Trump and Harris trade jabs at Al Smith Dinner, though Harris wasn’t there

(WASHINGTON) — As controversy continues to cloud some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, his team has an ominous warning for Republicans who don’t fall in line behind his nominees.

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports that one senior Trump adviser said the message to lawmakers is, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary.”

“That is all,” the adviser told Karl. “And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.”

“The president gets to decide his Cabinet. No one else,” the adviser added.

The threat comes as Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth (tapped for attorney general and defense secretary, respectively) make the rounds on Capitol Hill this week to shore up support. They’re being escorted by Vice President-elect JD Vance, the junior senator from Ohio.

Gaetz faces allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, which he’s long denied, that was the subject of a federal investigation and a House Ethics Committee probe. Hegseth has been accused of sexual assaulting a woman in 2017, an encounter Hegseth told police was consensual.

Trump is standing firm with the selections, which had also raised eyebrows for their relative lack of experience to lead the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense.

But for Gaetz especially, confirmation is no guarantee. Republicans will have a slim, three-seat majority in the Senate.

Already, two GOP senators — Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — have signaled opposition to Gaetz, though they haven’t officially said how they would vote. Sen. Kevin Cramer told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott last week that if the vote were to happen now, Gaetz wouldn’t pass muster.

Trump previously made a demand for Republican leadership to back so-called “recess appointments” to skirt the traditional confirmation process. That route would require lawmakers to adjourn and for senators to give up the “advice and consent” role they play in nominations, as laid out in the Constitution.

But his demand is being met with some resistance from some Senate Republicans

Sen. Thom Tillis, a senior Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said recess appointments for Cabinet posts should be “absolutely off the table.”

“And quite honestly, any serious candidate for Cabinet-level position, I would really have to wonder if they would want it or be willing to accept it under a recess,” Tillis said. “These positions are too important. They carry too much weight internationally to take a short cut.”

Several senators have said they want the full “process” and vetting of candidates to play out.

“The Constitution gives us a role in personnel called advice and consent. My view is that’s exactly what will unfold here when these nominees are actually sent forward, and we’ll treat them like we’ve treated all others with the proper vetting,” said longtime Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who recently stepped down from the role.

Sen. Josh Hawley, who met with Gaetz on Wednesday, said on Wednesday his intention to vote for all nominees.

“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,” Hawley said. “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.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Amid escalating rhetoric from former President Donald Trump threatening to prosecute his enemies should he win the 2024 election, Attorney General Merrick Garland will deliver remarks to the Justice Department workforce Thursday urging they continue to adhere to longstanding principles intended to protect DOJ from improper politicization.

“Our norms are a promise that we will fiercely protect the independence of this Department from political interference in our criminal investigations,” Garland will say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks provided to reporters.

Garland will add, “Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this Department to be used as a political weapon. And our norms are a promise that we will not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics.”

The remarks come as Garland has sought to refute allegations from Trump and his allies of weaponization of the department through its prosecution of individuals involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dueling prosecutions of Trump himself for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Those close to Garland have disputed those accusations as baseless — pointing in part to DOJ’s prosecution and conviction of Democrats like disgraced New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez on corruption charges as well as the separate Special Counsel prosecutions of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

Trump and his allies, in turn, have ramped up in recent months their promises to use the Justice Department as a tool of retribution against his political enemies — with Trump in a Truth Social post over the weekend threatening “long term prison sentences” for “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” he baselessly accused of being involved in “cheating” in the 2020 and 2024 elections.

According to the excerpts, Garland will forcefully rebuke what he describes as a “dangerous — and outrageous” spike in threats targeting DOJ employees under his tenure.

“Over the past three and a half years, there has been an escalation of attacks on the Justice Department’s career lawyers, agents, and other personnel that go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and necessary oversight of our work,” Garland will say. “These attacks have come in the form of conspiracy theories, dangerous falsehoods, efforts to bully and intimidate career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out, and threats of actual violence.”

Garland will use his remarks specifically to point to steps taken during his tenure he says have been aimed at isolating the department from allegations of politicization, such as re-implementing policies intended to limit contacts with the White House.

Those policies, however, were complicated by the Supreme Court’s July ruling that effectively granted Trump immunity in his federal election subversion case over his alleged efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the election. The court’s conservative majority determined that Trump and other presidents should be shielded from any criminal liability for contacts with the DOJ, that they said clearly fall within the chief executive’s core powers.

As a result, Special Counsel Smith returned a superseding indictment two weeks ago against Trump that stripped out any mentions of the alleged DOJ plot.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most prominent Republicans in the last half-century, will be crossing party lines this election and voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, his daughter Liz Cheney said Friday, who contended her father sees former President Donald Trump as a “grave a threat to our democracy.”

The former House member who represented Wyoming told “The Atlantic” reporter Mark Leibovich during an interview at the Texas Tribute Festival that her father believes this is a serious moment in history.

“My dad believes — and he said publicly — that there’s never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to our democracy as Donald Trump is, and that’s, that’s the moment that we’re facing,” she said.

Tune in to “This Week” on Sunday, Sept. 8, where co-anchor Jonathan Karl will have an exclusive interview with Liz Cheney.Both Cheneys have been open about their criticism of Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

Earlier in the week, Liz Cheney said she was going to vote for Harris.

She lost her seat in the 2022 primary to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by more than 60,000 votes, according to election results.

Cheney made news on another front during her remarks at the festival and said she would support incumbent Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred ahead of November. She said that one of the most important things to do to “rebuild our politics is we need to elect serious people.”

“You know, there aren’t enough good candidates running. I want to say specifically, though, here in Texas, you guys do have a tremendous, serious candidate running for the United States Senate, and his name is …” Cheney began before being interrupted by an applause. “Well, it’s not Ted Cruz.”

“Colin Allred is somebody I served with in the House … When you think about the kind of leaders our country needs, and going to this point about [how] you might not agree on every policy position, but we need people who are going to serve in good faith. We need people who are honorable public servants and and in this race that is Colin Allred, so I’ll be working on his behalf,” she continued.

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