Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul.
The 71-year-old was largely considered the brains behind the notorious terrorist group and its vision for attacking the West — including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which catapulted al-Qaeda from relative obscurity to a household name in the United States.
President Biden said in an address to the nation Monday that Zawahiri’s death — after he evaded capture for decades — sent a clear message: “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader, killed at 71
The strike is the latest successful U.S. operation against al-Qaeda and Islamic State leaders. Biden said Zawahiri’s death should help ensure Afghanistan can no longer “become a terrorist safe haven” and a “launching pad” for attacks against the United States.
Security experts say the operation demonstrates that the United States is still able to carry out precision strikes in Afghanistan after last year’s withdrawal of troops on the ground. On the other hand, it also highlights the Taliban’s apparent willingness to accommodate al-Qaeda operatives in the region.
Here’s a look at what Zawahiri’s death means for al-Qaeda.
When was al-Qaeda founded?
Al-Qaeda grew out of battlefield bonds forged in the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union, which was redirected toward fighting the West.
The group, founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, attracted disaffected recruits who opposed American support for Israel and Middle Eastern dictatorships.
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996, it gave al-Qaeda the sanctuary that enabled it to run training camps and plot attacks, including 9/11.
The world 9/11 created: A weakened, yet enduring, al-Qaeda menace
What was Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role in al-Qaeda?
Americans knew him as al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy to bin Laden. In reality, longtime observers say, he provided the ideological direction, while bin Laden was the public face of the terrorist group.
Zawahiri merged his Egyptian militant group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s. For decades, he served as “the mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said Monday — including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more, and the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds and injured scores.
“To kill Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 screed.
After al-Qaeda’s forced retreat from its base in Afghanistan in early 2002, it was largely Zawahiri who led the group’s resurgence in the lawless tribal region across the border in Pakistan, The Washington Post wrote in an obituary Monday.
What happened to al-Qaeda after bin Laden was killed?
When bin Laden was killed in 2011, his No. 2, Zawahiri, took over as leader.
Although he was the intellectual force behind the terrorist movement, some experts say Zawahiri lacked bin Laden’s charisma. He remained as a figurehead but failed to prevent the splintering of the Islamist movement in Syria and other conflict zones after 2011.
His grip over a sprawling network of affiliates across Africa, Asia and the Middle East was weakened. The Islamic State terrorist group, which grew out of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, sought to position itself as a more ruthless alternative.
What is ISIS-K? Here’s what the Taliban takeover means for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate.
In his later years, Zawahiri largely shied from public view, presiding over al-Qaeda at a time of decline, with most of the group’s founding figures dead or in hiding.
At the time of the U.S. withdrawal last August, analysts described al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as “a skeleton of its former self,” after two decades of conflict and counterterrorism operations. A United Nations report in July estimated there were up to 400 al-Qaeda fighters remaining in Afghanistan.
Some security experts feared an al-Qaeda reboot under the Taliban. At the time of his death, U.S. intelligence indicated that Zawahiri, rather than hiding, was living with his family in downtown Kabul in a high-security residential district where many senior Taliban figures reside.
What will happen to al-Qaeda now?
Analysts say that in the past, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the loss of leaders, with new figures emerging in their place. Today, though, the group is splintered, with branches and affiliates spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether those groups will focus on local conflicts or coalesce for more global ambitions.
Charles Lister, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said al-Qaeda “now faces an acute succession crisis.” Senior leader Saif al-Adel is technically the next in line to take the helm, but he is based in Iran, which has caused affiliates to question his credibility in the past, Lister wrote Monday. His potential ascension could be the “death knell” for al-Qaeda’s aspirations as a global organization as affiliates deepen their independence from the group, Lister said.
Al-Qaeda hasn’t carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years, following bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al-Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three American sailors at a U.S. base in Florida in December 2019. A knife-wielding assailant who fatally stabbed a man and a woman in an attack near London Bridge that same year had previously been a member of an al-Qaeda-inspired cell.
Claire Parker and Joby Warrick contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor on Monday declared a state of emergency to speed efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak, becoming the second state in three days to take the step.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the declaration will help California coordinate a government-wide response, seek more vaccines and lead outreach and education efforts on where people can get treatment and vaccination.
“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his declaration.
Nearly 800 cases of monkeypox have been reported in California, according to state public health officials.
The monkeypox virus spreads through prolonged and close skin-to-skin contact, which can include hugging, cuddling and kissing, as well as through the sharing of bedding, towels and clothing. People getting sick so far have mainly been men who have sex with men, though health officials note that the virus can infect anyone.
“Public health officials are clear: stigma is unacceptable and counterproductive in public health response,” Michelle Gibbons, executive director of the County Health Executives Association of California said in a statement. “The fact is that monkeypox is primarily spread by skin to skin contact and sharing objects like bedding or towels, without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The type of monkeypox virus identified in this outbreak is rarely fatal, and people usually recover within weeks. But the lesions and blisters caused by the virus are painful, and they can prevent swallowing or bowel movements if in the throat or anus.
