Key Nebraska Republican opposes Trump effort to change state’s electoral vote process
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(LINCOLN, Neb.) — A growing effort backed by Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, to switch Nebraska’s electoral process to winner-take-all hit a major snag on Monday after a key state lawmaker said he wouldn’t support such a change before the November election.
State Sen. Mike McDonnell, one of the key Republicans holdouts GOP Gov. Jim Pillen was looking to for support to break a likely filibuster, said in a statement that he would not vote to change electoral process before then.
Instead, McDonnell said he believed the legislature should take up the issue in next year’s legislative session, which tentatively starts the first week of January 2025.
“In recent weeks, a conversation around whether to change how we allocate our electoral college votes has returned to the forefront,” McDonnell said. “I respect the desire of some of my colleagues to have this discussion, and I have taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of the issue. After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change.”
“I have notified Governor Pillen that I will not change my long-held position and will oppose any attempted changes to our electoral college system before the 2024 election,” he added. “I also encouraged him and will encourage my colleagues in the Unicameral to pass a constitutional amendment during next year’s session, so that the people of Nebraska can once and for all decide this issue the way it should be decided — on the ballot.”
Pillen released a statement last week saying he would not call a special session unless Republican legislators could show they have 33 votes needed to break an expected Democratic filibuster. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and staunch ally of Trump, traveled to Nebraska last week to lobby lawmakers and met with stakeholders.
ABC News spoke to Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood, who agreed that McDonnell was a key holdout and understood the Nebraska legislature needed at least three more votes to break a very likely filibuster.
If the other state Senate holdouts stand firm, McDonnell’s decision effectively throws cold water on the ongoing effort to switch the state’s Electoral College vote to winner-take-all, even after Republican members of Congress and Trump pushed for the change.
Flood, a Republican who represents Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District, said Trump engaging directly on the issue “underscores how big of a deal this is.” Flood, who supports changing the process along with the rest of Nebraska’s federal delegation, said Nebraska “has the right to speak with the majority of its citizens, by and through its legislature, and that’s what I want to see done.”
The winner-take-all electoral change would be pivotal if the Republican-leaning state allocates all of its five electoral votes solely to Trump, instead of dividing them with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Nebraska split its electoral votes in 2020, with President Joe Biden flipping the 2nd district, which includes Omaha. Without gaining the votes from Nebraska’s 2nd district, Harris could not win the general election with “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania alone. It would also create a new possibility for a 269-269 Electoral College tie.
“It is amazing to think that could come down to Nebraska, but I think the math and the reality is that it very well may be true,” Flood said.
ABC News’ Nathaniel Rakich contributed to this report.
(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa.) — With less than two weeks to Election Day, one Pennsylvania county has unveiled a new mobile voter services van that aims to make voting more accessible for residents.
The van, the first one ever for the Keystone State, offers a convenient space where individuals can register to vote, apply for a mail-in ballot, or even fill out and submit their mail-in ballots right on the spot.
Neil Makhija, Montgomery County Commissioner and Chair of the Board of Elections, said the county wanted people to recognize that voting is something to celebrate.
“We have been showing up at fall festivals, community centers, senior centers, and letting people know that their voice matters,” Makhija said.
Makhija says local residents have been excited about the convenience of the van, stating they were thrilled to be able to vote before November.
The van represents a new approach by officials in Pennsylvania to gather votes. Instead of making voters deal with complicated procedures, officials are going out to meet voters and simplifying the voting process.
Pennsylvania will once again be crucial in the upcoming presidential election in November, as the state holds a significant number of electoral votes.
“We are witnessing what could be the closest presidential election in our lifetime,” Makhija said. “In Pennsylvania, it’s all that much more important because we can be the state that decides it all. I would love to come away from election night seeing everyone who was eligible cast their ballot.”
Pennsylvania is one of seven key swing states that will determine this year’s election. Both presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are looking to garner the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.
Voters in Pennsylvania can vote by mail. Montgomery County officials recommend applying online. According to the Montgomery County government website, you can return your ballot by mail, at a drop box, or in person at a satellite office.
Voters with an illness or disability who cannot pick up or drop off their mail-in ballot must fill out the Designated Agent form to allow someone else to handle it.
