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  • Kelly warns ‘wheels’ could ‘come off our democracy’ while Masters tries to tie him to Biden in Arizona Senate debate | CNN Politics

    Kelly warns ‘wheels’ could ‘come off our democracy’ while Masters tries to tie him to Biden in Arizona Senate debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    While trying to distance himself from his own party, Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly warned during an hour-long debate on Thursday that the “wheels” could “come off our democracy” if candidates like his GOP opponent, Trump-backed Blake Masters, are elected in November.

    But Masters aggressively pushed back on those attacks, portraying Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term, as a rubber stamp for the Biden administration, while refusing to acknowledge that he has attempted to moderate his positions on abortion and the 2020 presidential election.

    The Arizona Senate race is among the most competitive in the country, and with the chamber currently split 50-50, every race matters. But Kelly appears to have strengthened his position over the past two months as Masters has struggled to keep up with the Democrat’s fundraising prowess. A new CNN poll released Thursday found that 51% of likely voters are behind Kelly, with 45% backing Masters.

    Masters – a venture capitalist and political novice who won the primary in large part because of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and the financial backing of billionaire Peter Thiel (his former boss) – released a campaign video last year proclaiming that he believed Trump won the 2020 election. But after the primary, he removed language from his website that included the false claim that the election was stolen.

    Masters attempted to maneuver around questions about the election during Thursday’s debate – just days before Trump, whose 2020 loss in Arizona set off a cascade of election denialism in the state, heads there to campaign for Masters and other Republicans.

    When the moderator asked him whether President Joe Biden, who narrowly carried Arizona, is the “legitimately elected President of the United States,” Masters replied: “Joe Biden is absolutely the President. I mean, my gosh, have you seen the gas prices lately?”

    “Legitimately elected?” the moderator interjected.

    “I’m not trying to trick you,” Masters said. “He’s duly sworn and certified. He’s the legitimate president. He’s in the White House and unfortunately for all of us.”

    When the moderator followed up by using Trump’s language, asking whether the election was “stolen” or “rigged in any way” through vote counting or election results, Masters replied: “Yeah, I haven’t seen evidence of that.”

    But Kelly argued that Masters has espoused “conspiracies and lies that have no place in our democracy.”

    “I’m worried about what’s going to happen here,” Kelly said. “This election in 2024. I mean, we could wind up in a situation where the wheels come off of our democracy, and it’s because of folks like like Blake Masters that are questioning the integrity of an election.”

    Masters insisted that he does not want to get rid of mail-in voting as Kelly alleged. He said he believed military service members should be able to mail ballots back from overseas and said he’d be fine with other voters sending their ballots back by mail if they included a copy of their driver’s license.

    Masters and Kelly repeatedly clashed over immigration, with Masters claiming Kelly supports “open borders” and Kelly rejecting those attacks as he insisted that he’s brought more resources to Arizona to deal with that issue.

    When asked whether he had done enough to address immigration concerns, Kelly distanced himself from national Democrats.

    “When I got to Washington, DC, one of the first things I realized was that Democrats don’t understand this issue. And Republicans just want to talk about it, complain about it, but actually not do anything about it. They just want to politicize that. We heard this tonight from my opponent Blake Masters.”

    Masters charged that Biden and Kelly have put out “the welcome mat” to migrants. “We treat these people better than we treat our own US military service members. I find that shameful.”

    Kelly said he’s pushed back on the Biden administration multiple times on immigration issues, including when the administration planned to end Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed border patrol agents to send migrants back to their home countries.

    “I’ve stood up to Democrats when they’re wrong on this issue … including the President.”

    “When the President decided he was going to do something dumb on this, and change the rules,” Kelly said, “I told him he was wrong.”

    Some of the sharpest exchanges were over abortion as the moderator and Libertarian candidate Marc Victor drew attention to the fact that Masters scrubbed some of the language about his anti-abortion stances from his website as he tried to pivot toward the general election.

    Abortion rights have been a subject of fierce controversy in Arizona since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, because there are conflicting abortion laws in the state – leading to debate over which one should take precedence.

    The state legislature passed a 15-week ban earlier this year that does not include exceptions for rape or incest, only medical emergencies. Masters has said he supports that plan, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

    But Arizona also had a pre-statehood law on the books banning nearly all abortions that was enjoined in 1973 after the Roe decision. A Pima County Superior Court judge recently ruled that it could go back into effect at the urging of the state’s GOP attorney general.

    Kelly argued that Masters wants to make decisions for Arizona women and curtail their rights. “I think we all know guys like this,” said Kelly, also faulting Masters for supporting a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks that has been proposed by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

    “You know, guys that think they know better than everyone about everything,” Kelly continued.

    “What I’m doing is I am protecting your constitutional rights,” he added.

    When the moderator pressed Kelly to explain what limits he would support on abortion, Kelly said he supports the kind of framework contemplated by the Roe v. Wade decision where “late term abortion in this country only happens when there is a serious problem.”

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  • First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Barnes raises more than $20 million in third quarter of closely watched Wisconsin Senate race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes raised more than $20 million in the third quarter of 2022, according to details from the Wisconsin lieutenant governor’s campaign, dwarfing what he raised throughout his entire bid for Senate.

    Barnes is aiming to unseat Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent who is seeking a third term, in what has become one of the most closely watched Senate campaigns of the midterms. With an evenly divided Senate, every race this November could tilt the balance of power in the legislative body, but Barnes’ race against Johnson represents one of the best chances for Democrats to flip a Senate seat this cycle.

    The race has been tight for months. A Marquette University Law School Poll, released in mid-September, found 49% of likely voters in Wisconsin supported Johnson, compared to 48% who backed Barnes – a statistical dead heat. But the poll was an improvement for Johnson: The same poll had found Barnes at 52% in August with the incumbent at 45%.

    Barnes’ fundraising haul should help Democrats level the advertising playing field in the race after being outspent in September.

    According to AdImpact, Republicans spent nearly $22.5 million on ads in September, compared to $16.5 million for Democrats. The biggest spenders in the race over that time was Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The group spent nearly $8 million in September. Senate Majority PAC, the predominant Democratic super PAC focused on Senate races, spent just over $6 million.

    While Republicans spend money hammering him on crime, Barnes has attempted to focus his campaign on the major issue motivating Democratic voters in 2022 in the wake of June’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade: Abortion.

    “I’m proud of the grassroots coalition we’ve built across Wisconsin,” Barnes said in a statement to CNN. “Over this final stretch we’ll keep going everywhere and holding Ron Johnson accountable for his record of supporting a dangerous abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the woman. He’s out of touch with Wisconsin values and we’re going to send him packing.”

    The Democrat recently launched a statewide tour the campaign has dubbed “Ron Against Roe,” an effort it hopes will take advantage of opposition to the June Supreme Court ruling. Marquette’s polling found more than 60% of Wisconsin voters opposed that decision. Barnes also rolled out a new ad that attacks Johnson for supporting a 2011 bill that was introduced by Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker that would have enshrined “the right to life” upon conception.

    “It’s Johnson’s views that are alarming. Johnson supported a ban on abortion, he cosponsored a bill that makes no exceptions for rape or incest or the life of the woman. And Johnson said if women don’t like it, they can move,” a narrator says in a new Barnes ad.

    Johnson has since tried to push back against the abortion attacks by saying he believes the issue should be left to Wisconsin voters, including by updating an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions to include exceptions for rape, incest or if the life of the mother is at stake. But Johnson backed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and has numerous times put his name on a bill that would make it illegal to perform an abortion 20 weeks after conception.

    While Barnes focuses on abortion, Johnson’s campaign has been laser focused on attacking the Democrat over crime, including touting endorsements from law enforcement organizations and running ads tying Barnes to efforts to “defund the police.”

    “Mandela Barnes: Dangerously liberal on crime,” a narrator says in a recent ad before showing Johnson standing next to a police officer.

    Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Johnson, responded to Barnes’ fundraising haul by saying, “All the out of state liberal money in the world can’t change the fact Mandela Barnes supports the Defund the Police and Abolish ICE movements, wants to cut the prison population in half and backs the same Biden economic policies that have led to 40-year high inflation and record gas prices.”

    Barnes has responded by refuting the defund accusations, including with an ad that shows a retired sergeant for the Racine Police Department testifying that Barnes “does not want to defund the police.”

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  • What is Herschel Walker going to do now? | CNN Politics

    What is Herschel Walker going to do now? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In the space of the last few days, the Georgia Senate race was buffeted by two massive stories.

    First came a Daily Beast report that Walker had paid for a woman’s abortion after the two conceived a child while they were dating in 2009. CNN has not independently verified the allegations and Walker vehemently denied the report, insisting that it was a “defamatory lie.” Walker has been outspoken in his opposition to abortion throughout the campaign.

    The Daily Beast subsequently reported on Wednesday that the anonymous woman who says she had an abortion paid for by Walker is also the mother of one of his children – and that she decided to share this after Walker’s denials of her original allegation. The Daily Beast reported that the woman provided proof that she is the mother of one of his children, but did not say how. CNN has not independently confirmed that detail and Walker has denied the latest report.

    After the initial Daily Beast report, Walker’s son, Christian, a conservative online influencer, posted a series of tweets that said Walker was something short of a model father.

    “I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability,” Christian Walker wrote. “But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.”

