Trump threatens Russia with sanctions, tariffs until ceasefire, peace deal with Ukraine

(WASHINGTON) — On his first day back in office on Monday, President Trump issued an executive order declaring that the U.S. government would only recognize a person’s sex assigned at birth, limit the definition of a “male” or “female” to their reproductive cells and potentially withhold federal funding from programs that acknowledge transgender people or “gender ideology.”

Medical and legal experts say the executive order rejects the reality of sexual and gender diversity, and are concerned about the implications it will have for intersex, nonbinary and transgender Americans.

Anti-transgender themes were central to the Trump campaign. In the months leading up to the 2024 election, the campaign and Republican groups spent millions on anti-trans television ads. Trump also promised to restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports.

Trump’s executive order declares sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female” and states that “gender identity” cannot be included in the definition of “sex,” and that “sex” and “gender” cannot be used interchangeably.

The executive order declares there are only “two sexes, male and female” and defines a “female” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” The order defines “male” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

“This one is shockingly out of step with what we know from science,” Kellan E. Baker, executive director of the Institute for Health Research & Policy at health services network Whitman-Walker, told ABC News in an interview.

Baker noted that we’re accustomed to thinking of sex “as a fairly simple, binary, immutable thing,” but said science tells us it’s not that simple.

“Sex is not a singular, binary, immutable trait,” he said. “It is, in fact, a complex cluster of multiple traits, some of which align with each other and sometimes some of which do not align with each other.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines sex as “an individual’s biological status as male, female, or something else. Sex is assigned at birth and associated with physical attributes, such as anatomy and chromosomes.”

Intersex populations are not noted in the executive order. Intersex people are those with variations in their sex traits such as genitals, chromosomes, hormones or reproductive organs, and differ from expectations of male and female anatomy.

The term intersex may also be categorized as “differences of sex development.” Not all conditions are noticeable at birth, according to MedlinePlus, a resource from the National Library of Medicine and therefore, may not be known until later in life.

“There are multiple different sex traits that make up this concept that we think of as sex,” Baker said. “They include, for example, chromosomes. They also include external genitalia, gonads, hormones.”

Baker also notes that sexual differentiation via reproductive cells doesn’t take place until about six weeks after conception, contrary to the definition stated by the executive order.

The order states that the definitions of sex are a response to “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex.”

“Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept,” the order reads.

Jenny Pizer, chief legal officer at LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal, told ABC News her organization is preparing for legal action against the executive order. She argues the order could force agencies to no longer recognize transgender or intersex people by restricting funding that promote “gender ideology.”

The order states that gender ideology “is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.”

It goes further to state, “Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not request gender identity.”

“The current structure of our society is that there is federal funding throughout many of our essential systems, and so we don’t know, but it is certainly possible that the Trump administration is going to attempt to exclude or mistreat members of our community in many, many of these settings,” Pizer said.

The executive order also revokes a 2022 Biden administration rule in which the U.S. Department of State made it possible for people applying for American passports to select “X” to mark their gender.

The rule announced by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken marked the Transgender Day of Visibility and was designed to accommodate nonbinary, intersex and gender-nonconforming individuals.

Lambda Legal was behind the effort to implement an “X” gender marker for passports. Their client at the time, Dana Zzyym, had been denied a passport because they were intersex and could not accurately pick between male or female on the application form, according to the organization.

“We’ll continue to stand with Dana and all intersex, nonbinary, and transgender people to defend their right to identity documents that accurately identify who they are, and their equal protection rights against targeting and exclusion by their own government,” it said in a statement posted to its website on Monday.

Trump also implemented policies or took positions that adversely affected the LGBTQ community in his first term. He banned some transgender people from serving in the military, repealed Obama-era non-discrimination health care policy and advocated against employment protection for LGBTQ workers before the Supreme Court.

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(WASHINGTON) — Congress is gathering for a joint session to certify the results of the 2024 election, the final step before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, after some major changes to security for the ceremony and the law that dictates how it’s carried out.

Before 2021, the Congress’ constitutionally mandated responsibilities to count electoral certifications from the states and certify the results on Jan. 6 often passed in less than an hour with little notice from the public.

But the events of four years ago make this a more closely watched affair.

Washington, D.C., is under heightened security — not only for the certification of the vote, but also for the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter at the end of this week and Trump’s inauguration in two weeks.

There are no known threats to the certification of the electoral votes, authorities say, but police are preparing for the possibility.

And the Washington area is forecast to get its heaviest snowfall in a few years on Monday, which could impact government operations, but it isn’t expected to prevent certification.

