(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — A 3-year-old boy was killed and his 7-year-old sister was injured after being hit by gunfire while at a family gathering in Buffalo, New York, officials said.
Police who responded to the Friday night incident rushed the boy to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His sister suffered graze wounds but is expected to recover, according to police.
“Last night was a very tragic night for our community,” Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia said during a press conference Saturday.
Gramaglia said the shooting had not been related to the family gathering.
“It was a hot night with a lot of people out, and the gunfire was unrelated to the gathering,” he said. “These children were simply out enjoying a summer evening when tragedy struck.”
“A 3-year-old riding his tricycle, having fun with members of his family on a hot summer night, his 7-year-old big sister right by his side, and out of nowhere gunfire erupts. And the children are struck by gunfire,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.
Gramaglia commended the speed with which officers responded to the shooting, saying they arrived on the scene “very quickly.”
According to Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane, the mother of the two children is a well-known member of the community who is active in Most Valuable Parents, a local organization focused on improving safety in Buffalo.
“She is a strong woman, consistently working with other families to keep our children safe,” he said. “And now this tragedy has struck her own family.”
Police have not said whether any person or persons of interest have been identified as of Sunday afternoon, and they are encouraging anyone with information about the shooting to come forward.
A gun recovered at the scene is currently undergoing testing, police said.
“We need the community to come together and help us put an end to this violence,” Gramaglia said. “Our hearts are with the family of these children, and we will do everything in our power to bring justice for this senseless act.”
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous rip currents are forecast to persist Sunday along much of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where at least eight people have drowned since Thursday after being dragged out to sea by the powerful currents, officials said.
The likelihood of life-threatening rip currents is high for beaches along the Atlantic Coast, including the Jersey Shore from Point Pleasant to Cape May, according to the National Weather Service. Dangerous rip currents are also forecast Sunday for North Carolina beaches from Frisco to Emerald, according to the NWS.
High-risk warnings for rip currents were also issued for the Gulf Coast, where the remnants of Tropical Storm Alberto continue to stir up the water.
A high-risk warning means the surf zone is dangerous for all levels of swimmers, and beachgoers should stay out of the water.
Moderate risk warnings, which have been issued for other parts of the Atlantic Coast, mean rip currents are likely, and swimmers are advised to stay near lifeguards and heed the advice of local beach patrols and flag warning systems.
“It’s a beautiful place, but they don’t realize how dangerous it can be. The ocean is strong and final when it gets ahold of you,” Chief Deputy John Budensiek of the Martin County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office told West Palm Beach ABC affiliate WPBF after a Pennsylvania couple got caught in a rip current and drowned while swimming with their six children at Hutchinson Island off Florida’s east coast.
The bodies of the couple, identified as 51-year-old Brian Warter and 48-year-old Erica Wishard, were found by lifeguards about 100 to 125 yards, or 300 to 375 feet, offshore, Martin County fire officials said.
Warter and Wishard were among eight people who have drowned since Thursday while swimming in the rough waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, according to officials.
On Friday, three men from Alabama who were visiting a Florida beach drowned after they went out swimming in the Gulf off Panama City Beach. The drownings occurred a day after a 19-year-old man drowned in the same area, authorities said.
In New York, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended a search Sunday for two boys, ages 16 and 17, whom witnesses said were apparently caught in a rip current at Jacob Riis Park in New York City’s Queens borough and were quickly swept out into the Atlantic, according to New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry.
“The teens tried to jump up to kind of slice the wave, the wave was extremely high, and it went on top of them and sucked them over,” Daughtry said during a news conference.
Meanwhile, the New York State Police said the body of a 15-year-old boy has been recovered after he was swept away and drowned Thursday in a powerful current while swimming in the Genesee River, a tributary of Lake Ontario near Caneadea, New York. Investigators said the teenager and a friend were swimming when he was swept away by the current.
The teen’s body was recovered on Thursday after multiple search-and-rescue teams combed the river.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on Sunday pushed congressional Republicans for a comprehensive deal on immigration after a bill was blocked earlier this year.
Warren, a member of the national advisory board for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, defended the president’s patchwork of executive actions after she claimed Republicans caved to former President Donald Trump by blocking bipartisan legislation to beef up border security, among other things.
