Mayorkas, Wray draw bipartisan fire for declining to testify in public at threats hearing

(WASHINGTON) — The stopgap spending plan negotiated between House Republicans and Democrats to avoid a government shutdown appears to be dead two days before the deadline after it was condemned by President-elect Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk.

Johnson’s original plan called for extending government spending at current levels until March and added other provisions like relief for disaster victims and farmers and a pay raise for members of Congress.

In a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance called on Congress to “pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF. It is Schumer and [President Joe] Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief,” Trump and Vance said.

Later Wednesday evening, Trump threatened any Republican in the House who voted for a clean bill.

“Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried,” he posted on his Truth Social platform. “Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025.”

In another post, Trump also pushed Republicans to deal with the debt limit before he takes office, saying if they don’t, “he’ll have to ‘fight ’til the end’ with Democrats.”

“This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats!” he wrote. “They are looking to embarrass us in June when [the debt limit] comes up for a Vote. The people that extended it, from September 28th to June 1st, should be ashamed of themselves.”

Scalise says ‘hopefully tomorrow’ the House will have deal
Congress faces a deadline Friday, when the current government funding extension expires, to pass a new bill before a government shutdown kicks in.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters late Wednesday that negotiations on government funding remained ongoing after a “productive” late-night meeting in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office.

“We are going to continue to work through the night to the morning to get an agreement we can bring to the floor,” Scalise said, adding “hopefully tomorrow” the House can “get it resolved.”

Among those in the speaker’s office for negotiations was Vance, who told reporters the conversation was “productive,” adding, “I think we will be able to solve some problems here.”

In his remarks to reporters, Scalise said Trump “wants to start the presidency on a sound footing, and we want him to as well. And I think that’s one of the things we’re all focused on,” he said.

Scalise added, “There’s a lot we want to get done starting in January. But obviously we’ve got to get through this first. And we are going to get it resolved.”

Asked if the debt limit is going to be part of any new agreement, as Trump has called for, Scalise said: “We are not there yet. We are still having conversations with our members with a lot of other folks too just to make sure that everybody is on the same page. But we are still talking about some good ideas that will address some of the issues our members raised today. And then make sure we take care of the disaster victims.”

What Elon Musk said

Earlier Wednesday, Musk came out against the bill, going so far as to threaten lawmakers who voted for it.

After posting on X that “This bill should not pass,” Musk escalated his rhetoric, warning that “any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”

“Please call your elected representatives right away to tell them how you feel! They are trying to get this passed today while no one is paying attention,” he implored his over 200 million followers.

He later posted that “No bills should be passed Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office.”

Republican leaders had been discussing a clean short-term funding bill, but specifics are unclear, sources told ABC News. This comes less than a day after Republicans unveiled the legislative text that was the product of bipartisan and bicameral negotiations.

What Democrats are saying

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled Democrats were not inclined to vote for a clean bill.

“An agreement is an agreement,” Jeffries told reporters.

“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt everyday Americans all across this country,” he said. “House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people that results from a government shutdown or worse.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about Musk’s post during an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning. He appeared to not worry about Musk’s post influencing the ability of the funding bill to get through both chambers ahead of a partial government shutdown deadline at the end of the day Friday.

“I was communicating with Elon last night. Elon and Vivek [Ramaswamy] and I are on a text chain together and I was explaining to them the background of this. Vivek and I talked last night about midnight, and he said ‘look I get it.’ He said, ‘We understand you’re in an impossible position,'” Johnson said.

Johnson said Musk and Ramaswamy, the two DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) leaders, are aware of the tough spot the speaker is in with a slim majority and Democratic control of the Senate and White House. DOGE is an outside-of-government (or private) operation.

“We gotta get this done because here’s the key. By doing this, we are clearing the decks, and we are setting up for Trump to come in roaring back with the American first agenda. That’s what we are going to run with gusto beginning January 3 when we start the new Congress,” he said.

Johnson, whose speakership has been characterized by beating back criticism from his far-right flank, had originally promised a clean bill that would solely extend current levels of government funding to prevent a shutdown. However, natural disasters and headwinds for farmers, necessitated additional federal spending.

In the end, the bill included $100 billion for recovery efforts from Hurricanes Helene and Milton and another $10 billion for economic assistance for farmers.

