(NEW YORK) — Facing 16 felony charges in federal court, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez launched a long-shot bid for reelection earlier this month as an independent, but he appears to have held no campaign events, raised almost no money through the first quarter of this year, reportedly has no paid staff and — by siphoning votes from the Democratic Party’s Senate nominee, Rep. Andy Kim, could hand a safe-blue seat to Republicans.
New Jersey Democrats ABC News spoke with are split over Menendez’s motivation.
Some — including Kim — speculate his independent campaign could help him fundraise to cover mounting legal costs. Others said they believe he could be seeking leverage with the Democratic Party. And some state Democrats can’t even agree on whether Menendez will go through with the race at all.
“It’s unfathomable to think I’m running for reelection for any reason other than to continue to uphold my oath of office to help and protect New Jerseyans,” Menendez said to ABC News in an emailed statement. “My candidacy is not, and never was, about leveraging my fellow Democrats.”
Many of those fellow Democrats disagree.
Kim, who won the New Jersey Democratic Senate primary earlier this month, said in an interview with ABC News that he assumed Menendez was running as an independent because he needed money to pay legal fees — incurred in his ongoing trial.
Menendez is charged with allegedly accepting cash, gold bars, luxury wristwatches and other perks from a New Jersey businessmen in exchange for official favors to benefit the businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
He has pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing.
“Depending on what happens with this trial, there could be a long appeals process or other things, so he may have to fundraise for a while,” Kim said.
Julie Roginsky, a veteran New Jersey Democratic political strategist, said she agreed.
“Bob Menendez is staring down millions and millions of dollars in legal fees” and, not being independently wealthy, he has to raise funds to cover them, Roginsky said.
Campaign funds can be used to cover some legal expenses under Federal Election Commission rules, according to former FEC Chairman Michael Toner.
In New Jersey, independent candidates can remove their names from the ballot up until Aug.16. Even if Menendez were to withdraw before that deadline, lobbyists and supporters who might be unwilling or unable to contribute to Menendez’s legal defense fund could donate until then to his campaign instead, Roginsky said.
Toner confirmed that a candidate cannot raise funds for a campaign once they fail to qualify for the ballot in an upcoming cycle. By qualifying for the ballot as an independent, Menendez can therefore continue to raise funds.
Two Democratic operatives close to New Jersey Democratic leadership have a different theory.
New Jersey is a reliably blue seat, and if Menendez pulls votes from Kim, it could imperil that standing — and potentially the U.S. Senate majority in Washington.
Democrats currently hold a narrow 51-seat majority in the Senate but are facing long odds to keep it, with Cook Political Report rating one currently Democratic seat as solid for Republicans and a three others as toss-ups.
Roginsky said she thinks Menendez would not want to cost Democrats the Senate majority.
Knowing that, Menendez could be looking for leverage to extract concessions in exchange for dropping out of the race before late summer, the operatives said. Concessions Menendez might seek, the operatives speculated, could range from financial support to even a pardon from President Joe Biden — as politically improbable as that might be — especially in an election year.
But for many of the state Democrats ABC News interviewed, the question is not why, but whether Menendez will go through with the reelection bid.
“He’s not running again,” said David Wildstein, the editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Globe and a longtime observer of New Jersey politics who says he has known Menendez for 35 years. “I just don’t believe that he’ll want to suffer the indignity of a defeat.”
Kim, for his part, said he isn’t listening to the speculation surrounding Menendez.
“My working assumption right now is that he will be on the ballot,” said Kim, who previously told ABC News “everyone knows Bob Menendez isn’t running for the people of New Jersey, he’s doing it for himself.”
And, Kim said, he will have the support of national Democrats in the event that Menendez does go through with the reelection bid.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer drew criticism for declining to immediately endorse Kim after his primary victory — and still has not done so. But Kim said that he spoke with Schumer after his victory last Tuesday and that they have been “talking more and more” since.
“I’ve certainly felt like we’re getting the support that we need,” Kim said. “And if there are things that we need going forward, I think that we’ll certainly be able to have that kind of coordination.”
(WASHINGTON) — One Secret Service office in Chicago is responsible for securing both the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention and no stone is left unturned — from large-scale security measures to making sure residents in Chicago and Milwaukee aren’t missing trash pickup.
The Secret Service Chicago Field Office is responsible for the entire states of Illinois, Wisconsin, the Quad Cities portion of Iowa and the northern part of Indiana, a “huge land mass” according to the Deputy Special Agent in Charge Derek Mayer, who spoke with ABC News in an exclusive interview.
By law once a National Special Security Event (NSSE) has been established by the secretary of homeland security, the Secret Service becomes the coordinator of the event. Other NSSE’s include the presidential inauguration and the State of the Union. There will be five NSSE’s this year, one of the busiest.
“It’s unprecedented that a field office has had two NSSE events this close that were both conventions,” he said.
Mayer said the office has fewer than 100 agents, and most agents are working to help secure both conventions in which they’ve been planning for it since last April.