Here’s what we expect to happen on Monday:

Security

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request to designate Washington a National Security Special Event for the counting and certification of the vote, which was approved in September. This allows for significant resources from the federal government, as well as state and local partners, to be utilized in a comprehensive security plan, with the U.S. Secret Service as the lead agency.

The Secret Service is deploying agents and specialists from field offices across the country to supplement staffing. D.C. Police will be fully activated beginning Sunday morning and are bringing in nearly 4,000 additional officers from across the country to assist with policing for the special events. Drones will be in use for both events and training preparations.

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger told reporters, “The United States Capitol Police [are] better staffed, better trained, better equipped than ever before, to protect our Capitol and protect our Congress.”

“The legislative process will proceed without disruption, and our government will have a peaceful transfer of power,” he said.

Capitol Police has completed more than 100 recommendations its inspector general made after the Jan. 6 attack, including increasing staffing, training, and building a new intelligence operation.

The D.C. National Guard confirmed to ABC News that it has been activated and will assist with events this month. Some 500 members of the Guard are on standby for Jan. 6 and Carter’s funeral. A request for 7,800 members of the military for Trump’s inauguration is pending approval.

Fencing is installed around a perimeter that goes beyond the office buildings on both sides of the Capitol, and there’s an inner perimeter that surrounds the immediate Capitol complex. The fencing was implemented for the first time after the 2021 insurrection and will be similar to what was installed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress last summer.

The fencing on Capitol Hill and near the White House is expected to remain through February, sources told ABC News.

No major groups have applied for permits or announced any protests for the election certification.

Snow day

D.C. is expected to get between 8 to 12 inches of snow through Monday but members are expected to get to the Capitol.

House Republican leaders urged members to stay in Washington over the weekend and Speaker Mike Johnson is plowing ahead with Monday’s certification.

In an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Johnson said he’s hoping for full attendance.

“Whether we’re in a blizzard or not, we are going to be in that chamber making sure this is done,” Johnson said.

The role of the vice president

Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over the certification, putting her in the unenviable position of certifying the victory of her 2024 opponent. Congress enacted a law in 2022 to define the role of the vice president as purely ceremonial.

The Electoral Count Reform Act modified some of the provisions that Trump attempted to use to challenge the electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021.

The law also makes it harder harder for Congress to challenge a state’s electoral votes. The law raised the threshold required to object to a state’s electoral votes from one senator and one representative to one-fifth of each chamber and it takes one half of each chamber to sustain objections.

Though there were objections to states’ electors that led to the dissolution of the joint session in 2021, none were sustained by a half-chamber vote in either the Senate or the House.

The law also cleaned up vague language about what date states must select their electors and created an expedited procedure for federal courts, or the Supreme Court when necessary, to hear cases with over state executives’ duty to issue and transmit to Congress the certification of appointed electors.

Certifying the vote

Procession of the ballots: The sealed votes arrived at the Capitol addressed to the vice president in her role as president of the Senate. The votes are placed in ceremonial leather-bound boxes and processed from the Senate to the House by a group of Senate pages.

Procession of senators to the House: Senators follow the electoral boxes to the House to convene the joint session.

Members convene for joint session: Federal law stipulates that members must convene at 1 p.m. for the opening of the presidential election results. The House sergeant at arms announces the president of the Senate (Harris) and senators as in the State of the Union address, and then the president of the Senate takes the dais and becomes the presiding officer of the ceremony. The speaker of the House usually sits behind the vice president.

“Tellers” come to the dais: Two House members and two Senate members who have been selected by the speaker and Senate majority leader help shepherd the ceremony by reading out the votes alphabetically by state. This is typically the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Rules and House Administration committees.

Harris reads the votes by each state in alphabetical order: Starting with Alabama, Harris will open the certificates and hand them down to one of the tellers. After the teller announces the result, Harris will ask if there are any objections. If there are objections as there were in 2021, this would be when they’re heard.

If the threshold for an objection is reached: Harris would announce that the two chambers will deliberate separately on the pending objection and report its decision back to the joint session. The Senate would withdraw from the joint session and return to its chamber. Both chambers would get up to two hours to debate whether to uphold the objection. It requires the vote of half of each chamber to sustain an objection.

Never in their history has either chamber sustained an objection.

Completing the process: The vice president will announce the whole number of electoral votes (538) and what constitutes a simple majority (217) and announce how many electoral votes each candidate got, then do the same for vice president.The vice president will declare the joint session dissolved. Usually there is applause, and the certification is complete.

How long does all this take?: There have been instances in which certification has taken less than half an hour. In 2017, the certification of President Trump’s first term, presided over by then-Vice President Joe Biden, took 41 minutes.