    Walker responded to his son this way: “I LOVE my son no matter what.” Christian Walker also posted a video on Twitter Tuesday morning in which he said he was done with his father’s “lies.”

    Those twin developments of the initial allegations and his son’s comments create deep uncertainty in the race between Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, which is widely seen as one of the most important (and closest) Senate contests in the country.

    So, what’s next?

    That’s hard to tell – mostly because we live in a post-Donald Trump world.

    Typically in situations like this, the candidate would do some sort of interview, usually with a friendly media outlet. That’s the route Walker took, sitting down for two interviews with Fox News since the story broke.

    The candidate’s campaign now has to do several things at once:

    1) Try to reassure donors and voters that this is all overblown, and that the campaign remains laser-focused on what they need to do to win.

    2) Ensure that there are no other shoes to drop – and that Walker’s total denial on the abortion charge can be made to stick.

    But, as if you needed a reminder, we are not in normal times.

    Just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, an “Access Hollywood” tape emerged that showed Trump speaking in lewd and crude terms about women and bragging about sexual assault. There was talk – publicly and privately – among Republican leaders at the time about him dropping out of the race or entirely disowning his candidacy.

    Neither happened. Trump dismissed the whole incident as “locker room talk” and went on to defeat Hillary Clinton. Which, even in retrospect, is a stunning turn of events.

    The question is whether Trump fundamentally rewrote the rules of political scandals in 2016 or if he is simply the very rare exception to this still-existing rule.

    Walker campaign manager Scott Paradise referenced the “Access Hollywood” episode in a speech to staff after the Walker news broke earlier this week. “Trump still made it to the White House,” Paradise said, a source familiar with the remarks told CNN. (Paradise, via Twitter, denied making that comparison.)

    So far, Republicans are closing ranks around Walker.

    “Herschel Walker is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and, obviously, the Democrats,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday. “They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past.”

    “Full speed ahead in Georgia,” said Steven Law, the president of Senate Leadership Fund, a major GOP super PAC focused on Senate races.

    The Republican support for Walker is, in some ways, forced upon the party. There are now less than five weeks left in the midterm election and dumping him as their candidate at this point – or distancing themselves from him – would almost certainly cost them a seat they badly need for the majority. It’s realpolitik at its finest.

    Of course, if more allegations come to light or if Walker looks so damaged that he can’t win, history suggests that the support he currently enjoys could erode quickly.

    The controversy surrounding Walker functions as a very interesting test case for how scandals will be handled by campaigns and processed by voters in the post-Trump era. Can Walker just keep campaigning as though nothing has changed? Or does he need a full plan to ensure he remains a viable candidate?

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

    The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

    But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

    Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

    But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

    While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

    The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

    Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

    These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

    Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

    Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

    The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

    One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

    Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

    Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

    02 democrat immigration legislation 0717

    CNN

    Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

    Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

    Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

    Sen Raphael Warnock 10 senate seats

    Megan Varner/Getty Images

    The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

    Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

    Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

    Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

    Sen Ron Johnson 10 senate seats

    Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

    Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

    Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

    A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

    Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

    Mark Kelly AZ 1103

    Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

    Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

    Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

    Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

    Sen Richard Burr 10 senate seats

    Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

    North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

    But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

    Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

    Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

    Sen Maggie Hassan 10 senate seats

    Erin Scott/Getty Images

    A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

    Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

    A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

    Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

    Sen Rob Portman 10 senate seats

    TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

    But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

    Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

    Sen Marco Rubio 10 senate seats

    DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

    Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

    Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

    Sen Michael Bennett 10 senate seats

    DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

    But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

    Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

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  • Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Tudor Dixon, the Republican taking on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November’s midterm election, is turning to tactics that have worked for other Republican winners in competitive governor’s races as she seeks to turn the race into a cultural battle over education, transgender athletes and more.

    But her clash with a well-funded Democratic incumbent governor – one taking place in a state where a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution has emerged as a dominant issue – is showcasing the limits of those efforts at cultural appeals to the moderate, suburban voters who could decide the race’s outcome.

    National Republicans have largely abandoned Dixon in the race’s closing weeks, leaving her outspent and floundering in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Dixon sought to change the race’s trajectory on Saturday when former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan for a rally in Warren with Dixon and other GOP candidates, including Matthew DePerno, who is challenging Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Kristina Karamo, who is taking on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Dixon, DePerno and Karamo have all parroted Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Trump called Whitmer “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America,” criticizing her support for abortion rights and Michigan’s pandemic-related lockdowns.

    The former President, echoing Dixon’s focus on cultural issues and education, called Dixon “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.”

    Trump’s attack on Whitmer as “sinister” is the latest in a series of rhetorical escalations by the former President. On Friday, he said on his social media website Truth Social that the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, had a “death wish” after Congress approved stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown.

    Dixon, meanwhile, spoke twice Saturday – once before Trump, and again when Trump invited her on stage. As she lambasted Whitmer, the crowd repeated a familiar Trump rally chant, this time directed at Whitmer rather than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up.”

    “We’re not going to let our kids be radicalized. We’re not going to let our kids be sexualized. We’re not going to let our law enforcement be demonized. We’re not going to tell our businesses they can’t expand,” Dixon said.

    Dixon, a conservative commentator and first-time candidate, emerged from a crowded primary after receiving the financial support of former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family. The Michigan GOP megadonors funded a super PAC bolstering Dixon’s campaign. And Trump waded into the race in the closing days of the primary with a Dixon endorsement that came after a handwritten letter from DeVos urged him to back Dixon, as reported by The New York Times.

    “The Dixon campaign is seeking to get its name ID up and MAGA base fully engaged to close the polling gap and that is what they hope to gain from a Trump rally in Macomb County,” said John Sellek, a Republican public relations adviser and head of Harbor Strategic Public Affairs in Lansing.

    However, she has struggled to raise money and gain traction since her August primary victory.

    Democrats on Saturday said Dixon’s comments at the Trump rally were an effort to distract from issues on which her positions are unpopular – particularly abortion rights.

    “Tonight, Michiganders saw a schoolyard bully on stage – not a leader,” Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Tudor Dixon hurled insults and rattled off a litany of grievances because she knows that her dangerous agenda to ban abortion and throw nurses in jail, dismantle public education, and slash funding for law enforcement is out-of-step.

    “Michigan families deserve a real leader who will work with anyone to get things done, and Tudor Dixon has shown time and again she will continue to divide and pit people against each other if it means she and Betsy DeVos gain political power,” Barnes said.

    Whitmer’s campaign and her supporters have dwarfed Dixon in television advertising spending – and Dixon’s campaign is currently off the air in Michigan, underscoring the reality that major Republican donors have shifted their focus to other races they view as more winnable.

    Since the primary on August 2, Democrats have spent about $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent just $1.1 million, according to data from the firm AdImpact. And over the next month through election day, Democrats have $23.4 million booked while GOP has just $4.3 million booked.

    Early voting is already underway in Michigan. And in the governor’s race, Whitmer is widely viewed as the favorite by nonpartisan analysts. The race is rated as one that “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. The Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “likely Democratic.”

    “The battle has been fought on the Democrats’ terms with millions and millions of dollars, and there’s been essentially no effort to fight back,” Michigan-based Republican strategist John Yob said on the Michigan Information & Research Service Inc.’s “MIRS Monday” podcast this week. “On the Republican side, we’ve never faced this before. And, you know, it doesn’t look very good in terms of a way out unless some serious money gets on TV pretty quickly.”

    The most dominant issue in the governor’s race has been abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has refused to change a 1931 law that would prohibit abortion in nearly all instances. Whitmer and other pro-abortion rights groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot in the state.

    Dixon, who opposes abortion except when necessary to protect the life of the mother, has struggled to redirect the race’s focus.

    “You can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” she told reporters last week, explaining that voters could support the referendum but oppose the incumbent governor.

    In an effort to shift the contest’s focus, Dixon’s campaign has borrowed tactics from Republican governors who have won in battleground states in recent years.

    For months, she has focused on parental control of schools’ curriculum, as well as school choice. It’s a message built on that of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose 2021 victory was an early harbinger of a potentially favorable political landscape for the GOP in this year’s midterm elections.

    “That’s why Gov. Youngkin’s message resonated,” Dixon said in an August interview on Fox News alongside Youngkin, who was campaigning in Michigan.

    “He said, ‘I’m listening to you. I want parents involved. And I’m going to bring you back into the schools,’” Dixon said. “That’s what people want to hear right now.”

    In her latest move to redefine the race, Dixon this week proposed two policies aimed at the LGBTQ community and schools.

    In Lansing on Tuesday, Dixon proposed a policy modeled after the controversial measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    “This act will require school districts to ensure that their schools do not provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three, or in any manner that has not age- or developmentally appropriate,” Dixon told reporters, blasting what she called “radical sex and gender instruction.”

    Florida’s HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, passed earlier this year effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms for young students. LGBTQ advocates say the measure has led to further stigmatization of gay, lesbian and transgender children, causing more bullying and suicides within an already marginalized community.

    Then, on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, she unveiled her proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with.

    “As a mother of four girls, nothing infuriates me more than the prospect of my daughters losing their friends and their teammates, losing opportunities in sports or otherwise, because some radically progressive politicians decided one day that they should have to compete against biological men,” she said. “Gretchen Whitmer has embraced the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.”

    Whitmer’s campaign has largely ignored Dixon’s proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment on them. Instead, Whitmer has in recent days emphasized her economic message and her support for abortion rights.