“In our world, security comes first, but we also we don’t want a disruption to the public,” he said. “We want everybody to still be able to live their daily lives while we still secure events.”
Part of that is working with the Postal Service, trash pickup services and package delivery services to ensure residents are still able to live normally.
“One thing that we have been doing the last several months is public outreach, community outreach, to make sure that the business owners and the public are well informed about what our expectations are and what their expectations are to us,” he said. “So we can avoid as many disruptions as possible”
Mayer said the office has been working with state and local police department including the Milwaukee and Chicago Police Departments, to help secure the Conventions.
In addition to security preparations for the conventions, the Chicago field office has been busy with everyday tasks such as protecee visits and investigating cyber and financial crimes.
“We’re a very active investigative office, one of the most active in the United States,” he said. “We do we open over 100 investigative cases a year. These cases include counterfeit cyber, financial crime, and other types of financial crimes.”
Last year, the Chicago field office cyber team says it prevented more than $119 million in losses.
The office also does protective intelligence, meaning every threat made to the current or former president and first lady has to be investigated, if they are in their coverage area.
Mayer said the visits from protecees have already doubled since last year.
“We do have protectee visits and Wisconsin is a battleground state,” he said. “So, we are consistently getting protected visits there. So, last year, 2023 Chicago field office had over 80 protected visits. Obviously, we’re going to crush that in 2024.”
(WASHINGTON) — Just two months ago, when former President Donald Trump had just begun raising money with the Republican Party as its new presumptive nominee, his team was trailing President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party by nearly $100 million in campaign cash on hand. Now Trump has rapidly outpaced Biden in fundraising.
This new surge in the Trump campaign’s fundraising effectively closes the money edge Biden’s campaign had boasted earlier this election cycle as the competitive November general election looms. The Trump fundraising boost gives him plenty of fresh cash to potentially spend on advertising after next week’s debate.
The Biden campaign on Thursday announced that the campaign and the Democratic National Committee’s joint fundraising operation raised $85 million in May — significantly less than the whopping $141 million total the Trump campaign claimed it raised the same month.
The Trump campaign and the Republican Party’s joint fundraising committee have now outraised the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party two months in a row. Major Republican donors that had been sitting on the sidelines earlier this year are now rallying behind Trump; small-dollar donors are fired up after the former president’s conviction in his hush-money trial.
Full fundraising figures won’t be available until both sides’ joint fundraising committees file their quarterly reports next month, but Trump appears to have caught up on or is at least close to catching up on Biden’s cash on hand. The Trump campaign and the RNC are reporting a combined cash-on-hand of more than $172 million compared to the just under $157 million in cash-on-hand the Biden campaign reported.
The Biden campaign announced that their total cash-on-hand including joint fundraising committees is $212 million, but the Trump campaign has yet to voluntarily announce a comparative number — which will be released next month.
Trump’s latest fundraising boost comes on the heels of his guilty verdict in his New York criminal trial, which was a major fundraising boon for Trump’s campaign. The Trump campaign claimed that his team raised a massive $53 million from online fundraising in just 24 hours after he was found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign have been holding multiple ritzy high-dollar fundraisers with tickets going up to $840,000, Trump in particular kicking off his joint fundraising with the Republican Party in April with a Palm Beach fundraiser that raked in $50 million just in one night.
Despite the trial schedule that confined Trump into a Manhattan courtroom most days of the week earlier this year, Trump criss-crossed the country on days off the trial courting wealthy donors in Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, Florida and New York — even attending a Manhattan fundraiser the day his guilty verdict dropped.
Trump ramped up fundraising even more once the trial ended, bringing in $27 million from a West Coast fundraising swing earlier this month, while Biden too raised more than $30 million from his star-studded Los Angeles fundraiser last weekend, joined by former President Barack Obama, Julia Roberts and George Clooney.
Both the campaigns also recently had dueling fundraisers in London with surrogates and former ambassadors, courting wealthy Americans abroad.
Meanwhile, pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again also outpaced pro-Biden super PAC Future Forward PAC last month, the pro-Trump group raising $68 million in May, including a whopping $50 million donation from major Trump ally Timothy Mellon. The pro-Biden group raised $39 million last month, including a $19 million donation from Michael Bloomberg.
Trump’s big hauls over the past couple of months reflect an influx of cash from previously untapped big Republican donors that had either turned away from Trump or had been sitting on the sidelines during the primary season. They finally returned to Trump after he became the party’s last-standing presidential candidate — raising the question of whether Trump will be able to continue to expand his donor base.
Regardless, the cash flow has helped Trump gear up for the general election after coming out of the primary and is expected to boost the former president ahead of critical moments in the coming months including the upcoming first presidential debate in Atlanta as well as the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention.
“We are moved by the outpouring of support for President Donald J. Trump,” Trump Campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote in a statement earlier this month when they announced the May fundraising figures. “The American people saw right through Crooked Joe Biden’s rigged trial, and sent Biden and Democrats a powerful message – the REAL verdict will come on November 5th.”
