Trump confirms plan to declare national emergency, use military for mass deportations
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(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.
Overnight, Trump responded to a social media post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who said earlier this month there are reports the incoming administration is preparing such a declaration and to use “military assets” to deport the migrants.
Trump pledged to get started on mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
“On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out,” he said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in the closing days of the presidential race. “I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”
Already, he’s tapped several immigration hard-liners to serve in key Cabinet positions. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was picked to be homeland security secretary, pending Senate confirmation. Former Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan was named “border czar.”
Homan previously discussed his vision for mass deportations, saying they would first concentrate on expelling criminals and national security threats. He didn’t rule out deporting families together.
Throughout the campaign, Trump vowed to mobilize the National Guard to assist with the deportation effort. Experts told ABC News such a move would mark a fundamental shift for the military, which does not normally engage with domestic law enforcement issues.
At times, Trump went further, suggesting thousands of troops from overseas be moved to the U.S.-Mexico border.
There are an estimated 11 million unauthorized migrants living in the U.S. without legal immigration status. Removing them could cost billions of dollars per year, according to estimates from the American Immigration Council.
Plus, mass deportations could have a broader economic impact by resulting in a loss of tax revenue and labor shortages.
ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz recently reported from California on the impact Trump’s immigration and mass deportations plans could have on the American agriculture industry.
“If you took away my workforce, you wouldn’t eat. If you go into the San Joaquin Valley and you start doing what you’re saying, it’s over. The country will stop, literally stop because the food system won’t move,” said Manuel Cunha Jr., the president of the Nisei Farmers League.
(WASHINGTON) — As the race reaches one week until Election Day, Kamala Harris is set to deliver her “closing argument” Tuesday night on The Ellipse — in the same spot where Donald Trump rallied his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, to march on the U.S. Capitol nearby.
Trump will try to preempt Harris’s remarks when he speaks to reporters Tuesday morning at Mar-a-Lago after declaring he’s “the opposite of a Nazi” on Monday night in Georgia. He holds a rally later in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a large population of Puerto Rican Americans.
More than 47 million Americans have voted early
As of 5:45 a.m. ET on Tuesday, more than 47 million Americans have voted early, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
Of the total number of early votes, 24,243,105 were cast in person and 23,384,971 were returned by mail
There is now just one week until Election Day.
Trump claims to ABC’s Scott he didn’t hear comedian’s Puerto Rico comment, doesn’t denounce it
The former president denied knowing the comedian who made a slew of racist, sexist and vulgar comments at his rally at Madison Square Garden, ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott reports.
That comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, drew headlines in part for calling Puerto Rico an “island of floating garbage.”
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump told ABC’s Scott.
Trump also insisted he didn’t hear any of the comments, even as they’ve been played on television and written about extensively. When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments.
Trump expressed confidence that he will win the White House with just a week to go.
Harris set for closing pitch on The Ellipse near the Capitol and White House
Harris will deliver a speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Harris’ campaign said she plans to paint Trump as someone who is consumed by his grievances and an endless desire for retribution, highlighting his pledge to go after those on his “enemies list” and how it contrasts with Harris’ focus on her “to-do list.”
Her closing argument will highlight what she claims is a desire for Americans to “turn the page” from Trump by stressing her plans and priorities for the country, namely the economy. The vice president has promised to bring down costs and prioritize the middle class in her “opportunity economy.”
Fallout continues from comedian’s comment on Puerto Rico at Trump rally
Trump is set to deliver remarks to reporters at 10 a.m. ET in Florida before heading to Pennsylvania — a swing state with a significant Puerto Rican population.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a radio interview on Monday: “We’re the proud home to about a half a million Puerto Ricans. I’m damn proud to be their governor.”
Trump’s campaign has tried to distance itself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s comments, saying they don’t reflect their views. Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, told reporters on Monday he hadn’t seen the comment made by the comedian but that people had to “stop getting so offended.”
Trump did not address the Puerto Rico comment during his rally in Georgia on Monday night, though he called the New York City event “one of the greatest rallies in the history of the world.”
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama ripped Trump for the anti-immigrant rhetoric at his MSG rally while campaigning for Harris. “These are fellow citizens he’s talking about,” Obama told a crowd gathered in Philadelphia.
(WASHINGTON) — There is roughly a month left to go in the 2024 presidential race, yet Donald Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric to possibly challenge the outcome.
For months, he’s accused Democrats of cheating, threatened to prosecute election workers and falsely claimed noncitizens are being allowed in the country to cast ballots.
Trump’s also now telling his supporters that if he loses in November, it will be the country’s “last election” — the latest dark comment in his increasingly bleak and dystopian campaign rhetoric.
Asked for comment on his remarks, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News: “President Trump has always stated we need free and fair elections, or we won’t have a country.”
Here’s a closer look at what Trump has said to supporters on the trail in an apparent effort to sow doubt on the voting process.
Trump falsely accuses Democrats of cheating
“They cheat. That’s all they want to do is cheat. And when you see this, it’s the only way they’re gonna win,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin on Oct. 6. “And we can’t let that happen and we can’t let it happen again. We’re going to have no country.”
Trump’s claims that Democrats cheated in the previous election or are doing so in this race are baseless.
