RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump to step down amid speculation about Florida senate seat
Anita Pouchard Serra/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump whom he tapped to co-chair the Republican National Committee for the 2024 election cycle, said she intends to step down from her position.
The move comes amid mounting speculation that she could be tapped to fill an upcoming Senate vacancy in Florida, whose Sen. Marco Rubio has been nominated for secretary of state.
“The job I came to do is now complete and I intend to formally step down from the RNC at our next meeting,” Lara Trump said in a post on X.
Should Rubio be confirmed as secretary of state in Trump’s incoming administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would need to choose a successor to serve out the rest of Rubio’s term, which expires in 2026.
“It is something I would seriously consider,” Lara Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press.
She added, “If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t know exactly what that would look like. And I certainly want to get all of the information possible if that is something that’s real for me. But yeah, I would 100% consider it.”
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead. Via Flickr
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump was greeted with a standing ovation from House Republicans at his first stop back in Washington on Wednesday.
“It’s nice to win,” Trump said as he took the stage at the conference’s internal meeting at the Hyatt Regency near the Capitol.
Ahead of his arrival, House Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated Trump as the “comeback king.”
Trump smiled and shook Johnson’s hand and other top GOP brass on stage, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has been named as Trump’s U.S ambassador to the United Nations.
The meeting comes as Republicans inch closer to a majority in the House. While ABC News has not yet projected which party will control the chamber, Republicans are two seats away from the threshold with a dozen races still undecided.
House Republicans took an early victory lap as they came back to town Tuesday for the lame-duck session, saying they are prepared to enact Trump’s agenda on Day 1 of his administration come January.
“I just want to thank everybody,” Trump told the room. “You’ve been incredible. We worked with a lot of you to get you in, and you helped me, and you helped me too.”
As the press was being escorted out of the room, pool reporters noted Trump told lawmakers: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you do something else, unless you say he’s so good we’ve got to figure something out.”
The friendly atmosphere comes ahead of Trump’s sit-down with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, a return of a White House tradition that Trump flouted in 2020.
Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews for the first time since leaving office in January 2021 flanked by billionaire Elon Musk, a sign of some of the new faces that may dominate Trump’s orbit in his second term.
This is Trump’s first public appearance since his speech in the early hours after Election Day. He’s since huddled at Mar-a-Lago, where he’s been rolling out picks for Cabinet roles and other administration positions.
Musk has been weighing in on the decisions, ABC News previously reported.
On Tuesday, Trump announced Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a what he’s calling a new “Department of Government Efficiency” to provide outside guidance on reforming federal agencies and cutting government “waste.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden believes he could have won the 2024 election if he had decided to stay in the race, he told USA Today in a wide-ranging interview.
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes,” he told the newspaper during a nearly hourlong interview on Sunday. He said his view was based on polling he’d seen.
The president’s comments come as he prepares to hand over the Oval Office to President-elect Donald Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Biden, the oldest sitting president at 82, withdrew from the race in July, as questions about his age and fitness for office surged following a disastrous CNN debate performance in June.
Biden also told USA Today on Sunday that he was unsure if he would have had the vigor to serve another four years in office.
“I don’t know. Who the hell knows?” Biden said, though he also added that when he first decided to run, he “also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old.”
Biden, who pardoned his son, Hunter, in December, said he has not decided whether to issue more preemptive pardons for potential Trump targets before leaving office in less than two weeks. When Biden and Trump met in the Oval Office after the election, Biden urged Trump not to follow through on his threats to target his opponents.
“I tried to make clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores,” Biden said, adding that Trump “listened” but did not say what he planned to do.
If there were to be more preemptive pardons, Biden said the decision would be based “a little bit” on whom Trump taps for top administration roles.
Possible names being considered for pardons included current and former officials such as retired Gen. Mark Milley, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Adam Schiff and Dr. Anthony Fauci, ABC News previously reported.
Trump frequently attacks Biden’s handling of the economy, including on Tuesday when he was asked about grocery prices during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. But, in private, Biden said Trump was complimentary of his some of his actions.
“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden said. “And he talked about — he thought I was leaving with a good record.”