(WASHINGTON) — The Secret Service failed to make clear decisions and did not communicate properly with local law enforcement or provide necessary resources that caused “foreseeable, preventable” security failings on July 13, when a would-be assassin opened fire on former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a new Senate committee report.
The highly anticipated interim report was released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by both Republicans and Democrats and reflects the work of the committee since it opened its probe following the Butler attack.
This report focuses on the Butler shooting and does not extend to investigatory efforts launched after a separate second assassination attempt on the former president at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this month.
Since the Butler attack, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe has acknowledged that the event was a “failure” by the agency, but the committee, which interviewed multiple Secret Service personnel, found that individuals “declined to acknowledge individual areas of responsibility for planning or security as having contributed to the failure to prevent the shooting that day, even when as an agency, the USSS has acknowledged ultimate responsibility for the failure to prevent the former president of the United States from being shot.”
On a call with reporters, Senate Homeland Security Chairman Gary Peters pointed to several failures by the Secret Service.
“Every single one of those failures was preventable and the consequences of those failures were dire,” Peters said. “This was the first assassination attempt of a former president and the presidential candidate in more than four decades.”
Peters was joined on the call by committee ranking member Rand Paul, R-Ky., Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., ranking member on the investigations subcommittee.
“Whoever was in charge of security on the day of Butler, whoever’s in charge of security during the recent assassination attempt, those people can’t be in charge. They there’s so many human errors,” Paul said. “No amount of money that you give to Secret Service is going to alleviate the human errors if you leave the same humans in charge who made these terrible, dramatic mistakes with regard to security.”
On Friday, the Secret Service released a four-page Mission Assurance Report, which affirms many of the findings in the committee’s report, but the committee report offers additional details from interviews with USSS and local officials.
As part of the investigation, the committee interviewed Secret Service agents, as well as the Secret Service counter snipers that were at the rally.
A closer look at the roof of the building where shots were fired from
The Senate report pays special attention to the American Glass Research building from where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired, and unveils new details about the timeline of events on that day.
In the lead-up to the event, local law enforcement raised concerns about the building. The report finds that the line of sight from the AGR building plagued rally planning and that it was identified as a concern, but that no steps were taken to mitigate the threat. Trees obstructed the view of the sniper team that was positioned atop one of the nearby roofs.
The Secret Service initially began planning for the rally in early July with state and local law enforcement. The planning meetings lacked answers or a general plan, according to the report.
A Butler County Emergency Services Unit commander told the committee the July 11 site walkthrough was “incredibly disorganized” with “no coordination,” and said he felt like “there was really no plan.”
When the USSS counter sniper team leader did a walkthrough of the area, he told the committee he “wasn’t independently looking at the threat areas,” but rather making sure the roofs were safe for law enforcement to stand on.
The leader assumed that if there were an issue with one of the lines of sight with a sniper position, that counter sniper would have told the head of the unit.
Agents from the Secret Service were notified of a suspicious person with a rangefinder 27 minutes before shots were fired, but that information was not relayed to senior Secret Service leaders on the ground.
Three minutes before shots were fired, local law enforcement communicated over the radio that someone was on the roof of the AGR building. The information was passed to the Secret Service two minutes before Crooks fired. A local officer said there was someone armed on the roof 22 seconds before shots were fired, but that information wasn’t passed on to the Secret Service.
Secret Service counter snipers did see local law enforcement running towards the AGR building with their guns drawn, but did not alert the former president’s protective detail.
“At that time, we didn’t know what we were working with,” a USSS counter sniper told the committee.
Though counter sniper efforts ultimately failed to prevent Crooks from firing, the Senate report finds that Trump’s Butler rally was the first time that a USSS counter sniper team was assigned to a protectee who was not the president, vice president, or formally nominated party nominee. Snipers were only at the rally in response to “credible intelligence” of a threat. Though the committee did not identify what that threat was, sources have told ABC News that Iran has targeted the former president since the killing of General Soliemani.
When the Secret Service sniper took his shot at Crooks, he did so “mere seconds” after identifying him, his partner told the committee.
Officers told the committee they didn’t get resources they needed
Rowe has repeatedly asserted publicly that no assets were denied for the Butler rally. But some of the committee’s findings suggest otherwise.