The declaration in California came after a similar one in New York state on Saturday, and in San Francisco on Thursday. Newsom’s administration had said as recently as Friday that it was too soon for such a declaration.
After pressing for Newsom to make such a declaration, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco hailed the governor’s decision.
“The monkeypox outbreak is an emergency, and we need to use every tool we have to control it,” Wiener said.
Newsom’s proclamation allows emergency medical personnel to administer monkeypox vaccines that are approved by the federal government.
That’s similar to a recent law that allows pharmacists to administer vaccines, Newsom’s administration said. It said the state’s response is building on the steps developed during the coronavirus pandemic to set up vaccination clinics and make sure there is outreach to vulnerable populations in cooperation with local and community-based organizations.
California has received more than 61,000 vaccine doses and has distributed more than 25,000 doses.
“We don’t have any time to waste,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement. She said the nation’s most-populous county must use all available resources to speed the distribution of vaccines and help to those who have been infected.
Newsom’s office said Los Angeles County has received a separate allocation of vaccine.
As of last week, the state had expanded its testing capacity to process more than 1,000 tests a week. Critics have said the long wait for test results delayed treatment options.
In San Francisco, Peter Tran was among hundreds who lined up sometimes for hours to receive the monkeypox vaccine at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on Monday after the clinic was forced to close last week because it did not receive enough doses.
“It’s horrible. Like this is a vaccine that’s been out for such a long time. And like, it’s not even a deadly disease. It’s harder to be transmitted than COVID. But the rollout of the vaccines throughout this nation is absolutely horrible,” Tran said.
“I think the science shows that protection is greatly improved with the vaccine. So that’s why I’m doing it. And I honestly just don’t want the lesions on my body. I heard the lesions are painful and leave scarring. So I think that’s another motivation to go out and get it.”
Before making their own emergency declaration last week, San Francisco city officials were criticized for not responding rapidly enough to the outbreak. They, in turn, faulted the federal government for failing to deliver enough vaccines. The city received about 4,000 doses on Friday, enabling it to restart vaccinations, and hopes to administer them by mid-week, said Dr. Lukejohn Day, chief medical officer at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
The city had 305 cases as of Monday, he said.
The World Health Organization has declared the monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries a global emergency.
___
Associated Press videographer Terry Chea contributed from San Francisco.
New Yorkers were largely split in their opinion of whether the U.S. economy is currently experiencing a recession, a contrast from left-leaning media outlets united in their belief that the country is not experiencing an economic downturn.
“I don’t think we’re in a recession,” one New Yorker told Fox News Digital on Monday. “I think technically—some indicators might, people might say that. It doesn’t sound like we’re in a recession to me.”
He went on to acknowledge rising prices, but said that the White House and the Fed are “doing their best,” and that the economy overall is doing pretty well, especially in comparison to other countries.
Another woman that Fox News Digital spoke to near Times Square said it doesn’t feel like the country is currently experiencing a recession, though it did feel like it before the city reopened following stringent COVID restrictions.
COLBERT SKEWERS MSNBC, CNN FOR REDEFINING RECESSION, CLAIMS THEY’RE NOT ‘QUALIFIED’ TO SPEAK ON ISSUE
A New Yorker told Fox News Digital she did not believe the country was currently experiencing a recession, and said things have gotten better since COVID restrictions were lifted. (Fox News Digital )
“I don’t feel like there’s a recession, you know they opened up—there’s a lot of jobs. We’re still in a pandemic, however I don’t feel like it’s a recession because people are working. They can go out,” she added.
A man that spoke near Radio City Music Hall said some parts of the economy are feeling the pain a “little bit harder” than other sectors, but for many people in New York City it is “life as usual.”
“The inflation hurts a bit. But, these things come and go. It’s a cycle. I think we’ll recover pretty nicely, and I’m optimistic. I don’t like to label things a recession just because the media is saying one thing or another—I think we’ll be fine,” he added.
But a number of other New Yorkers were adamant that the country is in the midst of a recession, and in some cases knocked the media and politicians for concluding otherwise.
RECESSION ‘WORD CHURN’ FROM DEMOCRATS IS NOT WORKING, WARNS WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST
A New Yorker told Fox News Digital that the media and the White House are ‘changing the definition’ of a recession. (Fox News Digital )
“It is a recession,” said another New Yorker. “They’re trying to change the definition, right? So I think the definition is two quarters, and then it’s a recession. So it’s been two negative quarters for the GDP, and they’re still saying it’s not a recession.”
He added the media is trying to ignore “the fact” that there is a recession, and that their opinion changes depending on whether a Democrat or a Republican is in office.