“Right now, Joe Biden is using the tools available to him to try to do as much as he can. But keep in mind there was a deal that had been hammered out. In my view, it only had part of what was necessary, but it was a bipartisan deal. And we were just two days short of voting on it when Donald Trump said no, and the Republicans walked away,” Warren told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“He can’t deal with it if Congress and the Republicans continue to block him,” she added when pressed on the spike in border apprehensions under Biden compared to those under Trump. “And so, the president is using the tools available to him, both to create border security, but he doesn’t have the resources because the Republicans are blocking access.”
During Biden’s term so far, there have been more than 6.9 million border apprehensions, according to compiled data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. There were under 2.1 million such apprehensions during Trump’s four years in office, according to compiled CBP data.
Warren’s comments come as Democrats still point to Republicans’ rejecting a bill crafted by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; James Lankford, R-Okla., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., earlier this year.
Among other things, the bill would have implemented funding for beefed-up border security and additional immigration judges, while also allowing Biden to declare a border emergency and turn migrants away if unauthorized crossings averaged 4,000 or more each day at the southern border over the course of seven consecutive days.
After the bill failed, Biden has leaned on executive orders and actions to grant his administration the ability to declare such an emergency while also offering protections for undocumented spouses of American citizens. He cannot, however, create new funding for border security and judges — money that can only be allocated by Congress.
“He can’t manufacture more judges, he can’t manufacture more guards if Congress doesn’t give him the resources to do that. The president is out there doing everything he can, not just at the border but overall for families. And the action he took in this last week is exactly Joe Biden being Joe Biden,” Warren said.
Liberals have been torn over Biden’s executive actions. Many were pleased with the order announced this past week allowing undocumented spouses to stay in the country, but others — including Warren — criticized his move in early June to allow his administration to declare a border emergency and restricting asylum claims at the border.
“I understand President Biden’s urgency to make changes at the border, but we can — and should — do better than a functional ban on asylum,” she said earlier this month.
Warren, who debated Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary, also forecasted that the president would present a contrast between his economic vision and Trump’s at this Thursday’s debate.
“He’ll be out there for working families,” Warren said. “He’s going to say $35 insulin, and 5 million people have seen their student loan debts canceled. He’s going to talk about getting rid of junk fees and how his administration is going after the price gougers at the oil pump and the grocery store, and that’s the contrast with Donald Trump.”
(WASHINGTON) — After a week of record-breaking extreme heat across the nation, science educator Bill Nye told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz that the extreme heat and flooding making headlines is “a taste of the new normal.”
“The latest research is that there’s not a turning point or a tipping point or a knee in the curve. It’s just gonna get hotter and hotter and worse and worse and more and more extreme,” Nye said Sunday. “So this is a taste of the normal of the future, unless we humankind get to work and address it.”
More than 100 million Americans across 27 states are under heat alerts Sunday from coast to coast, including two of the nation’s largest cities, New York and Los Angeles.
Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related fatalities, according to the National Weather Service.
Research has shown that extreme heat waves like these have been amplified due to human-induced climate change, which has increased the intensity, frequency and length of many naturally occurring weather events.
The average number of heat waves that major U.S. cities experience each year has doubled since the 1980s, according to the federal government’s fifth National Climate Assessment.
“Our [ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent] Ginger Zee talks about climate change a lot, global warming,” Raddatz told Nye. “What do we need to do right now, in your view?”
“The first thing is talk about climate change,” Nye said. “If we were talking with our families and friends and people we vote for about climate change, we’d be much more inclined to do something about it.”
“And then the other thing I always say is vote,” he added. “We have a situation right now here in the United States where one side, one political party isn’t acknowledging the problem, let alone coming up with a plan to do something about it. Furthermore, the other side is kowtowing — is doing what the fossil fuel industry wants to do.”
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that only 4% of registered voters consider climate change the most urgent issue facing the country today.
Democrats and Republicans have also grown further apart on climate change and environmental issues in recent years, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” Trump has said that, if elected in November, he would roll back many of the Biden administration’s climate policies.
“If you meet with people who don’t believe in climate change, don’t believe in global warming — and there are a lot of them — what do you say to them? What do you say to them to convince them?” Raddatz asked Nye.
“If I could convince people in one sitting that would be fabulous, but that is proven quite difficult,” Nye said. “The problem we have in climate change is we don’t have a 9/11 or a Pearl Harbor. It’s slow motion.”