    Whitmer is leaning into policies enacted by Democrats in Washington in recent months, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.

    Whitmer in September signed an executive directive capping insulin costs at $35 per month and out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients.

    And last week, Whitmer announced that student loan borrowers will not be taxed on the debt relief that Biden had ordered.

    What has dominated media coverage of the race in recent days, though, are a series of jokes Dixon has made about the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer.

    A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor. The men now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    “The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said at an event last week in Troy alongside Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump White House aide. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

    After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former President.

    She told a crowd that, at a stop with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show last week, Whitmer looked like she’d “rather be kidnapped by the FBI.”

    “Yeah, the media is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again,’” Dixon said, anticipating the reaction to her second reference of the day to the 2020 kidnapping plot.

    As she told the crowd that her earlier remarks about the plot to kidnap Whitmer had been characterized as a joke, Dixon said: “I’m like, ‘No, that wasn’t a joke.’ If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you.”

    Whitmer’s campaign and Democratic groups condemned Dixon’s remarks Friday.

    “Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.

    “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said. “Threats of violence – whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle – are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • American citizen held in Iran for more than six years released to seek medical treatment, UN spokesperson says | CNN Politics

    American citizen held in Iran for more than six years released to seek medical treatment, UN spokesperson says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    An elderly American wrongfully held in Iran for more than six years has been permitted to leave the country “to seek medical treatment abroad,” according to a statement from UN Secretary General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

    Baquer Namazi, 85, was released from detention, along with his son Siamak Namazi, Dujarric said.

    The conditions of what appears to be a temporary release for both father and son are unclear at this time.

    Baquer Namazi was facing health problems and developed further medical issues over the course of his six-year detainment, law firm Perseus Strategies, which represents the family, said in a statement last month.

    Jared Genser, the Namazis’ attorney, said in a statement Saturday that “Baquer Namazi’s travel ban has been lifted and that, for the first time in seven years, Siamak Namazi is at home with his parents in Tehran. While these are critical first steps, we will not rest until the Namazis can all return to the United States and their long nightmare has finally come to an end.”

    Siamak Namazi was blocked from leaving Iran after visiting in July 2015 and underwent months of interrogations before being arrested in October 2015. His father was lured to Iran under the false premise that he would be able to see his son. He was instead immediately taken into custody at that time, in February 2016.

    US efforts to free the Namazis, as well as two other wrongfully detained Americans – Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz – have failed to yield results. The State Department has said these conversations are being pursued separately from negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal, which have also yet to reach a breakthrough.

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  • Abbott and O’Rourke clash over gun restrictions in lone Texas gubernatorial debate | CNN Politics

    Abbott and O’Rourke clash over gun restrictions in lone Texas gubernatorial debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke clashed over gun restrictions in a debate Friday night, with O’Rourke claiming that Abbott blames “everybody else” for mass shootings while “misleading this state.”

    “It’s been 18 weeks since their kids have been killed, and not a thing has changed in this state to make it any less likely that any other child will meet the same fate,” O’Rourke said in their debate at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg. “All we need is action, and the only person standing in our way is the governor of the state of Texas.”

    Abbott was shown a video of a child in Uvalde asking why Texas will not raise the age minimum to buy assault-style rifles. He said he believes such a move would be “unconstitutional” under recent court rulings.

    “We want to end school shootings, but we cannot do that by making false promises,” Abbott said.

    Abbott also said he opposed “red flag” laws, saying that those laws “would deny lawful Texas gun owners their right to due process.”

    O’Rourke, meanwhile, did not back away from comments that he made as a 2020 presidential candidate, in the wake of the racially motivated mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, that he would seek to confiscate assault-style rifles such as AR-15s and AK-47s. But he said as governor, he would be “focused on what we can get done.”

    He said that would include raising the age minimum to purchase such firearms to 21, implementing universal background checks and enacting “red flag” laws.

    “This is the common ground,” he said, citing conversations with Republican and Democratic voters, as well as families of those slain in Uvalde.

    Friday night’s showdown was the only scheduled debate between Abbott, the Republican seeking a third term as governor, and O’Rourke, the Democratic former El Paso congressman whose near-miss in a 2018 race against Sen. Ted Cruz electrified Texas Democrats.

    Democrats have not won a gubernatorial race in Texas since Ann Richards was elected governor in 1990. The party also hasn’t won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994 — Democrats’ longest statewide losing streak in the country.

    Abbott, who is viewed as a potential 2024 presidential contender, has consistently led in the polls. A Quinnipiac University survey conducted September 22-26 found the governor with a 7-point edge over O’Rourke among likely voters, 53% to 46%.

    The most recent campaign finance reports in mid-July showed O’Rourke keeping pace with Abbott’s fundraising, but the incumbent maintained a significant cash-on-hand edge with $46 million in the bank to his challenger’s $24 million.

    On the campaign trail, O’Rourke has criticized Abbott’s opposition to abortion rights – the governor signed a so-called trigger law last year that went into effect in August and bans nearly all abortions in the state following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Democrat has also criticized the Abbott administration’s management of the power grid during last year’s winter freeze and the governor’s rejection of gun restrictions in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting.

    O’Rourke famously confronted Abbott and other officials at a news conference in Uvalde the day after the shooting, saying, “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing.”

    Abbott, meanwhile, has campaigned on tough border security policies, including busing migrants out of state to Democratic-run cities up North to protest the Biden administration’s immigration policies. He has also accused O’Rourke of seeking to undercut police funding, saying in an ad that O’Rourke wants to “defund and dismantle the police.” It was a reference to O’Rourke’s comments in 2020, in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, praising protesters for targeting “line items that have over militarized our police.” O’Rourke has said he does not support cutting funding for police in Texas.

    “Look, I don’t think Greg Abbott wakes up wanting to see children shot in their schools or for the grid to fail, but it’s clear that he’s incapable or unwilling to make the changes necessary to prioritize the lives of our fellow Texans. That’s why it’s on all of us to make change at the ballot box,” O’Rourke said in his closing remarks.

    In his closing, Abbott said: “I’m running for reelection to keep Texas No. 1 — to cut your property taxes, to secure the border, to keep dangerous criminals behind bars, and to keep deadly fentanyl off our streets.”

    The two also sharply diverged on abortion rights, an issue that has moved to the center of the gubernatorial race after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Abbott signed into law a measure that restricts abortion except to save the life of the mother and in certain health emergencies.

    O’Rourke said he would seek to return Texas to the abortion protections that existed under Roe v. Wade.

    “This election is about reproductive freedom. If you care about this, you need to turn out and vote,” O’Rourke said. “I will fight to make sure that every woman in Texas can make her own decision about her own body, her own future, and her own health care.”

    Abbott said O’Rourke’s position on abortion is “the most extreme,” casting O’Rourke as supporting the right to abortions up until birth.

    “No one thinks that in the state of Texas,” O’Rourke shot back. “He’s saying this because he signed the most extreme abortion ban in America: No exception for rape, no exception for incest, it begins at conception, and it’s taking place in a state that is at the epicenter of a maternal mortality crisis, thanks to Greg Abbott — three times as deadly for Black women.”

    Abbott was asked whether emergency contraception is a viable alternative for victims of rape and incest.

    “It’s incumbent upon the state of Texas to make sure that it is readily available,” he said. “For those who are victims of sexual assault or survivors of sexual assault, the state of Texas pays for that, whether it be at a hospital, at a clinic, or someone that gets a prescription because of it.”

    He also touted the state’s “alternative to abortion program,” including living assistance and baby supplies, for those victims.

    Abbott touted reforms to the power grid after the deep freeze, pointing to record high temperatures this summer.

    “Time and again, the power grid was able to keep up, and it’s because of the reforms that we were able to make. The power grid remains more resilient … than ever before,” he said.

    But O’Rourke said the power failure was “part of a pattern” during Abbott’s almost eight years in office, and that the governor had been warned about the possibility.

    “The grid is still not fixed,” O’Rourke said, pointing to higher energy bills, Toyota stopping its third shift in San Antonio “because it was drawing too much power,” and Texas residents receiving conservation notices over the summer.

    “All Beto does is fear-monger on this issue, when in reality, the grid is more resilient and more reliable than it’s ever been,” Abbott responded.

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  • California bars tech companies from complying with other states’ abortion-related warrants | CNN Business

    California bars tech companies from complying with other states’ abortion-related warrants | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    California is attempting to stymie abortion prosecutions in other states by making it illegal for Silicon Valley giants and other businesses based in the Golden State to hand over the personal information of abortion-seekers to out-of-state authorities.

    A new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom forbids California-based businesses from giving up geolocation data, search histories and other personal information in response to out-of-state search warrants, unless those warrants are accompanied by a statement that the evidence sought isn’t connected to an abortion investigation.

    The prohibition also bars companies in the state from complying with out-of-state law enforcement requests related to abortion, including subpoenas and wiretaps.

    It’s the latest example of how California is using its status as a powerful state, with jurisdiction over the world’s most powerful tech companies, to influence policy at a national scale.

    “California is setting a national privacy standard,” said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, an architect of the bill, in a statement Tuesday. According to a release by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the law went into effect immediately upon signing.

    Bauer-Kahan’s law, AB 1242, bars California-based companies, including Google, Meta, Uber and others, from producing records about a person if the companies know “or should know” that the warrant they’re responding to is related to an abortion probe. CNN has reached out to the companies for comment.