The Biden campaign claims its battleground infrastructure is making up for the slower fundraising, saying Trump is doing little to expand his voter base in battleground states.
“For months, the Biden-Harris campaign has been on the ground talking to the voters who will decide this election, and Donald Trump’s been nowhere to be found,” Biden-Harris 2024 Battleground States Director Dan Kanninen wrote in a statement. “Now, with just over four months until the election, Donald Trump couldn’t match our battleground infrastructure if he tried. While Trump’s team is desperately trying to spin their lack of infrastructure as ‘strategic,’ the bottom line is that Donald Trump cannot buy back the time he has lost — and invisible campaigns don’t win.”
“In an election sure to be decided by tens of thousands of voters, Team Trump is doing little to nothing to expand their base or court the battleground voters who will decide this election,” Kanninen continued.
Travis Scott is making light of his recent arrest for intoxication and trespassing, all while being charitable. Now being sold on his website are $35 T-shirts with a picture of his mugshot over the words “It’s Miami,” which is what he told police after he admitted he’d been drinking alcohol. Five dollars from each sale will benefit his Cactus Jack Foundation.
A$AP Rocky‘s fourth studio album, Don’t Be Dumb, finally has a release date: Aug. 30. He is said to have announced the date after teasing clips toward the end of the AWGE “American Sabotage” show during Paris Fashion Week. Links to presave the album and shop for merch from the American Sabotage collection were shared.
Snoop Dogg is praising Kendrick Lamar for uniting people at his Pop Out concert Wednesday. “Sending a big shout-out to K. Dot and all the homies from the West that stood together unified, organized in peace [and] love,” Snoop said. “That was fun to watch. Beautiful to see all my peoples come together… K. Dot, you are the King of the West. That’s the kind of s*** kings do, we unite.”
Many have noticed Sean “Diddy” Combs has wiped his Instagram clean amid the sexual assault allegations against him. His posts on the social platform X are still up, with a pinned statement from December 2023 in which he claimed people tried to “assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy.”
Cheers to another New Music Friday! Here’s some of the latest to hit the culture:
Kehlani‘s Crash is out now, featuring 13 tracks she thought would be great to tour. “A crash, in any form, is the peak height of the moment,” she says of her new project. It finds her “at my most free, most fun, most loud, most fueled, so far.”
Ice Spice drew comparisons to Nicki Minaj when she posted a teaser of “Phat Butt,” but now the song is out with a new video. “Rap b**** on the pop chart/ toasting b****** like pop tarts,” she raps. “Fat butt and a back tatt /and I been bad like Mike Jack.”
6lack reflects on his journey as a man and in the music industry on his new single, “FTRG” (F*** The Rap Game)”. It was released alongside a music video that “brings to life the many sentiments at play in this song.”
GloRilla‘s “TGIF” is finally here. Among the most memorable lyrics is “It’s 7pm Friday, it’s 95 degrees…I ain’t got no n**** and no n**** ain’t got me,” which is already viral on TikTok.
The new song and video from Jaden, “Roses,” is “about young love and healing.” He says it’s “a Therapy Session set to the key of Bb Major and at the tempo of 165 Bpm.”
Rema teams with fellow Nigerian Shalipoppi for “Benin Boys,” a tribute to their native Benin City. The video captures the city’s landmarks.
Capella Grey wants fans to Vibe Responsibly, according to his debut album, which was three years in the making. It features Caribbean, R&B and New York vibes.
It’s been three years since fans heard from G-Eazy, but he’s back with Freak Show, featuring “Love You Forever,” a song dedicated to his late mother, Suzanne Olmsted.
If there are two things Saweetie is known for outside of her music and beauty, it’s her food concoctions and business acumen. Both are displayed in her latest venture, a partnership with The Boiling Crab and Postmates. Per the deal, she’s bringing a variety of seafood feasts inspired by her food combos to her fans. The Hot Mess, The Bigger Hot Mess and The Biggest Hot Mess — all of which include snow crab, shrimp, corn, andouille sausage and fries — are now available at The Boiling Crab through July 7, with Postmates exclusively delivering from participating locations.
Speaking to People, Saweetie says she got her food concoctions, which include oysters in honey barbecue sauce, from her father.
“Honestly, I get a lot of the concoctions from my dad because, as a young dad, he would make me spreads,” Saweetie says. “He would make me these cool ‘Scooby-Doo’ sandwiches with a whole bunch of chips, fries, however he wanted to make it.”
“But I’ve always just had a love for concoctions and for tasting new foods. I’m a really big foodie,” she adds. It’s why she was open to the collab: It’s something she already enjoys doing.
“At this point in my career, I’m not doing things for financial benefit. I’m doing things out of passion,” Saweetie says. “It’s always a special moment when you’re able to do business with people who you share a common interest [with]; in this case, it’s seafood.”
“The fact that it’s dropping the day of Cancer season, and I’m a Cancer (my sign is a crab), it just feels so aligned and so in sync with everything that’s going on for me right now,” she tells People, “especially with just having new music out.”