Johnson at an earlier press conference said his hands were tied after “acts of God” necessitated additional money.

“It was intended to be, and it was, until recent days, a very simple, very clean [continuing resolution], stopgap funding measure to get us into next year when we have unified government,” he said. “We had these massive hurricanes in the late fall, Helene and Milton, and other disasters. We have to make sure that the Americans that were devastated by these hurricanes get the relief they need.”

Still, Republican spending hawks cried foul, accusing Johnson of stocking the bill with new spending without any way to pay for it and keeping the bill’s creation behind closed doors.

“We’re just fundamentally unserious about spending. And as long as you got a blank check, you can’t shrink the government. If you can’t shrink the government, you can’t live free,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy said.

Musk, too, mocked the size of the bill.

“Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?” he posted on X, along with a picture of the bill stacked on a desk.

ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Katerine Faulders contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Democrats suffered a knockout punch in this month’s elections. New Jersey’s and Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial elections in 2025 offer them their first chances to get off the mat.

Both states have become reliably blue in federal races, but President-elect Donald Trump narrowed his margins in each state, and Democrats are unable to take anything for granted as they undergo a postelection reckoning over their national brand. New Jerseyans haven’t granted one party more than eight straight years in the governor’s mansion in over five decades, and Republican Glenn Youngkin rode into Richmond just three years ago.

That makes the contests to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in New Jersey and Youngkin, who can’t run for two consecutive terms, in Virginia key barometers for Democrats’ ability to find their way out of the political wilderness ahead of the midterm elections in 2026.

“I think both these are going to be competitive races. Democrats know to take nothing for granted right now,” said Jared Leopold, a former Democratic Governors Association staffer based in Virginia. “Gubernatorial races have always been the path back for a party out of power, and 2025 is no different. So, this is going to be a huge opportunity for the Democratic Party.”

Both races are in the early stages, with candidates still throwing their hats into the ring.

New Jersey Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller are among the Democrats running to replace Murphy. Rep. Abigail Spanberger is the top Democrat running in Virginia and is widely considered a party powerhouse in the state.

Republicans are also sifting through their own candidates. Former GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli, who fell short of unseating Murphy by about 3 points in 2021, is running again in New Jersey, as are other candidates who are casting themselves as more aligned with and antagonistic toward Trump’s brand. And Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is running for the governor’s mansion with Youngkin’s endorsement.

But it’s Democrats who are on the outside looking in these days, having lost the White House and Senate this month, and eager to bounce back.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump has set off recriminations among Democrats that the party has lost touch with working-class voters and instead reinforced an elitist, out-of-touch brand that was so unpalatable that voters instead opted for a twice-impeached former president who had been convicted of 34 felonies in New York.

Warning signs loomed this month specifically in New Jersey and Virginia. Trump stunned when he became the first Republican presidential candidate in over 30 years to win racially diverse Passaic County in New Jersey. And he made inroads in northern Virginia, the suburban machine of Democrats’ statewide advantage.

Many of the leading Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia have sought to create distance with the party’s left-flank and prioritized affordability over social issues, a possibly effective strategy after voters prioritized economic issues and Trump blanketed the airwaves with ads attacking Harris over her position on transgender issues.

Now, they just have to convince voters that they’re not like the national Democratic bogeymen they’ve heard so much about.

“I think they will be talking the talk. The question is, how can they convince voters that they are walking the walk, and how can they convince voters that this is the centerpiece of their campaign?” said Micah Rasmussen, who served as press secretary for former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, a Democrat.

“If you can convince voters that you’ve gotten the message and that you need to focus not so much what you want to focus on but you want to focus on what the voters want you to focus on, that’s what it’s going to take,” he added. “I certainly think, at this point, the candidates have gotten the message.”

Democrats in both states have gotten something of a head start over their national counterparts.

Murphy’s narrower-than-expected win over Ciattarelli in 2021 alarmed Democrats who had expected to coast in New Jersey but were instead rebuffed by voters’ complaints about affordability in the high-tax state. And Youngkin’s win in a state that President Joe Biden won by 10 points just a year earlier jolted Democrats there, too.

In hindsight, both results may have foreshadowed the post-COVID-19 economic frustrations that sunk Democrats this year.