Meanwhile, some environmental activist groups, like the Sunrise Movement, have long been calling on Biden to declare a national climate emergency and take what they consider to be more aggressive action to combat climate change in the U.S.
Raddatz asked Nye about the push for a national climate emergency on Sunday, saying, “Some advocates are pushing for President Biden to declare a national climate emergency. Is that something that he should do, in your view?”
“I don’t know how well that would work,” Nye said. “People who are already inclined to dismiss what he says will just be that much more dismissive, perhaps. What we want to do is get everybody to work together to acknowledge that we have this problem. And I, as I say, I strongly believe that the United States has to lead the world.”
Nye explained that part of his work has been pointing out that humans are causing climate change.
“We’re doing it because we’ve created this wonderful quality of life for so many people by burning ancient carbon — ancient swamps — coal, oil, gas. We just got to stop doing that,” he said. “And so there are many alternative sources of energy, but we have to work together to share it. And I’m talking about transmission lines and energy storage, as well as developing more efficient renewable sources at the same time.”
ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke and Dan Peck contributed to this report.
(WEST HAVEN, Conn.) — Two children are recovering in a Connecticut Intensive Care Unit after police officers stopped their father from allegedly trying to drown them at a West Haven beach early Saturday morning, according to investigators.
A West Haven Police Department patrol officer spotted an SUV parked at Dawson Avenue Beach around 2:30 a.m. and heard screaming from the water as the officer inspected the car, according to investigators.
The officer encountered Romney Desronvil, 41, with two children in the water, the police said.
“As the officer entered the water the adult male continued to drift further away with the children all while screaming at the responding officers to ‘stay back,'” the West Haven Police Department said in a statement. “It was obvious at this point that the male…was deliberately drowning his children.”
Additional police officers and members of the fire department entered the water to assist, going as far as 100 yards from the shore, police said.
Officers were able to get the children, who were described as under 3 years old, away from their father and bring them back to shore to give life-saving measures before they were rushed to the hospital, investigators said.
West Haven Mayor Dorinda Borer told reporters later in the day that the victims were showing signs of improvement but remained in critical condition.
She commended the actions of two of the officers, who she identified as Officer Williamson and Officer Miller, for saving their lives.
“They had guardian angels this morning,” Borer said.
Desronvil, a Queens, New York, resident, was arrested and charged with two counts each of attempted manslaughter and risk of injury, according to investigators.
The investigation is ongoing and more charges may be brought, according to the police.
Attorney information for the suspect was not immediately available.
(ATLANTA) — At an invite-only event in downtown Atlanta, hip-hop fans from across the country came together for a unique voter outreach event.
The Black Male Voter Project, an organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement among Black men, partnered with some of the biggest names in the battle rap to host the No Cap Conference.
The political conference aimed to educate and galvanize a sector of young Black men who are disengaged and unlikely to vote in the November election.
“It’s called No Cap. No cap, in a young Black man’s language, means ‘no lies. This is the truth,” Mondale Robinson, the organization’s founder, told ABC News Chief National Correspondent and “Nightline” Co-Anchor Byron Pitts.
“Our purpose was to talk to the Black men who don’t participate in the election,” Robinson said.
Popular underground rappers sparred bar for bar to earn cash prizes and bragging rights as a packed crowd cheered them on.
There were no slogans, no campaign buttons, and no candidates. ABC News’ “Nightline” was granted exclusive access to the event.
The rap battle was an appetizer for No Cap conference-goers, and civic education was the main course. Attendees, many of whom have never voted in any election, participated in seminars about election misinformation and the history of the 15th Amendment, which granted African American men the right to vote.
The conference also showcased ways for the rappers to leverage their platforms to amplify political campaigns and politicians they support.
The ultimate goal was to ignite political awareness among those who are typically disengaged from the election process.
For Robinson, the hope is that through camaraderie and shared interest, the Black men in attendance would be inspired to become more politically involved in both local and federal elections.
“We talk to the brothers that the world doesn’t want to talk to,” Robinson said. “Nobody’s doing that.
In every election cycle, presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle historically court Black men with a formulaic strategy: making stops at pulpits in churches, hosting barbershop talks, and appearing in roundtables at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
However, Robinson argues that the usual campaign strategy often misses the opportunity to engage with some of the most marginalized and disenchanted voters.
