Trump transition live updates: Waltz eyed as national security adviser, sources say

(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Some gun violence prevention groups said Wednesday that they plan to double down in their fight for stronger firearm-control laws in the wake of former President Donald Trump recapturing the White House and promising to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb the national plague.

During his victorious campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, voiced opposition to most of Biden’s executive orders to combat the scourge that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found to be the leading cause of death in the United States for adolescents under the age of 19 for three straight years.

“The election of Donald Trump is deeply troubling for our safety and freedom from gun violence,” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement Wednesday. “And that’s why we are doubling down on our work and fighting harder than ever.”

Gun violence was a big issue during the campaign. In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released in August, gun violence was ranked eighth in importance among voters after the economy, inflation, health care, protecting democracy, crime and safety, immigration and the Supreme Court.

In preliminary national exit polls analyzed by ABC News, voters said they trusted Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, 50% to 48%, in handling the issue of crime and safety.

In his campaign, Trump often railed against what he described as a “surge” in migrant crime, including several high-profile homicides allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. A 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely than migrants to be arrested for violent crimes.

Brown said it won’t be the first pro-gun rights administration that has occupied the White House, adding that Trump’s previous four years in the Oval Office were marked by a “deadly period for Americans.” Among the mass shootings that occurred during Trump’s first term was the 2017 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival music concert in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and more than 850 people wounded; the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff; and the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that claimed 23 lives and injured nearly two dozen other people.

“So even though we won’t have a friend in the White House, Brady isn’t giving up an inch,” Brown said of her organization named after White House press secretary James “Jim” Brady, who was shot and permanently disabled in the 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and later died in 2014 as a result of his wounds.

Brown added, “The movement to prevent gun violence has always been larger than one office, and we’ll continue to work with activists, survivors, community leaders and elected officials in states across the country to fight for progress that makes the whole country safer from gun violence.”

Trump and Vance, who have said they oppose a national ban on assault weapons, were endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

In February, Trump told NRA members at a forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms” during his second term in office.

“During my four years, nothing happened and there was a lot of pressure on me having to do with guns,” Trump said at the time. “We did nothing, we didn’t yield. And once you yield a little bit that’s just the beginning, that’s [when] the avalanche begins.”

In May, Trump spoke at the NRA convention in Dallas and outlined some of the actions he’ll take in his second term.

“In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment — the attacks are fast and furious — starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House,” Trump said in the speech.

Trump also vowed during the speech to fire Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). House Republicans have also said they want to abolish or drastically cut funding for the ATF.

“At noon on Inauguration Day, we will sack the anti-gun fanatic Steve Dettelbach,” Trump told NRA conventioneers. “Have you ever heard of him? He’s a disaster.”

Gun control advocates said they expect Trump to try to water down the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major gun safety law enacted in 30 years that Biden signed in June 2022, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The BSCA enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns, and allocates $750 million to help states implement “red flag laws” to remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others.

Advocates also expect Trump to abolish the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention established under the Biden administration and overseen by Harris.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action released a statement on social media Wednesday, saying her gun violence prevention group also plans to continue to fight for laws that protect Americans from gun violence.

“If this work has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, we always can and will secure victories to protect our communities from gun violence. This obstacle is no different. Today, we are crushed by this result,” Ferrell-Zabala said of Trump’s victory. “Tomorrow, we’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it — because they do.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Millions of dollars from Republican groups and figures are being poured into anti-transgender ads criticizing policies that support the trans community, despite these issues being among the least important concerns motivating voters heading into the 2024 election, according to a recent Gallup poll.

LGBTQ advocates fear the intensified campaign will sow fear and hate against a group that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population, per an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data — and which already experiences high rates of discrimination and violence.

“After the election, trans Americans will have to deal with the dangerous fallout from the shameful lies and misinformation that far too many political candidates are intentionally spreading,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

In the ads, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has said he will end transgender care in prisons and jails, and restrict access to gender-affirming care and transgender participation in sports, and more.

In interviews, Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been touted by some LGBTQ groups as being part of the most “pro-LGBTQ” administration — has said she will follow the law when it comes to transgender care and has expressed support for the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination.

Here’s what we know about the issues and how each candidate expects to legislate transgender policies.

Claim about ‘transgender operations’ in prisons, jails

Trump’s campaign has seized on Harris’ past comments affirming her support for transgender inmates to receive care.

In 2019, she did support “providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

The Harris campaign, however, hit back against recent criticism from Trump, noting that the Bureau of Prisons under the Trump administration had a policy in place to allow incarcerated transgender people to receive gender-affirming medical care if it’s required based on an individual assessment of needs. BOP documents confirm the policy.

“Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Harris during an interview in October.

“I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” Harris said. “You’re probably familiar with now, it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, of the hundreds of incarcerated transgender people in BOP custody each year, no one had received gender-affirming surgery until the first instance in 2023.

BOP officials told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that as of early October, only two federal inmates have ever obtained surgeries.