    The new law prohibits abortion-related search warrants in the first place, and requires all out-of-state search warrants to attest that they are not abortion-related.

    But in directly undercutting the anti-abortion laws of other states, California’s new law could put businesses in the difficult position of having to pick sides — and face potential legal penalties no matter what they choose.

    Companies that violate AB 1242 could face prosecution by the California attorney general. But if they comply with AB 1242, they could also face legal action in states that have restricted abortion for failing to comply with legal process.

    “Anti-choice sheriffs and bounty hunters are going to be highly motivated to do anything they can to get this data,” said Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that supports the California law.

    In the event of a conflict between state laws, Schwartz said courts first look to whether a state has jurisdiction over a company and then, if it does, they fall back on a procedural tool known as “choice of law” to determine which law should apply.

    A state with only some employees of a company, or that is home to users of an electronic service, isn’t likely to satisfy the jurisdictional test, Schwartz said. Even if it did, he added, it would likely fail in the choice of law because the California law is tailored to govern businesses that are incorporated in California or that have their “principal executive offices” in California.

    Still, he acknowledged there will likely be many court battles ahead.

    “We are going to see more of this situation where a business is facing, at one time, legal process from an anti-choice state commanding it to disclose abortion-related data, and a blocking statute from a pro-choice state forbidding it from disclosing that same data,” Schwartz said. “This is an important new area, this contest between anti-choice legal process and pro-choice blocking statutes, and it is a matter that could work its way up the courts to the highest court.”

    In the meantime, tech companies could find themselves between a rock and a hard place, according to tech trade group Chamber of Progress.

    “Red states and blue states are at war over abortion, and online platforms are caught in the crossfire,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich said in a statement to CNN. “California’s new law could potentially have a big impact on protecting reproductive privacy — but first it will create a challenging conflict between state laws.”

    –CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.

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  • ‘No matter the law, no matter the stigma, no matter the cost.’ This European network helps people access abortions | CNN

    ‘No matter the law, no matter the stigma, no matter the cost.’ This European network helps people access abortions | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: This story is part of As Equals, CNN’s ongoing series on gender inequality. For information about how the series is funded and more, check out our FAQs.


    Amsterdam, the Netherlands
    CNN
     — 

    It’s early evening in an affluent neighborhood in the Dutch city of Haarlem and bed and breakfast owners Arnoud and Marika are waiting for their next guest to arrive. They’ve prepared their single room for her, a brightly colored space with massive windows overlooking a leafy drive.

    The traveller is a woman from France. She’s only staying one night, but her hosts want her to feel at home because she’s not here on vacation. She’s come to have a second-trimester abortion.

    The Netherlands is one of just a few countries in Europe where access to abortion is possible past 12 weeks of pregnancy, and Arnoud and Marika’s guest is one of around 3,000 people from abroad who have accessed one annually in recent years.

    Here, abortions for non-Dutch residents can be carried out until 22 weeks, according to Dutch abortion providers, and nationals can access terminations up to 24 weeks.

    In the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland), it’s possible for anyone to get an abortion until 24 weeks, and for a very limited set of circumstances afterwards, however Brexit has made it increasingly more difficult for people to travel there. And in Spain, abortions past 14 weeks of pregnancy are only legal under extremely limited circumstances, although abortion rights groups say the law is often interpreted loosely.

    The restrictions mean that, for many in their second trimester, the Netherlands is their last chance to access a safe abortion. By opening up their home, Arnoud and Marika have become part of a grassroots network of people helping to facilitate that access.

    “This is a house without taboos,” Arnoud told CNN. Arnoud and Marika are pseudonyms that CNN agreed to use over concerns that the couple’s B&B – which is also where they live – will be targeted by anti-abortion protesters.

    Now in their 70s, the retired pair have made it their mission to be a welcoming point of entry for the people they host, many of whom they receive bleary eyed from a long day or more of travel, punctuated by weeks of anxiety and stress leading up to the journey.

    “They are so relieved, they have made this terrible journey, and they come in and they’re crying,” Marika said. “I love to be a light for them.”

    Arnoud and Marika look through messages written by their guests in their B&B in Haarlem. Photo: Kara Fox/CNN

    Arnoud and Marika’s guest book. “Thanks for the kind words that cheered me up,” a message from a Polish guest in September reads. Photo: Kara Fox/CNN

    Since they opened their B&B seven years ago, Arnoud and Marika say they have hosted around 350 people seeking abortion care from across Europe. They explain that some came alone, others were joined by partners or friends, while some brought their family.

    At first, the majority of their guests came from France and Germany, where abortion is available until 14 and 12 weeks of pregnancy, respectively. (France extended that time limit from 12 to 14 weeks earlier this year.) They say they have also hosted a number of women from other European countries including Belgium and Luxembourg, and Romania. One woman traveled from as far as the Caribbean island of Martinique, they said.

    But in recent years data shows the demographics have changed, with an influx of people now traveling to the Netherlands from Poland, after the country’s highest court further tightened its abortion laws – which were already among the strictest in Europe.

    The numbers coming to the Netherlands from Poland have swelled further as Ukrainians displaced there due to the war find they need to seek safe abortion access beyond Polish borders.

    In October 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal banned virtually all abortions, allowing them only in circumstances where the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, or if the pregnant person’s life was at risk. The law came into effect the following January. Prior to this, abortions were also allowed in the case of fetal abnormalities – which accounted for approximately 97% of all known legal terminations carried out in Poland in 2019, according to data from the Polish Ministry of Health.

    The change in the law has left many people in Poland without legal access to safe terminations in their own country, and has created an even more hostile environment for abortion rights activists and those seeking abortions.

    When asked about the worsening climate for those seeking or providing abortions in Poland, a statement provided to CNN by the Polish government simply reiterated the law, saying: “In the event of a situation that threatens the life or health of a pregnant woman (e.g. suspected infection of the uterine cavity, hemorrhage, etc.) …it is lawful to terminate a pregnancy immediately.”

    “The decision whether there are circumstances in which the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the pregnant woman is and can only be made by a doctor in a specific case,” the statement added.

    But abortion rights activists say the law has created a chilling effect on healthcare providers, with some doctors appearing more fearful of potential repercussions that include prosecution than doing everything they can to save a pregnant person’s life. Three pregnant women have died in Polish hospitals after being denied an abortion since the court decision, according to Abortion Support Network, a UK-based organization that helps people in Poland obtain abortion care as part of the Abortion Without Borders (AWB) network.

    AWB was formed in response to the Polish government’s long standing proposals to ban abortion in 2019.

    The grassroots feminist network is made up of six organizations from Poland, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. They say the Polish state is failing women and have made it their mission to ensure safe access to abortion for any reason a person chooses to have one – including whether the pregnancy is wanted or not.

    “We don’t want to make you feel like you have to explain yourself, and that you have to earn your abortion with a sob story,” said Polish abortion rights activist Kasia Roszak.

    Kasia Roszak of Abortion Network Amsterdam says the work that she does is

    Roszak, who now lives in Amsterdam where she works with Abortion Network Amsterdam (part of AWB), says she knows exactly how it feels to not have agency over her reproductive rights, which is one of the reasons she works to ensure access for anyone globally who needs it.

    “We believe that abortions are part of life. It can be an empowering, positive experience. And if it’s not, if it’s something hard for you, then we’re going to give you space and validation of your feelings,” Roszak said. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to be able to share with people that there are options.”

    From December 2020 to December 2021, AWB says they helped 32,000 people from Poland access abortions across Europe – an almost six-fold increase from the previous year.

    In 2021, the network says they facilitated travel for 1,186 people in Poland – more than quadruple the number of people they supported with travel in 2020. More than half of those people travelled to the Netherlands, making up 52% of the total they helped to visit the country for abortions that year, according to AWB.

    Official 2021 data from the Dutch government shows 651 people from Poland had abortions in the Netherlands, more than double the number of people in 2020.

    “Effectively, we took over all [of Poland’s] fetal anomaly cases,” said Roszak. Numbers previously hovered around 1,000 cases a year in Poland, according to government data.

    The network gets connected with people who need their help through a process like this: A person with an unwanted pregnancy will first call a hotline in Poland, where they have two options, depending on how far along they are: take pills or travel for a procedure.

    If they are less than 12 weeks pregnant, they are sent the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol – approved by the World Health Organization – to take in the privacy of their own home. This is the case for the majority of the people who reach out to them, according to AWB data.

    Mariprist, a safe and effective abortion medication that contains mifepristone and misoprostol, seen at the Women Help Women offices in Amsterdam.

    However, for people whose pregnancies have already passed the 12-week mark, they will likely need to travel to a clinic abroad. This is also the case for those living in other European countries where laws prohibit abortions after the first trimester. For these people, the network taps into its web of volunteers and activists who will work around the clock to arrange appointments at clinics, translate documentation and provide financial assistance to help meet the cost of the procedure and related travel.

    Second trimester abortions may be available in the Netherlands but they are expensive for non-Dutch residents, costing up to 1,100 euros (roughly $1,100) for the surgical procedure which typically takes no longer than 20 minutes. Counselling, preparation for the procedure and recovery however require the better part of a day.

    Depending on each individual circumstance, assistance arrives in many ways and AWB may cover all or part of the costs, which can include flights, accommodation, and handling appointments with the treatment center directly.

