Trump, Harris change campaign plans to address Hurricane Helene devastation
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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump will visit the city of Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on the area over the last few days, while Vice President Kamala Harris is cutting short a campaign swing through Las Vegas to return to Washington to be briefed on the hurricane response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On Monday, Trump will receive a briefing on the hurricane as well as facilitate the distribution of relief supplies, his campaign said. He is then expected to deliver remarks to reporters in front of the Chez What Furniture Store, whose owners posted pictures online of their store completely demolished by the storm.
Harris said she intends to visit communities impacted by Hurricane Helene “as soon as it is possible without disrupting emergency response operations,” according to a White House official. Harris, who was briefed by FEMA on the federal response to the hurricane, reached out to local officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
“We are deploying food, water and generators, and working to restore state and local leaders, we will provide whatever help they need in the days and weeks ahead,” Harris said Sunday while rallying in Las Vegas.
She will learn more from FEMA during meetings in Washington on Monday, according to a White House official.
Trump’s visit to Georgia comes after his recent criticism of President Joe Biden and Harris for their response to the natural disaster.
“She ought to be down in the area where she should be. That’s what she’s getting paid for, right? That’s what she’s getting paid for,” Trump said at his rally Sunday in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Trump has attacked Harris’ response to Hurricane Helene specifically, saying her delay in visiting the impacted region demonstrates that she isn’t qualified to become president.
Biden, while returning home from the beach on Sunday, was adamant that his administration was doing everything possible to help the affected communities.
Asked by ABC New is there are more resources the federal government could be giving, Biden responded, “no, we’ve given them.”
“We have pre-planned a significant amount, even though they didn’t ask for it yet — hadn’t asked for it yet,” Biden said Sunday.
Hurricane Helene’s storm surge, wind damage, and inland flooding caused deviation and casualties in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, flooding neighborhoods, stranding residents, demolishing homes and toppling trees. The storm has killed at least 107 people and left dozens missing.
Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the U.S. Secret Service/Photo Credit: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)=
(WASHINGTON) — Accountability for the members of the Secret Service who were at fault for the July 13 assassination attempt against President-elect Donald Trump is “occurring,” acting Director of the Secret Service Ronald Rowe told a House task force investigating the incident on Thursday.
“All disciplinary measures are imposed to promote the efficiency of the Secret Service and to encourage behaviors and principles that ensure the success of the agency’s mission,” he testified.
“Employees receiving proposals of discipline will be provided due process under agency policy as well as any applicable laws and regulations. But, let me be clear, there will be accountability, and that accountability is occurring. Consistent with applicable laws and regulations, I cannot comment further on specific disciplinary actions underway or being considered.”
At the same time, he said, the agency should not be defined by one failure.
Suspected gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire during the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting Trump in the ear, killing one spectator and wounding two others.
A Secret Service Mission Assurance report was released earlier in the year, along with a Department of Homeland Security independent review and a Senate report.
Rowe testified that since becoming director he has focused on preventing another July 13 shooting from happening again.
In his memo, he said the Secret Service increased its staffing levels on the president-elect’s detail, expanding the use of drones at venues, expanding counter-drone technology at venues, addressing the faulty radio issue by working with the Defense Department, using other federal law enforcement agencies to help with protective visits and expanding the ballistic countermeasures at Secret Service protected events.
At the president-elect’s residences, the Secret Service has worked with state and local partners to bolster security and use cutting-edge technology to do so.
“My goal is to improve our mission effectiveness and rebuild public trust,” Rowe said. “One of the key systemic changes was the directive to mandate a unified command in a singular location for all protective sites, something that was not done on July 13th in Butler. This co-location enhances our communications and intelligence-sharing mechanisms with state, local and federal partners to better anticipate threats and respond to them more swiftly.”
Rowe testified that he has also prioritized the mental health of agents, adding a chief wellness officer just this week.
“While I cannot undo the harm that has been done, I am committed to doing everything in my power to ensure that the Secret Service never has a failure like this again.”
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-HI) takes the stage during a Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump campaign rally at Lancaster Airport on November 03, 2024 in Lititz, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the director of national intelligence, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, has little experience working with the nation’s spy agencies and a long track record of echoing the Russian disinformation they work to expose and to counter — a combination her critics claim should be disqualifying.