The narrative that young Black male voters are apathetic to the importance of the election is false, Robinson told “Nightline.” He said that it’s ineffective campaign messaging and stalled delivery of campaign promises that ultimately impact voter turnout among the Black male voting bloc.
“There’s no apathy in Black men. There’s a level of antipathy. Antipathy is a whole different emotion. You hate what politics is and does because you’ve not seen the growth, or benefit of it. Black men are not better off because of politics,” Robinson said.
Black men have been a core of the Democratic Party’s path to victory, with more than 80% of them identifying with the party for the last 25 years, according to Pew Research.
And while the Black community still overwhelmingly supports Democrats, some of that support could be eroding. A recent ABC News poll shows that more Black people may have moved away from President Joe Biden.
Some of the Black voters most likely to support former President Donald Trump are those under the age of 50, according to Pew Research.
In 2020, record turnout among Black voters in battleground states delivered the Oval Office to Biden. It’s an acknowledgment the president makes often on the campaign trail.
“Because Black Americans voted, Kamala [Harris] and I are president and vice president of the United States. Because of you. That’s not hyperbole,” Biden told a crowd of Black voters during a campaign stop in Philadelphia on May 29.
However, a Washington Post/ Ipsos poll released in May is raising alarms among Democrats that voter turnout may be a challenge for the party in November, as nearly 1 in 5 Black voters who turned out for Biden in 2020 say they are less than certain about whether they will vote at all this year.
In an election year that could be a toss-up in key battleground states, younger Black men showing up at the polls could play a pivotal role.
Headlining the No Cap conference was Hitman Holla and John John Da Don, two artists, entertainers, and fathers in their 30s. They told ABC News that up until the conference they never discussed politics with each other despite being friends in the music industry for years.
They have only voted once in their lives, helping to elect former President Barack Obama in 2008.
However, Hitman Holla told Pitts that he saw very little change in the social issues impacting the Black community, noting the ongoing battle with disproportionate police brutality.
Since Obama’s first term, the rapper says he has been reluctant to vote again. “Voting is the last thing on my mind,” Hitman Holla said.
“They all want me to vote, but for what? So Mike Brown can get shot . . .? That’s what I’m voting for? So, George Floyd can get killed on camera? What am I voting for? What am I going to stand in this line for and vote for one of these people? Y’all want to act like my vote really matters.”
Hitman Holla and John John Da Don are still undecided, but tell ABC News they are leaning toward voting for Trump.
“I feel like there was more change when Trump was in office than Biden if we have to compare what’s going on,” John John Da Don said, highlighting his trust in the former president on issues relating to the economy.
The rapper is not alone in his sentiments. On issues related to the economy and inflation, adults surveyed by ABC News/Ipsos said they trusted Trump over Biden by a margin of 14 percentage points.
But for Hitman, the reticence toward Biden is not a full-throated endorsement of Trump, either.
“I’ll vote, but they’re my only options?” Hitman Holla continued. “It’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to burn your hand in the oven, or do you want to burn your hand in the toaster?”
On the campaign trail, the Biden administration has focused outreach efforts in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, touting progress in student debt relief, support for Black-owned businesses, as well as improvements in inflation and employment.
The Trump campaign has also tried to court Black voters in myriad ways.
Trump spoke during a roundtable at a church in Detroit with Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Former Housing Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, two prominent Black conservatives and vice presidential contenders, to highlight his record on the economic and funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
During the roundtable Trump also highlighted his record on criminal justice reform, particularly for his signing of the First Step Act of 2018, legislation that created a system of rehabilitation incentives for incarcerated individuals meant to reduce recidivism rates.
“We passed historic criminal justice reform. Something that they’ve been after, people have been after, mostly the Black community, for years and years,” Trump said at the roundtable. “President Obama tried and was unable to get it done. You needed conservative votes and I got conservative votes. We got criminal justice reform done. Nobody else could’ve done that,” Trump continued.
Critics have scrutinized some of the Trump campaign’s outreach strategies. Earlier this year, the former president faced backlash after insinuating that his multiple indictments and ongoing legal woes made him more relatable to Black voters.
“My mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population,” Trump said while speaking at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual BCF Honors Gala at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 23.
During the gala, Trump also said, “I got indicted a second time and a third time. I got a fourth time and a lot of people said that, ‘That’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against.”
Addul Ali, a Black Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina’s 12th district, who supports Trump, was in the room when Trump made the controversial remarks. He told ABC News he was not offended.