The operator of the USSS counter drone measures, known as C-UAS, told the committee he requested additional C-UAS equipment and personnel in the 11 days before the rally. However, these requests were denied, at times without explanation, according to the report.
The USSS lead advance agent told the committee Trump’s Secret Service detail requested counter assault team liaisons to help coordinate tactical assets in advance of the July 13 rally, but USSS denied this request, the report found.
When the CUAS system went down, the agent who was responsible for it called the manufacturer hotline to start troubleshooting the problem, delaying the deployment of the system for hours.
Previous testimony from the acting director stated that Crooks flew a drone over the rally site during the few hours the CUAS system was down.
Secret Service communications and those of local law enforcement were “siloed” in real time, according to the committee’s report.
Those issues included inoperable radios — in one instance, the head of the Pittsburgh Field Office gave his radio to the lead advance agent on the ground because his radio wasn’t working. These types of problems were commonplace, according to the report.
At one point, some of the agent’s communications were getting crossed with those of the detail of first lady Jill Biden, who was nearby.
Blumenthal called the Secret Service’s lack of accountability an “Abbott and Costello” routine, making reference to the infamous “Who’s on First” skit.
“It was really truth being stranger than fiction,” Blumenthal said of the finger-pointing as to who was responsible and who was in charge of the Butler event.
Committee leaders stress that the report is an interim set of findings meant to be expanded upon by further lines of questioning.
Blumenthal also called for new leadership at the Secret Service.
Peters told reporters last week that there have been instances in which agencies were not as responsive to committee requests as he would’ve liked.
Though the committee staff examined “over 2,800 pages” of documents provided by USSS and transcribed 12 interviews with USSS personnel, the report does reflect instances in which agencies did not meet committee requests.
“The majority of documents provided by the USSS and DHS are heavily redacted. This has unnecessarily hindered the Committee’s ability to carry out its constitutional authority to investigate and acquire information necessary to identify needed reforms,” the report says.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump selected Rep. Elise Stefanik to be his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, multiple Trump officials told ABC News.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to ABC News.
Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York’s 21st District, was elected last week to her sixth term in the House. Born in 1984, she was at time of her 2014 election the youngest woman to ever win a seat in Congress.
She joined House leadership in May 2021, when she was elected as chair of the House Republican Conference. She replaced former Rep. Liz Cheney in the role after Cheney was denounced by her party for her criticism of Trump in the wake of Jan. 6.
Stefanik came to Congress as a relatively moderate Republican and skipped the 2016 Republican National Convention when Trump first became the party’s presidential nominee.
But she became one of Trump’s most vocal allies, denouncing his first impeachment in 2019 and later challenging the 2020 election results.
In the past year, she played a leading role in House Republicans’ response to antisemitism on college campuses. She grilled university presidents on their handling of campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war, several of whom later stepped down from their roles.
Stefanik, a staunch supporter of Israel, has also repeatedly accused the United Nations of antisemitism. She has called for defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the chief distributer of aid in Gaza, amid Israel’s allegations that Hamas infiltrated the group.
Stefanik told the New York Post, which first reported developments of Trump’s decision, that she was “truly honored to earn President Trump’s nomination to serve in his Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.”
Stefanik said that when speaking with Trump, she “shared how deeply humbled I am to accept his nomination and that I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate.”
Control of the House remains in the balance as several key races have yet to be called, though Republicans are closing in on the number of seats they need to secure the majority.
Stefanik will have to vacate her seat to become ambassador, though she would not be confirmed for her new role until after the presidential inauguration at the earliest.
New York law mandates that Gov. Kathy Hochul set a special election date via proclamation for within 10 days of the seat’s vacancy — and the election date itself must occur no sooner than 70 but no more than 80 days from the date of proclamation.
Stefanik handedly won reelection last week, beating her Democratic challenger by 24 points. While the New York State Republican Party told ABC News they have “no comment on candidates at this stage,” chairman Ed Cox said he was sure the seat would remain Republican.
“On behalf of the New York Republican Party, I congratulate Elise Stefanik and her team on this well-deserved honor and commend President Trump for making such a wise and thoughtful selection,” Cox said, in part, in a statement.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler, Brittany Shepherd, Lauren Peller and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