In 2021, Congress convened at 1 p.m. in a joint session and, because of both a prolonged recess due to the breach of the Capitol and multiple state objections, did not complete its work certifying the election until 3:39 a.m. on Jan. 7.

ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.

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As Joe Biden’s presidency draws to a close, the reviews are being written — what will become the first draft of history.

And the reviews from most Americans are not good.

Surveys show they have mixed views on his four years at the pinnacle of power, the culmination of a career in public service that spans more than five decades.

Gallup found 54% of U.S. adults think Biden will be remembered as a below average or poor president; 19% say he’ll be remembered as outstanding or above average and 26% think he will be viewed as average.

Historians, though, say it will take years to fully assess Biden’s legacy and his lasting imprint on American politics. Several spoke to ABC News to offer a preliminary take on how they regard his presidency as he prepares to make his exit.

COVID recovery and legislative wins

“I think it is likely Joe Biden’s legacy will be assessed far more generously than some would have it today,” said Ellen Fitzpatrick, professor of history at the University of New Hampshire.

“His quick action upon taking office to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including expediting vaccinations and steering the American Rescue Plan to passage, contributed to a ‘first 100 days’ more robust in achievement than perhaps any president since FDR,” Fitzpatrick added.

The American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion relief bill that provided stimulus checks directly to Americans, support for state and local governments and billions of dollars in vaccine distribution, was signed just months after he took office. By mid-May 2021, his administration announced 250 million vaccines had been administered.

“That activism continued with successes in expanding federal investment in clean energy and improved infrastructure, new job creation, efforts to address climate change, curb health care costs and expand insurance coverage among many initiatives,” Fitzpatrick said.

By the end of his second year in office, he’d also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive climate, health and tax law; the CHIPS Act, a multibillion-dollar law to boost domestic computer chip manufacturing; the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major gun safety bill in decades; and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provides funding to rebuild the country’s bridges, roads and public transportation.

But some economists question how much the big-ticket bills contributed to inflation, which reached a 40-year high during his time in office though has since cooled.

“He spent a lot of money, but didn’t really change the authorities of government and change the structure of government,” said Tevi Troy, a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute. “I don’t think people are gonna look at the inflation Reduction Act, which everybody acknowledged was misnamed, the same way that we look at the Great Society legislation that Lyndon B. Johnson passed.”

Plus, Americans may not feel the full impact of Biden’s signature policies — such as infrastructure improvements or drug-pricing reforms — for years to come.

“They experienced all the disruptions without any of the payoff,” said Russell Riley, the co-chair of the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program. “And what I think those who are supporters of Biden will count on is that in the long scope of history, once these projects stop being ongoing ventures with all the headaches associated with it and you see the good that came out of it, that his image will be rehabilitated some.”

Foreign policy footprint

“The things that I think will probably stand up as positives were a return to alliances and the importance of engaging in positive relationships with nations around the globe,” said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky. “That was something that both our allies really want and is in America’s best interest.”

Biden made support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion a key issue, framing it as a battle for democracy against authoritarianism. He made a surprise visit to wartime Kyiv to stand alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after a year of war.

In the Middle East, Biden tried to balance unwavering support for Israel after Hamas’ terror attack in Oct. 2023 while also pushing for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians inside Gaza. He faced anger from all sides as the conflict unfolded, but managed to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas at the very end of his presidency.

Biden has also touted ending America’s longest war by removing remaining troops in Afghanistan. But the chaos that accompanied the withdrawal, including the deaths of 13 American service members, cast a pall over his presidency.

“On the flip side, the way in which the departure from Afghanistan unfolded — not so much the departure itself but the way it was conducted and that administration’s inability to take responsibility for that — I think really annoyed a lot of people and continued to color their perspective of the administration,” Chervinsky said.

His decision to run for reelection — and later drop out

Biden announced he was running for reelection in April 2023. At the time, he was 80 years old.

There was no competitive Democratic primary and he was on a glide path to become the party’s nominee until his June 2024 debate performance against Donald Trump.

The poor showing stoked concern among Democrats about Biden’s age and ability to campaign. He fought off the growing panic for weeks, but ultimately withdrew from the campaign on July 21 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.

“He has sort of two presidencies: before the debate and then after the debate,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston and co-creator of the Presidential Greatness Project.

Riley said he believed this chapter of Biden’s presidency could overshadow his accomplishments.

“I think this is where the light of history will probably be especially harsh, particularly for those who believe that the disruptions of Trumpism are historically significant and adversely impact our constitutional system,” he added.

Biden has maintained a belief that he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race. He said he decided to drop out to help unify the Democratic Party.

“The tragic irony of Joe Biden is that he wanted to be president his whole life, certainly his whole Senate career, and when he finally got it, he was too old for the job,” said Troy.

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