Claims of transgender ‘operations’ for children at schools

Trump has often depicted hypothetical or unfounded scenarios about children getting an “operation” at school without parental permission while on the campaign trail. The former president has repeatedly claimed, without any proof, that schools purportedly secretly send students for surgeries, saying: “There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. OK? Without parental consent.”

According to Planned Parenthood, parental consent is needed for any form of gender-affirming care given to minors, including puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.

In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found — a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis.

Physicians say they work with patients and their parents to build a customized and individualized approach to gender-affirming care for trans patients, meaning not every patient will receive any or every type of care. They also said receiving this care is typically a lengthy process.

Numerous medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the CDC — have said access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender-diverse people.

Harris, when asked in October during an NBC News interview about whether transgender Americans deserve to have access to gender-affirming care, said she would “follow the law,” later adding that such care “is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”

Additionally, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed an executive order as Minnesota governor protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state in March 2023.

Claims about transgender athletes

In a podcast with former professional wrestler The Undertaker, or Mark William Calaway, Trump also pushed false claims about the controversial Olympic boxing match between Italian boxer Angela Carini and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif was the target of controversy after reports falsely surfaced claiming Khelif is a transgender woman; she is not and was assigned female at birth, according to the International Olympic Committee.

Carini abandoned the Olympics bout after only 46 seconds, further sparking false accusations. The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) and the IOC spoke out about the misinformation on Khelif’s gender and sex.

“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, has a female passport,” the IOC said during a press conference.

Trump then referenced a San Jose State women’s volleyball game against New Mexico, falsely claiming a trans athlete on San Jose State’s team — as he repeatedly misgendered her — injured other female players with the ball. San Jose State told the Los Angeles Times that the ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.

“They had the one guy on the one team, and he was so high in the air, and he smashed that ball, you know, you don’t see that, and this ball came at her at a speed that he’s, you know, she’s never seen — get really whacked her. But other volleyball players were hurt,” Trump said.

Trump has additionally vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” in many of his stump speeches, making it a key issue in his campaign.

LGBTQ advocates say claims that trans women are “taking over” women’s sports are misleading — with sports advocacy group Athlete Ally estimating to CNN that trans women make up less than 40 athletes of the 500,000 in the NCAA.

For more insight into the candidates’ LGBTQ policy history, read here.

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(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams visited “The View” Friday to give his thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump’s presidency and what it will mean for the city.

Adams said both sides of the political aisle needed to turn down the rhetoric and name-calling that has perpetuated the discourse for years. The mayor implied that the toxic rhetoric was a reason behind Trump’s victory, especially in the city where the former president gained ground among the electorate.

“What you saw in this city and a city becoming redder is because we stopped talking about broken class issues,” Adams said.

“They’re not talking about fascism, they’re talking about finance. They’re not talking about Hitler, they’re talking about housing,” the mayor added, referencing the statements from Trump opponents that he was a fascist.

“The View” co-host Ana Navarro noted that Vice President-elect JD Vance once called Trump Hitler. Adams reiterated that everyone must tone down their rhetoric.

Adams was also asked about his opinions on Trump’s controversial cabinet appointees, specifically Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tapped to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

RFK Jr., who tried to run for president this year as a Democrat and Independent candidate before endorsing Trump, has pushed false claims about vaccine dangers and fluoride and promised to make massive cuts to health services if he is appointed by the Senate.

Adams pushed back against the fluoride claims but noted that the country needed to look at what is being put into food, which was another stance that RFK Jr. had taken in the past.

When pushed by “The View” hosts to respond to RFK Jr.’s proposals, Adams said he was confident that the people in place in the health agencies would do the right thing for the country.

“If we love our country, then no one individual should take us away from our mission,” he said.

“There are experts at this, they will look at his proposals and give analysis,” Adams added.

Adams said the city is prepared for various scenarios that Trump may inflict on them when it comes to his mass deportation proposal. The mayor said that New York has always welcomed immigrants and law-abiding immigrants and families will be protected, but stressed that the nation’s immigration system is broken.

He said the migrant crisis cost the city billions of dollars, and no one has provided it with the means or resources to deal with the over 200,000 migrants who were shipped to the city from other states.

“I’m not allowed to let them work (legally),” he said. “I’m not allowed to get them to participate in our tax system.”

In September, Adams became the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted after federal prosecutors charged him with one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy, two counts of solicitation of a contribution from a foreign national and one count of bribery.

The indictment stems from alleged gifts, including upgraded airline flights and luxury hotel stays, given by Turkish businessmen and officials in exchange for preferential treatment by the mayor.

Adams has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty. Federal investigators have probed several of his close confidants and officials over the last year, and many have resigned in the face of the ongoing investigations.

The trial against Adams is slated to begin in April.

Trump has come to Adams’ defense, claiming that the mayor was unjustly charged because of his opposition to President Joe Biden’s migrant policies.

Adams dodged a question about a possible Trump pardon or dismissal of his charges and maintained that he would continue to work for New Yorkers as he fights the charges.

“My job is to do what I have been doing since Jan. 1, 2022,” he said.

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