    Money is raised mostly from private donations, according to activists within the AWB network, but some of the organizations within it are supported by big donors. Without financial assistance, abortion travel is especially prohibitive for working-class people, migrants and others living in poverty.

    Kinga Jelińska, Executive Director of the Amsterdam-based group Women Help Women – which is also part of AWB – told CNN: “We return abortion back to common people, no matter the law, no matter the stigma, no matter the cost.”

    Kinga Jelińska, Executive Director of Women Help Women, says the network is essentially running a

    Second-trimester abortions constitute a relatively small proportion of the total number of officially recorded abortions in high-income countries. The vast majority are carried out in the first trimester.

    Those seeking second-trimester abortions do so for a number of reasons, including not having previously realized they were pregnant; a change in personal circumstances such as financial difficulties or the breakdown of a relationship; unexpected medical problems in themselves or the fetus, and trauma surrounding rape and sexual abuse cases, which can also be a reason that one might not recognize the pregnancy until it is too late to access an abortion in their country.

    “People sometimes think that it’s a matter of fundamental principles and beliefs. [But]we see day after day, people coming to us and saying… ‘I used to be against abortion, but my situation is different,’ Jelińska explained.”The decision whether to continue the pregnancy or not, is highly contextual.”

    At the Bloemenhove clinic in Haarlem, one of two clinics in the country that offer abortions past 18 weeks, the parking lot looks “like the United Nations,” Roszak quipped, referencing the fact that car registration plates can be seen from all over Europe.

    The clinic, a bright and modern space with a peaceful garden area, treats approximately 15 people a day, 4 days a week, according to its director, Femke van Straaten. But the influx of Polish patients has, van Straaten said, led to a shift in the way that her team works.

    Prior to the Polish court ruling, more than half of the patients at Bloemenhove were Dutch and most came to terminate unwanted pregnancies, van Straaten explained. As such, staff were able to recommend in-country aftercare, including counseling resources.

    Now, with more patients coming to the clinic from Poland with wanted pregnancies (many of whom came for terminations due to fetal abnormalities), they have “different needs for care,” said van Straaten.

    One of the ways the clinic responded was to establish a memorial at a local cemetery for women to find some closure for their unviable pregnancies.

    “They couldn’t take their child back home, and they had no place for their grievance,” said van Straaten, who helped organize the memorial last year at the suggestion of the Polish abortion rights network. She added that memorial services are also available for people carrying viable fetuses who chose to terminate their pregnancies.

    As part of this aftercare, patients can opt for a cremation and are permitted to take the ashes home. For those who can’t wait for cremation, the cemetery offers to scatter the ashes on the site, where a steel tree has been erected and babies’ names are engraved onto a rainbow of leaves that hang on its branches.

    The “Little Stars Meadow,” a memorial space for people to grieve and find closure at the Haarlem cemetery. Photo: Kara Fox/CNN

    Engraved “leaves” on the memorial tree. Van Straaten says her team decided to use the word “stillborns” for the terminated pregnancies – the closest word in English that they could find – to help people who wanted their babies acknowledge their loss and move forward.. Photo: Kara Fox/CNN

    Dr. Elles Garcia, an abortion care provider at Bloemenhove since 2016, works to assuage concerns that some people – particularly those from Poland – have about returning home after their termination.

    “They often ask me the question: ‘What do I tell my gynaecologist? Can I tell them that I had a miscarriage?’ They’re so afraid of getting back to their doctor in their own country and to tell them the truth – they can’t,” she said from one of the clinic’s consultation rooms.

    Garcia said that while she assures patients that medically, their doctors back at home won’t be able to know whether they had a miscarriage or an abortion, she still encourages them to be honest about what they went through, not only for themselves, but in hopes it might start to break down societal taboos.

    “I tell them to say that you were here for an abortion, because here it’s legal – you can tell them the truth,” she said, before acknowledging, “but then they get afraid and anxious.”

    To help people prepare to return to a society where abortion is both restricted and taboo, the AWB Polish helpline has also expanded its remit to provide aftercare, including psychological counseling for those in need.

    Dr. Elles Garcia of the Bloemenhove clinic says she always advises patients from countries where abortion is taboo to talk with each other to reduce the stigma around the subject.

    Back at their B&B, Arnoud and Marika are reflecting on the past several years of providing hospitality to people at a difficult time in their lives.

    Only around a third of their guests stay for two nights, they say, the majority return to their countries of origin straight from the clinic. And so the relationships are fleeting, but the septuagenarians know their impact can be profound. They see their job as being to listen and reassure.

    “People come from the room and ask: ‘Can we talk to each other?’ said Arnoud, explaining that guests often gather around their dining room table or sit in their garden for a chat if they stay the second night.

    The couple say that while they were never planning on becoming a hub for abortion travel when they first decided to open their business, they can’t imagine their B&B in any other way.

    But unlike most business owners, they say they relish the day when their business might go bust.

    “When the law changes in France, like we have in Holland, when the law changes in Poland, like we have here, it will be better – I will sing a song,” Arnoud said.

    He looks to Marika and adds: “Our business is not important. It’s more important that women can decide for themselves … that’s the most important.”

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  • North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

    North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota signed a near-total abortion ban bill into law Monday.

    Senate Bill 2150, which passed in the state’s legislature last week, defines abortion as “the act of using, selling, or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman.”

    The law is one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the US and only allows exceptions for rape or incest within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

    Exceptions are permitted in the case that the procedure is “deemed necessary based on reasonable medical judgment which was intended to prevent the death or a serious health risk to the pregnant female.”

    Efforts to treat an ectopic or molar pregnancy would also be permissible at any stage of pregnancy under the law.

    Abortion rights activists have furiously objected to similar bans, saying most women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks.

    The bill joins other GOP-led legislation aimed at restricting abortion access that has become law in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Texas have also passed six-week abortion bans, sparking legal challenges.

    North Dakota’s new law follows a legal battle over a 2007 trigger law that was blocked by a district judge last year.

    The state’s Supreme Court upheld that ruling in March.

    The trigger abortion ban was set to take effect last August and would have made it a felony to perform an abortion in the state but it did allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

    With the trigger ban on pause, North Dakota law had allowed abortion up until 20 weeks or more post-fertilization.

    In a statement to CNN, Burgum said SB 2150 “clarifies and refines existing state law which was triggered into effect by the Dobbs decision and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”

    Physicians who violate the new law could be charged with a felony. In addition, an abortion can’t be performed until a woman is offered the opportunity to see an “active ultrasound” at least 24 hours before the scheduled procedure.

    Any physician who fails to comply could face a misdemeanor charge.

    Last week, Burgum signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for most minors with the possibility of a felony for health care professionals who provide it.

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  • Democrats push abortion rights bills in the Senate ahead of Dobbs anniversary | CNN Politics

    Democrats push abortion rights bills in the Senate ahead of Dobbs anniversary | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Senate Democrats intend to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade by pushing a collection of abortion rights messaging bills.

    Ahead of the anniversary on Saturday, Senate Democrats will ask for “unanimous consent” on legislation which would seek to expand abortion access for women in the US. The procedural step allows any single senator to ask for a vote on a bill, but any one senator can object and the bill fails. It is a quick way to force a vote on an issue, but it won’t force every senator to go on the record, meaning Democrats and Republicans who may be facing a tough election in 2024 won’t be forced to take a vote.

    All of the requests are expected to fail.

    The effort is being led by Sen. Patty Murray, a member of Democratic leadership from Washington state.

    “Senate Democrats will force Republicans to go on the record once again, and explain to the American people why they refuse to codify our right to contraception, why they refuse to let women travel across state lines for lifesaving health care – as we fight to get the votes we need to restore Roe, it’s imperative that we make plain to the country just how extreme and dangerous Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda is,” Murray said in a statement.

    Abortion politics have also recently been in the spotlight in the Senate as Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, has placed a hold on confirming more than 250 military promotions over a Pentagon policy created after the Dobbs decision, which allows servicemembers to access time off and reimbursement for travel costs if they have to cross state lines to access reproductive care.

    In the 2022 midterms, abortion was a crucial motivator for many voters, as CNN exit polls showed that 46% of people said that abortion was the most important issue to their vote. Abortion is also likely to be a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, as administration officials highlight what Democrats have done to protect access to abortion.

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  • Iowa governor signs 6-week abortion ban into law | CNN Politics

    Iowa governor signs 6-week abortion ban into law | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law Friday that bans most abortions in the state as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

    “This week, in a rare and historic special session, the Iowa legislature voted for a second time to reject the inhumanity of abortion and pass the fetal heartbeat law,” she said in remarks ahead of signing the bill at the Family Leadership Summit.

    The law, which is effective immediately, comes after Reynolds ordered a special legislative session last week with the sole purpose of restricting the procedure in the state. But it is already facing a legal challenge after a group of abortion providers in the state filed a suit to try and stop the law.

    The bill, which passed the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this week, prohibits physicians from providing most abortions after early cardiac activity can be detected in a fetus or embryo, commonly as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

    It includes exceptions for miscarriages, when the life of the pregnant woman is threatened and fetal abnormalities that would result in the infant’s death. It also includes exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rapes reported within 45 days and incest reported within 140 days.

    While the bill language makes clear it is “not to be construed to impose civil or criminal liability on a woman upon whom an abortion is performed in violation of the division,” guidelines on how physicians would be punished for violating the law are left up to Iowa’s board of medicine to decide – leaving the potential for some vagueness in how the law ought to be enforced in the interim.