“The problem is that we have a double standard,” Ali said. ”Donald Trump’s mug shot T-shirt is racist, but you all having some hip-hop gerbils sell me a car is not. Black culture in America is identified as ‘gangsta,’” Ali said.
The former president also unveiled Trump-branded sneakers and has aligned himself with rappers and pop culture figures in recent years to woo young Black voters.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, college students who will be voting for the first time in November told Pitts that Trump’s outreach attempts aren’t translating.
“I kind of feel disgusted that he felt like he could get to us by making jokes about going to jail and relating to us that way. It’s not what we stand for as people. That’s not us as a whole,” Aaron McKinley Veal, a junior at Winston-Salem State University, said.
Ahmad Blair, a junior at North Carolina A&T University, said that while he finds it offensive, he recognizes how it energizes some voters who support Trump.
“The thing is they say those things and while we know them to be wrong, it’s effective. It energizes the people that it needs to,” Blair said.
Much like Hitman Holla and John John Da Don in Atlanta, Blair says it’s difficult not to be disillusioned by the current political landscape.
“I’m so politically tired,” Blair told ABC News. “I don’t even know what issues I care about anymore. I know that reproductive rights are important to me, but I’m tired. Constantly having to fight as a Black man in every space. You have to fight when you enter these white spaces. You’re fighting in a housing market applying for apartments because you can be discriminated against just for being Black. It’s like every system is built in opposition to our success,” Blair continued.
Despite feeling political fatigue, Black male HBCU students told “Nightline” they are still committed to casting ballots in the upcoming presidential election.
“I think it’s really important. Our ancestors fought for this. We’re coming into one of the biggest elections ever. So I feel like it’s very important for Black people, in general, to vote, to go out and voice their opinions,” Blair said.
North Carolina has been a mainstay in the story of Black political progress in America and HBCUs have been at the center.
In Greensboro, North Carolina, four HBCU students famously spearheaded the nationwide sit-in movement in 1960, which led to widespread desegregation of stores in the South.
The Tar Heel state was among one of the common stops for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his crusade for civil rights.
For generations, the Black church has been instrumental in getting voters to the polls and fighting for access to the ballot box.
In Charlotte, it’s a history that will continue at Chappell Memorial Baptist Church. Rev. Dr. Gregory Moss has helped organize voter outreach, including the “Souls to the Polls” program, for much of the 46 years he’s been a pastor.
“The church cannot tell you who to vote for, but we can emphasize the importance of exercising your right as a citizen,” Moss said, adding that he sees his voter outreach as an extension of Sunday service.
“We have a predominance of working-class people and oftentimes when the polls are open, they don’t always have the luxury of being able to leave their job to go to the polls,” Moss said.
While the Biden campaign has made several stops in North Carolina, Moss still hopes to see more intentional ground game and creative outreach in the Black community.
“At the end of the day, again, it’s getting out there touching people,” Moss said.
“It’s not just on social media. It’s not just through 10-second sound bites. It’s getting out there among folk and doing old-school politics.”
ABC News’ Rachel Rosenbaum and Stephanie Lorenzo contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Republican National Committee is launching a nationwide recruitment effort for poll workers ahead of November’s election as former President Donald Trump continues to spread doubts about election security.
The RNC says it has promised Trump it will enlist at least 100,000 people to serve as poll watchers, poll workers, and poll judges — and have kicked off what they are calling the “Protect Your Vote” tour, holding in-person and virtual training sessions in battleground states such as Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
On Friday, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley emphasized the committee’s commitment to the effort above nearly all others, stressing a refocus of priorities at a stop on New York’s Long Island.
“We cannot be all things to all people. We are going to do two things, and we are going to do only two things. We are going to get out the vote, and we are going to protect the ballot — that’s it,” Whatley told a packed room of volunteers in Westbury Friday morning, flanked by top local Republican brass. “The most important thing we can do is get back to basics.”
(New York, notably, has been a reliably Democratic haven for decades, though Trump now says he believes a major flip is within his grasp, following a string of down-ballot GOP wins in The Empire State’s “purple” suburbs during the midterm elections.)
Part of Whatley’s retooled approach at the RNC is an emphasis on early, mail-in voting, a practice Trump once called “corrupt.” Trump has now shifted his stance, and Whatley hopes voters will follow suit. To this end, the committee has launched “Swamp the Vote USA,” a website that instructs supporters how to submit their ballots before Election Day, featuring a video of Trump endorsing those various methods.