Gabbard, 43, who represented Hawaii as a Democrat from 2013-2021 and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 before becoming a Republican earlier this year, has been accused of harboring sympathies for the Kremlin and parroting propaganda generated by Russia to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
At the outset of the conflict, Gabbard blamed the Biden administration and NATO, claiming they had provoked Russia’s aggression by ignoring what she called its “legitimate security concerns” about Ukraine potentially becoming a member of the defensive alliance.
In March 2022, Gabbard posted a video to Twitter, now X, sharing what she said were “undeniable facts” about U.S.-funded biolabs in the war-torn country, claiming that “even in the best of circumstances” they “could easily be compromised.”
“Instead of trying to cover this up, the Biden-Harris administration needs to work with Russia, Ukraine, NATO, the U.N. to immediately implement a ceasefire for all military action in the vicinity of these labs until they’re secured,” she said.
About the same time, a commentator on Kremlin state media referred to her as “Russia’s girlfriend” and her comments have been featured on the country’s state-run TV programs, along with those of Tucker Carlson, an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement with Ukraine.
Gabbard’s claims closely mirror a false, decade-old Russian conspiracy theory that Washington is secretly funding the development of biological weapons in former Soviet countries, which has been repeatedly debunked by the U.S. and international organizations.
Although she later claimed her comments were about public health research labs in the conflict zone, she also expressed concerns that Ukraine was in possession of biological weapons during an interview with former Fox News host Carlson a few days before taking to social media.
Democrats and opponents of the president-elect were quick to condemn Trump’s choice of Gabbard — who appeared regularly with him in the final months of his campaign.
“You really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly been in Putin’s pocket?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, pressed during a recent interview.
“Her judgment is non-existent,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, now a fierce Trump critic, asserted on Sunday.
“The idea that somehow she would be put in charge of this critical function should be giving our adversaries in Moscow and Beijing a lot of relief,” he continued.
But in their criticisms of Gabbard, some Democrats have made their own unfounded claims.
Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz sparked backlash after she claimed Gabbard was a “Russian asset” that would “essentially would be a direct line to our enemies” in a television appearance on Friday.
In 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested, without offering any evidence, that the Russians were “grooming” Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate for president in order to spoil Democrat’s chances of winning the White House. Gabbard refuted the allegations and sued Clinton for defamation, but later dropped her compliant.
If Gabbard ultimately becomes the director of national intelligence, she will oversee 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and play a critical role in determining what material is including in the president’s daily intelligence briefings.
She is expected to face a confirmation battle in the Senate, but some hawkish Republicans in the chamber have expressed tepid support for her nomination.
“While we have differences on foreign policy, I think she’s extremely bright and capable,” South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an X post on Wednesday.
Gabbard has taken other controversial stances on foreign policy matters. In 2017, she journeyed to Syria to meet with its authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad, whose government has carried out numerous deadly attacks on Syrian civilians through the course of the country’s civil war, according to the U.N.
The then-congresswoman said after meeting with al-Assad that he was not an enemy of the U.S. and opposed American intervention in the conflict.
In 2015, Gabbard also defended Russian airstrikes in Syria conducted at the request of the Assad regime, echoing Moscow’s claim that the operation was focused on terrorist targets when in reality it focused on Syrian opposition strongholds.
Gabbard has taken a much softer approach to China than the president-elect, calling on Trump to end his trade war against Beijing in 2019 and expressing her opposition to the remilitarization of Japan, a response to the strategic challenge posed by China.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — An unexpected challenge in Tennessee’s first week of voting involved touchscreens in the state’s two largest counties resulted in no recorded irregularities and an unlikely fix: coffee stirrers that allow voters to choose with precision their preferred candidate, local officials told ABC News.
The stirrers, which since 2020 have been doled out to voters to use as styluses, were ditched for environmental reasons – then readopted after the first days of early voting led some Tennesseans to accidentally select their undesired candidate because of small boxes next to the candidates’ names.
Some voters in Davidson and Shelby County, home to Nashville and Memphis, respectively, tried to pinprick that small box with their thumb or pointer finger, but – it being so near to the name of an opponent on a line above – they hit another candidate’s name.
The county has not experienced “any issues” in the last few days since poll workers reinstituted the stirrers and reminded voters they should check they’ve chosen their preferred candidate before printing their ballot – and a second time before scanning and submitting it, Davidson County Administrator of Elections Jeff Roberts told ABC News.