    Iowa joins a growing list of Republican-led states that have championed sweeping abortion restrictions in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

    Reynolds’ push for abortion restrictions in the state comes weeks after Iowa’s Supreme Court declined to lift a block on the state’s 2018 six-week abortion ban, deadlocking in a 3-3 vote whether to overturn a lower court decision that deemed the law unconstitutional.

    “The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said Tuesday in a statement following the bill’s passage. “The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed.”

    Abortion rights supporters have been speaking out against the abortion ban in the state. National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison called the ban the “latest show of abortion extremism from MAGA Republicans.”

    “Governor Kim Reynolds just signed a cruel abortion ban into law among a crowd of extremists who cheered as Iowan women’s abortion rights were stripped away,” Harrison said in a statement Friday.

    Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups, including National Right to Life and Iowa Right to Life, praised Reynolds and the law’s supporters in the state legislature for the abortion ban.

    “We will continue to advocate for life and will not stop fighting until abortion becomes unthinkable,” Kristi Judkins, executive director of Iowa Right to Life said in a statement. “We want to see lives saved and women no longer placed in harm’s way because of abortion.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • HHS secretary says ‘everything is on the table’ amid calls to ignore medication abortion ruling | CNN Politics

    HHS secretary says ‘everything is on the table’ amid calls to ignore medication abortion ruling | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sunday said “everything is on the table” following a Texas federal judge’s ruling to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone.

    In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” the secretary would not say whether he believes the FDA should ignore the ruling and keep the drug on the market, but he maintained that the Biden administration is considering all options.

    “We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Becerra said, adding that there was a “good chance” of Supreme Court intervention but declining to say how, exactly, the administration will handle the ruling in the interim.

    “Everything is on the table. The president said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out. Every option is on the table,” the secretary told Bash, referring to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

    Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a separate appearance on “State of the Union,” did not back away from her call Friday on CNN for the ruling to be ignored, saying that if it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, “it would essentially institute a national abortion ban.”

    “I do not believe that the courts have the authority over the FDA that they just asserted, and I do believe that it creates a crisis,” she told Bash.

    Ocasio-Cortez called the ruling “an extreme abuse of power” and said there was precedent for the executive branch ignoring court rulings.

    “I do think that when it comes to gaming out what the very real possibilities are in the coming days, weeks and months, this is not just about speculation, but this is about preparation. And the reality of our courts right now is very disturbing,” she said.

    Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas warned in a separate interview with Bash on Sunday that House GOP appropriators could defund certain FDA programs if the ruling is ultimately ignored.

    “The House Republicans have the power of the purse, and if the administration wants to not lead this ruling, not live up to this ruling, then we’re going to have a problem,” the second-term lawmaker said. “And it may come a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don’t make sense.”

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday issued a ruling to halt the decades-old approval of mifepristone, but he paused the ruling from taking effect for a week so it could be appealed, a process that is underway.

    “This is not America,” Becerra said Sunday. “What you saw is that one judge in that one court in that one state, that’s not America. America goes by the evidence. America does what’s fair. America does what is transparent, and we can show that what we do is for the right reasons. That’s not America.”

    Within an hour of the ruling Friday, a different federal judge ruled in favor of 17 Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, looking to expand access to the abortion pill, allowing them to keep the drug available.

    Becerra on Sunday touted the proven safety of the drug, a factor that Kacsmaryk questioned in his ruling. He confirmed that the Department of Justice had already filed its appeal and is waiting for its day in court.

    Still, Becerra had little to say about what tangible preparations the administration would take to secure access to abortion should the drug no longer be available after the weeklong pause.

    “Well, [women] certainly have access today, and we intend to do everything to make sure it’s available for them not just in a week but moving forward, period,” Becerra told Bash when asked if women would have access to the medication after this week.

    The Justice Department and Danco, a mifepristone manufacturer that intervened in the case to defend the approval, have both filed notices of appeal. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Danco said in statements that in addition to the appeals, they will seek “stays” of the ruling, meaning emergency requests that the decision remains frozen while the appeal moves forward.

    They’re appealing to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is sometimes said to be the country’s most conservative appellate court. Yet some legal scholars are skeptical that the 5th Circuit, as conservative as it is, would let Kacmsaryk’s order take effect.

    “I got to believe that, Dana, an appeals court, the Supreme Court, whatever court has to understand that this ruling by this one judge overturns not just access to mifepristone, but possibly any number of drugs,” Becerra said.

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  • Man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney says | CNN Business

    Man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney says | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Nima Momeni, the man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney said.

    Momeni was to be arraigned on a murder charge Tuesday but that was put off until May 2 after defense attorney Paula Canny asked for more time to prepare.

    Canny told reporters after the hearing that her client also will deny the special allegation of using a knife in the crime.

    Lee, who cofounded the mobile payment service provider Cash App, was stabbed to death in the Rincon Hill neighborhood early on April 4.

    Authorities have said Momeni, 38, of Emeryville, California, and Lee knew each other and they were in a vehicle shortly before the stabbing.

    The district attorney’s office has indicated that the stabbing may have been premeditated.

    “This is a person who was in his vehicle with a kitchen knife,” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said earlier this month. “That’s not something most of us carry around at all times with us.”

    Canny said she believes she has evidence to support Momeni’s innocence.

    The attorney says she has seen surveillance videos in the case but is still awaiting police reports and the full autopsy report. “I don’t think you can see anything” in the video, Canny said.

    Jenkins said Tuesday autopsy reports typically take about 60 days and, in this case, the report is not yet ready.

    “We believe that we have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Momeni murdered Bob Lee,” Jenkins said.

    Canny told station KNTV nearly two weeks ago that there is a “much greater back story” than what has been disclosed.

    California Secretary of State records indicate that Momeni has been the owner of an IT business. He has been held without bail since his arrest nearly two weeks ago.

    Canny said she believes her client is not a danger to the community or a flight risk and will push for bail to be set. Jenkins disagreed. “Certainly somebody that we believe committed murder is an extreme threat to public safety.”

    About 20 of Momeni’s family members, including his two teenage children, were in court for the hearing.

    Documents from the district attorney’s office have laid out what authorities say preceded the stabbing.

    A motion to detain document cites a witness interviewed by police and security camera footage, offering a detailed timeline of where Lee and Momeni were.

    A witness, described as a close friend of Lee’s, said he went over to an apartment after being invited by Lee on April 3, where Lee was drinking with a woman later identified as Momeni’s sister, the document states.

    The witness told police the woman was married but her “relationship was possibly in jeopardy,” and the witness was unsure whether the woman and Lee had an intimate relationship, according to the document. Lee later told the witness that they were going to go to his hotel room, where he invited the woman but she declined.

    While at the hotel room, the witness said Lee was having a conversation with Momeni, which involved Momeni saying he was picking up his sister from the apartment Lee and the witness were previously at, according to the document. Momeni asked Lee “whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate,” the document states. Lee had told Momeni nothing inappropriate happened, according to the document.

    After the conversation with Momeni, Lee and the witness went to Lee’s apartment until about 12:30 a.m. on April 4, when Lee left, the document says.

    Surveillance footage shows Momeni arriving at his sister’s apartment building in a white BMW around 8:30 p.m. on April 3, and later shows Lee entering the building around 12:39 a.m. on April 4. A little after 2 a.m., security footage shows Lee and Momeni entering an elevator together and getting into Momeni’s BMW. Additional footage from the area shows the two driving in the car together.

    Video then shows the BMW drive to a “dark and secluded area” on Main Street, just out of view for the video to see the interaction between the two men, per the document.

    Eventually, the two subjects, who are unidentifiable by their faces but seem to be wearing the same clothing, appear back in frame. After about five minutes, the subject wearing a white-colored top, consistent with what Momeni appeared to be wearing, “suddenly move(s) toward the other subject,” the document says. The two subjects then separate.

    The subject in dark-colored clothing, who authorities believe to be Lee, walks northbound, while the subject in the light-colored clothing walks south and stops along a fence, where a knife was ultimately recovered, the document says. The BMW then “leaves at a high rate of speed,” the document states.

    An autopsy later found Lee was “stabbed three separate times, once in the hip and twice in the chest,” according to the documents. One of the stab wounds “directly penetrated” Lee’s heart, causing his death.

    A kitchen knife was found near the scene, District Attorney Jenkins said in a news conference, adding the department had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that (Momeni) committed murder.”

    On April 11, investigators found a text message from Momeni’s sister to Lee that showed the sister checking in on Lee, according to the motion to detain document. The text message, per the document, stated: “Just wanted to make sure your doing ok Cause I know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you And thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class.”

    Meanwhile, additional details in an August 2022 incident involving a woman and Momeni were made available in a police report, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.

    Police in Emeryville cited and released Momeni on a misdemeanor battery charge after a woman reported he attacked her, the newspaper reported, citing documents obtained in a public records request. CNN has requested the documents and reached out to Emeryville police.

    The woman, whose name was redacted from the report, and Momeni reportedly got into an argument the afternoon of August 1, 2022, according to the police report.

    Momeni denied the allegation when questioned by responding officers.

    The woman told police that Momeni was prone to behavior shifts, the Chronicle reported, telling them that “one minute he will be fine and the next he will go off for no reason.”

    In a statement to CNN on Monday, Momeni’s attorney Canny said, “It is only a police report.”