Now, candidates are putting the economy first. “Let’s make life more affordable for hardworking New Jerseyans, from health care to groceries to child care,” Sherrill said in her announcement video. Spanberger touts efforts aimed at “lowering prescription drug prices” and “lowering costs and easing inflation.”

Republicans, for their part, are feeling their oats.

While Trump won each swing state by narrow margins, he did sweep them, and he made notable gains among Democratic-friendly demographic groups and in blue states. And almost nothing is as unifying as winning.

“There’s an opportunity for sure, and being unified, that’s step one,” Virginia-based GOP strategist Zack Roday said. “If your party sweeps the House, Senate and the White House, you want to try to just hold your serve downballot and compete, and I think we can actually compete to win at the top. Democrats have the advantage, but there’s a lot around the coalition that could be united in both states that is really appealing to where the GOP is.”

It’s not all doom and gloom for Democrats, though.

Democrats performed well in off-year elections in 2017 after Trump’s first win and in the 2018 midterm elections, and New Jerseyans in particular have traditionally been reluctant to elevate Republicans the year after a Republican wins the White House. And while Trump was able to juice the base and cut into his opponent’s advantages, he still fell short in two states where Democrats retain voter registration edges.

“I don’t think that anyone’s sitting around panicking right now about where the election is. There’s certainly work to do, but there’s no panic,” one senior New Jersey Democratic strategist said.

Trump could also supercharge Democrats’ push to coalesce after their losses this month. His policy proposals, including banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries in 2017, infuriated the Democratic base, leading to Democratic successes in 2017 and 2018.

“It really started when Trump started doing really controversial, unpopular things, like the Muslim ban, and that’s when you saw governors and people come together to fight back against him. My suspicion is that same trend will happen here, where the reality of Trump’s policies will galvanize Democrats,” Leopold said.

However, he added, for a party that’s still smarting after its shortcomings this month, no race is considered safe, and Democrats will have their work cut out for them despite the friendly terrain.

Leopold noted that “2025 is a huge step on the path back for Democrats. We can lick our wounds for the rest of 2024, but come 2025, we got to get focused.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith has moved to dismiss his federal election interference case and his classified documents case against President-elect Donald Trump due to a long-standing Justice Department policy that bars the prosecution of a sitting president, not because of the merits of the charges.

Nearly 16 months after a grand jury first indicted Trump over his alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election, Smith has asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to throw out the case ahead of Trump’s impending inauguration, according to a motion filed Monday.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” Smith said in his motion, in which he said, “the country have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected President.”

“Confronted with this unprecedented situation, the Special Counsel’s Office consulted with the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), whose interpretation of constitutional questions such as those raised here is binding on Department prosecutors. After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” said the motion.

Earlier this month, Judge Chutkan cancelled the remaining deadlines in the case after Smith requested time to “assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy” following Trump’s election.

Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.

Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court’s July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.

Judge Chutkan had been in the process of considering how the case should proceed in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

Smith had faced filing deadlines of Dec. 2 for both the election interference case and the classified documents case against Trump, after Smith’s team requested more time to determine how to face the unprecedented situation of pending federal cases against someone who had just been elected to the presidency.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July over her finding that Smith was improperly appointed to his role. Smith appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that legal precedent and history confirm the attorney general’s ability to appoint special counsels, but after Trump’s reelection he asked the court to pause the appeal until Dec.2, in the same manner as the election interference case.

Getting Monday’s filing in a week ahead of schedule now raises the question of whether Smith will be able to beat the clock to officially close his office down and submit his final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland — as is required of him per the DOJ’s special counsel regulations — before Inauguration Day.

The final report will have to go through a classification review by the intelligence community, a process that can sometimes take weeks before it is approved for any kind of public release.

Attorney General Garland has made clear in appearances before Congress and public statements that he is committed to making public the final reports of all Special Counsels during his tenure, which included reports by Special Counsel Robert Hur and Special Counsel John Durham.

Special Counsel David Weiss is still continuing his investigation and is set to take his case against an FBI informant charged with lying about President Biden and his son Hunter to trial in California next week. It’s unclear whether he will formally close his investigation down and submit a final report prior to Trump taking office.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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