Whatley told ABC News after Friday’s event he sees no indication that supporters are being sheepish about early voting. In fact, he expects nearly half of all votes to be cast before Election Day.
“We want to make sure that everybody understands on the Republican side, as the president has said, multiple times, it’s great to vote early. It’s great to vote by mail. It’s great to vote on Election Day,” Whatley said.
He’s also directing resources to ensure the “right rules of the road” are in place, meaning interfacing with various boards of elections, secretaries of state, governors, and local and state parties to alter or add laws that align with their efforts to monitor voting.
The goal is to have volunteers supervise polling sites in order to monitor early and Election Day voting in order to ensure that elections are “secure and transparent and inspire voter confidence.”
“You have to be in the room,” stressed Whatley. “We need Republican attorneys and Republican volunteers serving as poll workers and poll judges and poll observers in any room where voting is taking place or votes or being counted. It’s absolutely critical for us to be in the room.”
In these training sessions, volunteers learn about how to monitor polling sites in accordance with state law and interact with Whatley and RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, as well as other local GOP officials, to increase engagement.
The committee has also set up an “election integrity” department with staff deployed across the nation to keep in constant contact with the trained volunteers.
“No one can sit idly by during this election, and we are excited to help every patriot play a role in the most important election of our lifetime,” Lara Trump said in a press release announcing the Protect the Vote tour.
Whatley denied criticism that he, and the Republican Party broadly, are participating in election denialism.
“I’m not an election denier, I’m an election winner,” said Whatley. “Republicans, Independents, and Democrats want to know that the sanctity of their ballot is going to allow their vote to count.”
Even still the initiative comes as Trump and his Republican allies have continued to spread unfounded claims about prior and forthcoming elections.
“We need to watch the vote. We need to guard the vote,” Lara Trump said while speaking at Turning Point’s “The People Convention” in Michigan last weekend. “It’s so corrupt, the whole election process.”
(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) — President Joe Biden on Thursday won the coin toss to secure a podium position on the right side of the stage during the CNN debate next week, but by doing so gave Donald Trump the final closing statement of the 90-minute matchup.
According to CNN, the coin landed on tails — the side chosen by the Biden campaign. The team then got to choose between podium placement or the order of closing arguments, picking to have Biden be on the right side of television and other screens but deliver his closing statement first.
Trump’s podium will be on the left side, and he will have the last word by delivering his closing statement after Biden.
The 90-minute CNN debate, starting at 9 p.m. ET, will take place on June 27 in Atlanta. It is the first of two debates between Biden and Trump, the second taking place on Sept. 10 and hosted by ABC News.
The CNN debate is being simulcast on ABC and ABC News Live with pre-coverage beginning at 8 p.m. ET on the network and 7 p.m ET on ABCNL.
Earlier this week, other rules were announced by CNN such as muting the candidates’ microphone unless it is their turn to speak and allowing no props, only pen, paper and a bottle of water.
There will be no opening statements, two commercial breaks and no studio audience.
Biden and Trump will be given two minutes to answer questions posed by moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, followed by one minute each to respond and rebut. There will be a red light flashing to indicate to candidates they have five seconds remaining of their allotted time. When their time is over, the light will turn solid red.
With exactly a week to go until the debate, both campaigns are beginning to prepare.
President Biden is huddling at Camp David with former chief of staff Ron Klain and other longtime advisers and aides.
Toward the end of his debate prep, Biden will take part in a 90-minute mock debate where he’s standing the whole time, according to Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s campaign manager, who’s been in close contact with Biden’s team.
“You got to get used to doing that, and we made Obama do that, too,” Messina told ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang. “That’s another advantage for Trump, because he does stand up at those lecterns and gets his two- or three-hour rambling monologues at his rallies.”
As to why Biden chose the right-side podium after winning the coin flip, Messina said Biden just “likes” that side and it’s a “personal preference.”
Meanwhile, Trump is holding policy meetings with advisers and congressional allies on issues like immigration, the economy and democracy. He’ll also campaign in Philadelphia over the weekend and attend fundraisers next week.
Biden and Trump will be the only candidates on stage after the qualification window closed at midnight, CNN said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, fell short of meeting the network’s polling and ballot access requirements. He called his exclusion from the stage “undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly.”
ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(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.”