    “There was no arrest. There was no case filed – the Alameda County District Attorney refused to prosecute,” she said.

    The Alameda County District Attorney’s office confirmed to CNN last week it did not file charges but declined to say why or give more detail.

    In the police report, the woman said she met Momeni a week earlier and he allowed her to stay on his couch in exchange for cleaning the residence, the Chronicle says, adding she told officers that she and Momeni were not dating.

    The woman told police that earlier in the day, she had been in the loft’s kitchen when Momeni came downstairs and yelled for her to collect her belongings and leave, the Chronicle reports.

    “Momeni forcefully grabbed her right upper arm and her right side waist area,” Officer Johnson wrote in the report, according to the Chronicle. “He then pushed her against a counter.”

    He denied the allegation to police, according to the newspaper, and a roommate told police that he didn’t see violence and that the woman appeared to be the aggressor.

    Momeni told officers he wanted to pursue charges against the woman for pushing him the day before when they had also argued, the report says, according to the Chronicle.

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  • Google earned $10 million by allowing misleading anti-abortion ads from ‘fake clinics,’ report says | CNN Business

    Google earned $10 million by allowing misleading anti-abortion ads from ‘fake clinics,’ report says | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Google has earned more than $10 million over the past two years by allowing misleading advertisements for “fake” abortion clinics that aim to stop women from having the procedure, according to an estimate from a report released Thursday from the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate.

    The estimated amount is microscopic compared to the more than $200 billion Google generates from ad sales annually. But the report’s data hints at the broad reach pro-life groups can have by placing these advertisements in Google results for common phrases searched for by abortion seekers.

    Using Semrush, an analytics tool, researchers at the CCDH identified “188 fake clinic websites” that placed ads on Google between March, 2021 and February of this year. CCDH estimates that ads for fake clinics were clicked on by users 13 million times during this period.

    Some searching for “abortion clinics near me” on Google instead found results directing them toward so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” that may try to talk abortion-seekers out of treatment and offer medically unproven abortion pill reversal techniques, according to the report.

    Other Google searches populated by crisis clinic ads included “abortion pill,” “abortion clinic” and “planned parenthood,” the report said, with clinics in states where abortion is legal spending two times as much as those in states with bans.

    In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, Google faced calls from Congressional Democrats to do more to prevent searches for abortion clinics from returning results for misleading ads – as well as calls from Republican lawmakers to do the opposite. The dueling pressure from lawmakers highlighted how central Google can be for women searching for information on the procedure.

    In a statement Thursday, Google said its approach to abortion ads follows local laws and that any advertiser targeting certain keywords or phrases related to abortions must complete a certification to confirm if it does or does not provide abortion services.

    “We require any organization that wants to advertise to people seeking information about abortion services to be certified and clearly disclose whether they do or do not offer abortions,” a Google spokesperson told CNN. “We do not allow ads promoting abortion reversal treatments and we also prohibit advertisers from misleading people about the services they offer.”

    “We remove or block ads that violate these policies,” the company added.

    Google said it does not allow for abortion reversal pill advertisements because the treatment isn’t approved by the FDA. In response to Thursday’s CCDH report, the company told CNN it took “enforcement action” on content violating this policy.

    Google has continued to face scrutiny in recent months for the steps it takes to protect abortion seekers’ location data.

    Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats wrote to Google in May with questions about how it deletes users’ location history when they have visited sensitive locations such as abortion clinics. The letter came after tests performed by The Washington Post and other privacy advocates appeared to show that Google was not quickly or consistently deleting users’ recorded visits to fertility centers of Planned Parenthood clinics.

    Google previously declined to comment on the lawmakers’ letter. Instead, it referred CNN to a company blog post that includes abortion clinics on a list of sensitive locations, but did not explain what it means when it claims the data will be deleted “soon after” a visit.

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  • Draft GOP autopsy of 2022 midterms urges candidates to stop ‘rehashing old grievances’ | CNN Politics

    Draft GOP autopsy of 2022 midterms urges candidates to stop ‘rehashing old grievances’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A draft Republican autopsy report on the party’s worse-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections urges GOP candidates to move past complaints about how the 2020 and 2022 elections were run – a clear criticism of former President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim his loss was a result of widespread voter fraud.

    The report does not mention Trump, the leading contender for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, by name.

    But it takes direct aim at his grievances over the 2020 presidential election and false claims of widespread voter fraud in 2022.

    Voters’ distaste for relitigating those elections, the draft report states, is among “the obvious lessons of the 2022 election cycle.”

    “The Republican candidates in 2022 who delivered results and had a vision for the future did much, much better than those stuck in the past and rehashing old grievances,” the draft report says.

    CNN obtained a portion of the draft report, which was expected to be circulated this week at a Republican National Committee meeting in Oklahoma City – however, a source familiar with the presentation said it was likely to be scuttled following reports of its contents.

    The draft report was first reported by The Washington Post.

    Some GOP officials bristled at the upbeat nature of the report – and the notable lack of Trump mentions – which was commissioned before the former president widened his lead in 2024 primary polling.

    The report urges Republican candidates to offer an “aspirational message” that contrasts with President Joe Biden on issues such as taxes, school choice and border security, and to move past complaints about previous elections.

    “America has always been a nation focused on the future. The American people want to move forward and rarely, if ever, are concerned about what happened in the past. The balance of survey data makes it clear that voters are done with the 2020 and 2022 elections. They have no patience for endless conversations relitigating previous elections from Democrats and Republicans,” the draft report states. “Those who don’t heed that lesson from 2022 will be more likely to lose in 2024 and successive cycles.”

    The draft report describes “election integrity” as critical, but it also urges Republican campaigns to focus on tactics that Trump and some 2022 candidates eschewed, including mail-in voting.

    “Republican campaigns must push our supporters to vote early in person or by mail. Republicans cannot continue to give Democrats a head start,” the draft report says.

    Trump and a slew of Trump-backed Republican candidates who lost in 2022 – including Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Senate candidate Blake Masters and Pennsylvania GOP nominee for governor Doug Mastriano – had campaigned on claims of voter fraud. Lake has still not conceded the Arizona governor’s race.

    “Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last eight presidential elections. Clearly, something is not working for us,” the draft report says.

    It also describes the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade’s federal protections of abortion rights as politically damaging in the midterm elections.

    “It is true: We underestimated the impact of Dobbs, and we failed to defend our position on the sanctity of life even though more Americans agree with us than with Democrats,” the draft report says. “Democrats will continue to engage on this issue, so we must learn our lesson.”

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  • New York State Legislature passes bill to protect doctors who prescribe abortion pills for out-of-state patients | CNN Politics

    New York State Legislature passes bill to protect doctors who prescribe abortion pills for out-of-state patients | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A bill that would legally protect doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states where abortion services are outlawed or restricted is now headed to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk after the state legislature passed the legislation on Tuesday.

    The bill ensures that doctors, medical providers and facilitators in the state will be able to provide telehealth services to patients out of state, according to a news release from the New York State Assembly.

    The new legislation also protects New York health providers from out-of-state litigation, meaning the state will not cooperate with cases prosecuting doctors in New York who provide telehealth abortion or reproductive services to people in other states.

    “This bill expands protections for telehealth providers by providing them the same protections afforded to doctors in other states with strong reproductive healthcare shield laws,” according to the news release.

    The bill also ensures that New York medical providers, complying with their practice, who offer telehealth services are not subject to professional discipline, “solely for providing reproductive health services to patients residing in states where such services are illegal.”

    CNN has reached out to the governor’s office to see if she will sign the legislation.

    CNN previously reported Hochul has indicated support for a shield law protecting medical providers of out of state abortion and reproductive services.

    Assemblymember Karines Reyes, a registered nurse who sponsored the bill, said she was “proud to sponsor this critical piece of legislation to fully protect abortion providers using telemedicine.”

    According to the state assembly’s news release, the bill recognizes the common use of medication abortion drugs, stating that 54% of abortions across the country are now medication abortions.

    Speaker of the New York State Assembly Carl Heastie said, “It is our moral obligation to help women across the country with their bodily autonomy by protecting New York doctors from litigation efforts from anti-choice extremists. Telehealth is the future of healthcare, and this bill is simply the next step in making sure our doctors are protected.”

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  • Appeals court can rule at any time in dispute over suspending FDA approval of medication abortion drug | CNN Politics

    Appeals court can rule at any time in dispute over suspending FDA approval of medication abortion drug | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department and a manufacturer of abortion pills have submitted the final round of court briefs in the emergency dispute over whether an appeals court should freeze a judge’s ruling that would suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medication abortion drugs.

    Now that the filings have been submitted, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Court could rule at any time on whether to put a hold on the order from US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.

    Kacsmaryk on Friday night said he was halting the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone but that he was delaying the order by seven days to give the pill’s defenders time to appeal the case. The Justice Department has asked the appeals court to act by 12 p.m. CT Thursday on its request that Kacsmaryk’s ruling be paused, to give the government time to seek a Supreme Court intervention if need be. The 5th Circuit is not obligated to meet that deadline.

    The Justice Department wrote in its new filing that Kacsmaryk purported “to be acting in a restrained manner … but there is nothing modest about upending the decades-long status quo by blocking access nationwide to a safe and effective drug.”

    “Effectively requiring Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro to cease distribution of mifepristone after more than two decades would upend the status quo, severely harming women, healthcare systems, and the public,” the Justice Department said, referring to the two US manufacturers of mifepristone.