Biden also reflected on his relationship with former President Jimmy Carter and his visit with Carter in Georgia in 2021 as he prepares to deliver the eulogy at Carter’s state funeral in Washington on Thursday.
“We talked,” Biden said. “He was not a big fan of my predecessor and successor. Well, he was never pointedly mean about it. But he was just very encouraging.”
Looking beyond his time in office, Biden said he doesn’t know yet where his presidential library will be, but ruled out his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He expressed his hope that it will end up in Delaware, but didn’t rule out the University of Pennsylvania either.
Jamaican born African American nationalist Marcus Garvey, circa, 1920. Image via Library of Congress.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of 21 House Democrats signed a letter urging the president to exonerate former civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, according to a statement sent by the lawmakers to ABC News on Monday.
Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) led the panel of lawmakers — mostly from the Congressional Black Caucus — to exonerate Garvey on the heels of President Joe Biden’s commutation of 37 sentences from federal death row on Monday.
Garvey, one of the earliest internationally-known Black civil rights leaders, was convicted of mail fraud in 1923 and was given a five-year sentence, according to a letter sent to Biden from the Congress members, obtained by ABC News. President Calvin Coolidge pardoned Garvey two years into his sentence. Garvey was immediately deported to his birth country of Jamaica.
“Exonerating Mr. Garvey would honor his work for the Black community, remove the shadow of an unjust conviction, and further this administration’s promise to advance racial justice,” the lawmakers said in the letter to the president. “At a time when Black history faces the existential threat of erasure by radical state legislatures, a presidential pardon for Mr. Garvey would correct the historical record and restore the legacy of an American hero.”
Congress members have been trying for decades to clear Garvey’s name, according to the congress members. Congressman John Conyers led hearings in 1987 for the House Judiciary Committee on Garvey’s exoneration. Congressman Charles Rangel introduced resolutions, highlighting alleged injustices against the former civil rights leader in 2004.
“Exactly 101 years ago, Mr. Garvey was convicted of mail fraud in a case that was marred by prosecutorial and governmental misconduct,” The congress members said in the letter. “The evidence paints an abundantly clear narrative that the charges against Mr. Garvey were not only fabricated but also targeted to criminalize, discredit, and silence him as a civil rights leader.”
The White House did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for a response.
Garvey, who was born in Jamaica in 1887, was a notable Pan-Africanist, believing that people of African descent around the world should be unified because of their alleged common interests.
Garvey was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) which was created to challenge racial inequality, according to the lawmakers. The organization championed self-determination and economic independence for Black people at a time when Jim Crow laws oppressed African Americans and colonization subjugated Africans on their own continent.
Garvey also established the Black Star Line, one of the first Black-owned shipping companies in the Western Hemisphere, connecting Black businesses across the Americas, according to the lawmakers. The civil rights leader eventually wanted to route the vessels to Africa for a redemption program, according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. He wanted to establish a nation for those who were born into slavery or were the descendants of enslaved people, according to The Washington Post.
Garvey also created the Negro World Newspaper which, at its peak, reached a circulation of 200,000 readers weekly, according to the congressmembers.
Garvey shared the segregationist views of the Ku Klux Klan as he sought a separate state for those of the African diaspora, according to The Washington Post.
“I regard the Klan the Anglo Saxon clubs and white American societies as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together,” Garvey said according to The New York Times.
Other Black civil rights activists were outraged. W. E. B. Du Bois said Garvey was the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race and was either “a lunatic or a traitor,” according to PBS. Du Bois also said Garvey “suffered from serious defects of temperament and training.”
The newly formed Bureau of Investigation, later becoming the FBI, and the director of its intelligence division, a-young J. Edgar Hoover, brought mail fraud proceedings against Garvey in connection to the sale of Black Star Line shipping stock, according to The Washington Post. He was sentenced to five years in prison and served two years before his pardon and eventual deportation by Coolidge.
The FBI declined ABC News’ request for a comment.
Garvey never returned to the U.S. again, according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
“As we approach the conclusion of your administration, this moment provides a chance to leave an indelible mark on history,” the lawmakers told Biden in their letter.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
