They are trying that right now with some great American Patriots who are only trying to fix the mess that the Democrats have made of our Country,” Trump posted on his social media platform Wednesday afternoon.

The fate of the Gaetz report is in the hands of the committee, and Rep. Susan Wild, ranking member on the House Ethics Committee, said the committee will vote on whether to release the report on Wednesday.

If there is a vote, a majority of the five Democrats and five Republicans on the committee must approve its public disclosure — meaning at least one Republican must break party ranks to join Democrats to force its release.

ABC News’ John Parkinson, Lauren Peller, Jay O’Brien and Chris Boccia contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday hammered former President Donald Trump as thin-skinned and a threat to U.S. democracy in a combative interview with Fox News.

The interview marked an opportunity for Harris to appear on a network that frequently criticizes her and praises her opponent, a notable moment after Republicans had panned her for only granting interviews with friendly reporters or podcasters. True to form, the interview was testy throughout, including multiple exchanges in which Harris and Fox News anchor Bret Baier repeatedly spoke over each other.

Harris raised Trump’s recent rhetoric about the “enemy within” and threats to use the military to go after political opponents on and supposed chaos on Election Day to suggest that he’s unfit for a second term in office, adding that it is “clear to me” that Trump is “unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous.”

“You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.

“This is a democracy, and in a democracy the president of the United States in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it,” she said.

The remarks mark an escalation of her rhetoric describing Trump as dangerous for the country as he escalates his rhetoric about internal threats from Americans, including “radical left lunatics,” raising concerns about how he’d use the military in a future administration.

‘Not a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency’: Harris
Harris also attempted to flesh out the differences Americans would see between President Joe Biden’s administration and her theoretical term in the White House, offering several examples after Republicans seized on her answer on ABC’s “The View” last week that “not a thing that comes to mind” when asked what she would have done something differently from Biden over the past four years.

“You’re not Joe Biden, you’re not Donald Trump, but, but nothing comes to mind that you would do differently?” Baier asked.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” she told Baier.

Harris specifically raised her plans to offer increased housing assistance to first-time home buyers and provide funds to start small businesses.

Still, she added that her administration would mark a turning of the page from what she called the divisiveness of the Trump era in U.S. politics.

Redirecting Her election would mark a change “from the last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country and have Americans literally point fingers at each other,” she said.

Pressed on immigration
Baier also pressed Harris on immigration and high levels of border crossings for much of the Biden administration.

Harris did not directly respond to a question about how many undocumented immigrants were released into the country, instead panning Trump for opposing a bipartisan plan that would have beefed up border security. She did, however, express sympathy for families who had loved ones killed by those who crossed the border illegally.

“Those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There is no question about that, and I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred,” Harris said.

“So that is true. It is also true that if border security had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock trying to hold it all together to ensure that no future harm would occur.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.