Trump’s allegations of fraud in the 2020 election were debunked by his own administration officials, legal challenges failed in the courts and recounts or audits conducted in narrowly-decided swing states all affirmed President Joe Biden’s victory.
In this same vein, he’s also accused Democrats of staging “coup” when Biden dropped out and Harris succeeded him. Harris received 99% of the delegate votes in the Democratic National Committee’s virtual roll call vote after Biden exited the race.
Top officials in key battleground states have said they are confident in the integrity of this election. Many have testified on Capitol Hill or at conferences on the steps they’ve taken to boost voter confidence and make the process more transparent.
The Pennsylvania Department of State, noting it conducts two audits after every election, told ABC News it was “confident in the integrity of county officials and election administrators across the Commonwealth, despite irresponsible statements that are not based in fact or supported by evidence.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently reiterated that the state’s elections are “secure.” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said “every valid vote will count, the election will be secure, the results will be accurate. Just like in 2020.”
Trump threatens to prosecute election workers if elected
In a post on his conservative social media site last month, Trump said if he is back in the White House, he will prosecute anyone he deems was involved in “unscrupulous behavior” in the 2024 election.
“It was a Disgrace to our Nation!” he wrote of the 2020 election. “Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
The prosecutions, he said, would extend to lawyers, donors, political operatives and election officials.
Election officials and experts told ABC News that Trump’s comments were “dangerous” given the heightened threat environment for election administrators and poll workers.
Trump falsely claims illegal immigrants are voting en masse
“Our elections are bad,” Trump said during the ABC News presidential debate on Sept. 10. “And a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically. And these people are trying to get them to vote. And that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”
Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal, and recorded instances of undocumented immigrants casting ballots are incredibly rare, according to officials and studies.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has recorded about two-dozen instances where noncitizens were penalized for voting between 2003 and 2023. Over that period of time, the foundation found just 1,500 proven instances of overall voter fraud despite billions of votes being cast.
The Brennan Center, following the 2016 general election, also found noncitizen voting to be virtually nonexistent. The center reported that election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes across 42 jurisdictions referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution — or 0.0001%.
Trump’s mixed messaging on mail-in ballots
Trump’s messaging on mail-in voting has been incredibly mixed. At times, he’s encouraged his supporters to vote by that method and in any other way possible — and voted himself by mail in 2020. Other times, however, he’s pushed a narrative that mail-in ballots are “corrupt” or not as secure.
“The elections are so screwed up. We have to get back in and we have to change it all,” Trump falsely said during a rally in Pennsylvania this past summer. “We want to go to paper ballots. We want to go to same-day voting. We want to go to citizenship papers. And we want to go to voter ID. It’s very simple. We want to get rid of mail-in voting.”
There are a number of safeguards in place to protect the voting process, including mail-in voting, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agency has set out to combat misinformation about elections on its website.
Trump’s also targeted the U.S. Postal Service, claiming the agency may not be prepared for the election — which prompted significant pushback from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who flatly said such comments are “wrong.”
More recently, Trump amplified false claims that a significant percentage of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania (considered a key state for both campaigns) were “fraudulent.” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro pushed back that mail ballots hadn’t been sent out yet when Trump made that claim and that the state conducts two audits after each election to ensure results are legitimate.
Trump still won’t accept he lost 2020 election
Trump continues to claim that the 2020 was stolen from him. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the top Republican on Capitol Hill, have also recently declined to say Trump lost that election.
“We won, we won, we did win,” Trump falsely told rallygoers in Michigan on Oct. 3. “It was a rigged election.”
President Biden recently stressed he believed the election would be “free and fair” but voiced worry it would not be “peaceful.” The concern, he said, came from Trump and Vance’s recent comments.
“They haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election. So, I am concerned about what they’re going to do,” Biden said on Oct. 4.
At times, Trump and members of his campaign have said he will accept the 2024 results so long as it is a free and fair election.
“If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely,” he said during the CNN presidential debate, declining to outrightly say he would accept the outcome.
That didn’t stop him, however, from challenging the 2020 election results despite no evidence of widespread fraud or wrongdoing.
ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — For the better part of 2023 and 2024, President Joe Biden plotted a course to Nov. 5, 2024. As the incumbent, the veteran politician was the presumptive Democratic nominee, clinching enough delegates in March, and locked in a tight race with former President Donald Trump.
But instead of spending Election Day preparing for an evening speech, the president’s daily schedule is empty beyond his daily briefing by aides: No public events.
The president and first lady Jill Biden will spend election night watching the election results in the White House residence with “long time aides and senior White House staff,” according to a White House official.
“The President will receive regular updates on the state of races across the country,” the official added.
Monday night, Biden also held calls with Democratic state party chairs across the country. Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin state Democratic Party, told ABC News’ MaryAlice Parks that the call was “electrifying.”
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he wrote, in part, in a letter posted on social media. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
Biden created last-minute controversy on Oct. 29 when he seemed to call Trump supporters “garbage” during a campaign call hosted by the nonprofit Voto Latino.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” Biden said.
Trump quickly seized on the comments, saying Biden “meant it,” though the president posted a clarification, saying his comment was about the comedian who made the joke and “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage — which is the only word I can think of to describe it.”
“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden said in the post on X.