    The Justice Department filing pushed back on the assertions by the challengers, made in their filing overnight in the emergency dispute, that the 5th Circuit did not have the authority to hear the appeal of Kacsmaryk’s ruling. The Justice Department also called out Kacsmaryk and the challengers for relying on anonymous blog posts to claim mifepristone is unsafe.

    Danco Labroratories, which intervened in the case to defend mifepristone’s approval, wrote in its new filing with the appeals court that if the ruling is not frozen, “women across the nation will face serious, unnecessary health risks from the elimination of access to a drug FDA has repeatedly deemed safe and effective and that is the standard of care.”

    In an overnight filing, the anti-abortion doctors who sued to ban medication abortion drugs told a federal appeals court that it should leave in place the ruling that will halt the drug’s FDA approval.

    The anti-abortion doctors defended Kacsmaryk’s ruling called it a “meticulously considered” ruling that “paints an alarming picture of decades-long agency lawlessness – all to the detriment of the women and girls FDA is charged to protect.”

    Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA for terminating pregnancies for nearly 23 years. Leading medical associations have rebuked the claims by the approval’s legal challengers and by the judge that the drug is unsafe.

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  • Biden marks anniversary of Dobbs decision by calling on Congress to ‘restore the protections of Roe v. Wade’ | CNN Politics

    Biden marks anniversary of Dobbs decision by calling on Congress to ‘restore the protections of Roe v. Wade’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris joined a trio of key reproductive rights activist groups to mark the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision Friday, highlighting what’s expected to be a major Biden campaign plank for the 2024 presidential election.

    “MAGA Republicans made clear that they don’t intend to stop with the Dobbs decision. No, they won’t, until they get a national ban on abortion,” Biden said, promising to issue a veto if a national ban is ever passed by Congress.

    The Biden administration and campaign have been making an all-hands-on-deck push for reproductive rights messaging this week ahead of Saturday’s anniversary of the ruling that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade, harnessing the moment on an issue that animated voters in 2022 and they believe will do so again in 2024.

    “Since that dark June day last year, each of you has worked tirelessly to fight back. In the Dobbs decision, the court, particularly – practically, dared the women of America to be heard,” Biden said.

    Biden and Harris held the event with three reproductive rights groups – EMILYs List, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund – that announced they have endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign in the reelection push.

    “Your support was critical last time around. And we were so grateful for it,” Biden said, noting the organizing efforts of all three groups and how important that will be for his reelection push.

    Along with other recent endorsements from unions and climate activists, the backing of the reproductive rights groups Friday illustrates the central core of Biden’s reelection push.

    “Over the last week or so we’ve seen extraordinary support from three of the most important voices in the country coming together to get behind this campaign – organized labor, climate leaders, and all of you,” Biden said at the Mayflower hotel in Washington, DC.

    Friday’s event comes after Harris held a roundtable conversation on reproductive rights on MSNBC Tuesday and is also set to give a major speech on the Saturday anniversary in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    And first lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted an emotional conversation Tuesday with four women who shared their stories of how the Dobbs decision and subsequent state bans on abortion impacted their own medical care.

    “The Dobbs decision was devastating, and Joe is doing everything he can do to fight back,” the first lady said. “But the only way that we can ensure that every woman has the fundamental freedoms she deserves is for Congress to make the protections of Roe v. Wade the law of the land once again.”

    While there are limited steps Biden can take at the executive level, he has signed multiple executive orders aimed at shoring up access to abortion rights and called on Congress to codify Roe v. Wade.

    On Friday, the president will sign an executive order strengthening access to contraception, the Biden administration told CNN. The executive order directs the secretary of Treasury, secretary of Labor, and secretary of Health and Human Services to consider guidance guaranteeing private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act covers all FDA-approved methods of contraception, in contrast to current guidance, which only mandates coverage for one contraceptive product per FDA category.

    But there is no action he can take to restore the nationwide right to an abortion.

    Still, the Biden campaign believes that reproductive rights will be a key motivator for voters, with imagery of abortion rights protesters figuring prominently in the first seconds of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign launch video.

    In the 2022 midterm elections, about 27% of voters cited abortion as the issue most important to them, according to the preliminary results of the national and state exit polls conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

    The event also comes as the campaign begins to build coalitions and momentum around key issues important to Democratic voters. Last week, Biden attended an event rolling out an endorsement from four major environmental groups. He also held an event with gun safety activists in Connecticut. And over the weekend, he touted support from leading unions with remarks focused on the economy.

    Nearly one year ago, in the moments after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling, Biden said he was stunned by the “extreme” decision.

    “With Roe gone, let’s be very clear: The health and life of women in this nation are now at risk,” he warned in remarks at the White House.

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  • Justice Department asks Supreme Court to intervene in abortion drug ruling | CNN Politics

    Justice Department asks Supreme Court to intervene in abortion drug ruling | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court Friday to intervene in an emergency dispute over a Texas judge’s medication abortion drug ruling, requesting that the court step in now rather than wait for an appeal to formally play out at the federal appellate level.

    The case is the most important abortion-related dispute to reach the high court since the justices overturned Roe v. Wade last term. It centers on the scope of the US Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate a drug that is used in the majority of abortions today in states that still allow the procedure.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in the filing that it “concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone.”

    She said that if the ruling were allowed to stand it would “inflict grave harm on women, the medical system, the agency, and the public.”

    Danco, a manufacturer of the drug, also asked the justices to step in on an emergency basis before Friday, with an attorney for the company saying in its filing that leaving the lower court opinion in play will “irreparably harm Danco, which will be unable to both conduct its business nationwide and comply with its legal obligations under the FDCA nationwide.”

    “The lack of emergency relief from this Court will also harm women, the healthcare system, the pharmaceutical industry, States’ sovereignty interests, and the separation-of-powers,” the attonrey, Jessica L. Ellsworth, told the justices.

    The clock is ticking. If the Supreme Court does not step in, the district court’s ruling, as amended by a subsequent appeals court opinion, will go into effect at midnight CT, and access to the drug, Mifepristone, will be restricted while the appeals process plays out.

    Both the government and Danco are asking the court to freeze the lower court opinion, or alternatively, agree to take up the case themselves and hear arguments before the summer recess, a very expedited time frame.

    The controversy began when US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a broad ruling that blocks the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug, as well as changes the FDA made in subsequent years to make the drug more accessible.

    Late Wednesday, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals froze part of the ruling. The court said the drug, that was approved in 2000, could stay on the market, but agreed with Kacsmaryk that access could be limited.

    The appeals court ordered a return to the stricter, pre-2016 FDA regime around the drug, which prevents mailing the pill to patients who obtained it through telehealth, or virtual visits with their providers rather than traveling to a clinic or hospital to obtain the drug in person.

    The restrictions also affect the instructions on the label for the medication, shortening the window of obtaining the pill to seven weeks into pregnancy as opposed to 10. It’s possible however that even with the ruling in effect, some providers could go “off-label” and continue to prescribe mifepristone up until 10 weeks. Mifepristone is one of the drugs used for an abortion via medication as opposed to surgery.

    Prelogar, the solicitor general, argued in her filing to the Supreme Court that the FDA’s expert judgment should not be challenged.

    “FDA has maintained that scientific judgment across five presidential administrations, and it has modified the original conditions of mifepristone’s approval as decades of experience have conclusively demonstrated the drug’s safety,” she wrote, reminding the justices that currently, “more than half of women in this country who choose to terminate their pregnancies rely on mifrepristone to do so.”

    She highlighted a key threshold issue in the case, arguing that the doctors opposed to abortion who are behind the suit do not have the legal right to be in court. That is because, she said, they neither “take nor prescribe” the drug, and the FDA’s approval “does not require them to do or refrain from doing anything.”

    CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck, who is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the 5th Circuit’s ruling “froze the craziest, most harmful parts of Kacsmaryk’s ruling,” but that access to mifepristone is still significantly limited.

    “The panel ruled that the challenge to the 2000 approval of mifepristone itself is likely time-barred, so it froze that part of the ruling,” he wrote on Twitter. “But it *didn’t* freeze Kacsmaryk’s block of the 2016 and 2021 revisions that (1) make mifepristone available up to 10 weeks; and (2) by mail.”

    Medication abortion has emerged a particularly heated flashpoint in the abortion legal battle since the Supreme Court last year overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent that protected abortion rights nationally.

    In November, anti-abortion doctors and plaintiffs brought the lawsuit challenging the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug and targeting how the agency has since changed the rules around its use in ways that have made the pill easier to obtain.

    A split 5th Circuit panel said in its order that it was reinstating the approval of the drug because of certain procedural obstacles the plaintiffs face in challenging it. But the appeals court said that the abortion pill’s defenders had not shown that they were likely to succeed in defeating the plaintiffs’ claims against the FDA’s more recent regulatory actions toward mifepristone.

    The appellate order was handed down by Circuit Judges Catharina Haynes, a George W. Bush nominee, and Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, both Donald Trump nominees. Haynes, however, did not sign on to some aspects of the order.

    The FDA approved mifepristone after a four-year review process. It has shown to be a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy in the two-plus decades it’s been on the market. But anti-abortion doctors and medical associations allege that the agency ran afoul of the law by not adequately taking into account the drug’s supposed risks.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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