Another New Yorker said she was not “super confident” in the current economy, saying rising costs in the city, especially with rent, are “out of control.” She also poured cold water on the idea that a strong labor market meant that a recession was not the correct definition.
“The people in power definitely need to be doing better,” she concluded.
PAUL KRUGMAN DECLARES US NOT IN A RECESSION, CLAIMS ‘NEGATIVITY BIAS’ IN MEDIA
This New Yorker said the U.S. is experiencing a recession, and cited the rising cost of ‘everything,’ especially rent, in New York City. (Fox News Digital )
The Washington Post, CNN, The New York Times and others embraced the White House definition of a recession last week after GDP numbers showed consecutive quarters of negative growth as the U.S. economy enters a recession, and pundits on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and elsewhere also played up the notion of “fears” of a recession, rather than acknowledging the U.S. was now, by definition, going through one.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Other segments on CNN, CBS News, MSNBC, NBC News, and ABC News largely refrained from saying that the country is in a recession, pointing to job growth and consumer spending.
Nikolas Lanum is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
At least one man has died and five others were shot at a Northeast apartment complex on Monday, according to D.C. police Chief Robert Contee.
In an update Monday night, D.C. police said they responded to the 400 block of 15th Street NE outside the Azeeze Bates property at around 8:30 p.m., and not the nearby Benning Courts apartments, for reports of gunfire.
The conditions of the five men are not yet known. A potential motive for the shooting was not provided.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Washington Field Division said it would assist D.C. police in the ongoing shooting investigation.
Critical Incident Alert: MPD has responded to the 1500 block of F Street NE for a shooting. Preliminary reports of multiple victims. Updates to be provided from the on-scene PIO. Media briefing area will be shared shortly.
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) August 2, 2022
News4 is working to learn more about this developing story.
An elderly convenience store owner in California is being hailed as a hero after he shot at a would-be robber who ran out of the store screaming his arm was “shot off.”
Shocking surveillance footage from Norco Market & Liquor at the 2800 block of Clark Avenue in Norco, Calif., showed a masked assailant entering the business at about 2:47 a.m. with an AR-15-style rifle pointed at the 80-year-old store owner.
The suspect yelled, “Freeze, hands in the air,” but within seconds, the quick-thinking store owner pulled out his own rifle from under the counter and immediately shot once at the robber, hitting him in the arm.
Video footage further showed another man getting out of a black BMW SUV, but he stopped and got back inside the vehicle once he saw the first suspect run out of the store repeatedly screaming, “He shot my arm off!”
The three suspects involved in the attempted robbery were all caught, with the suspect who was shot in the hospital in critical but stable condition.Fox11
Riverside County Sheriff’s officials arrested three suspects— Justin Johnson, 22, of Inglewood, Calif., Jamar Williams, 27, of Los Angeles, and Davon Broadus, of Las Vegas, Nevada— at a local hospital.
The primary suspect, a 23-year-old man, remained in critical but stable condition at the hospital, officials said. His identity is being withheld pending his release from the hospital.
“In this case, a lawfully armed member of our community prevented a violent crime and ensured their own safety, while being confronted with multiple armed suspects,” Riverside County Sheriff’s said in a press release. “This investigation is active and ongoing and no additional information will currently be released.”
Employees at Norco Market & Liquor said the owner was watching the store cameras as the SUV pulled into the parking lot. Once he saw the first assailant get out of the SUV and pull a mask over his face, the owner immediately went for his rifle.
The 80-year-old store owner did not hesitate to defend himself and his business when the suspect entered with his rifle pointing directly at him. Fox11
“He just prepared himself … and he stood right here, aimed and shot,” store manager Marnia Tapia told Fox11.
The two other suspects frantically drove off after the suspect who was shot ran shouting, “He shot my arm off,” into the car.Riverside County Sheriff’s Offic
Employees said the owner was not at the store on Monday, but Fox11 reported the man suffered a heart attack right after the shooting. He is expected to recover and will be discharged from the hospital sometime Monday night.
Sheriff’s officials said the SUV used in the attempted robbery was stolen and numerous stolen firearms also were found inside the vehicle.
Johnson, Williams and Broadus were booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside for robbery and conspiracy. They are being held in jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
The primary suspect also will be booked at the facility once he is released from the hospital, officials said.
Day, a former coal miner who lives in Hindman, Knott County, said he was unaware of what was happening in the region until he received the message saying the children needed help getting out of their house.
“I didn’t know what they was talking about, then I went outside,” Day told CNN. “You heard a lot of people screaming and begging for anyone to help.”
That day, Eastern Kentucky saw flooding that officials have called unprecedented, with entire houses and bridges swept away and communities isolated because of flooded roads. At least 35 people have died in the flooding, and many who survived lost everything they had. Hundreds of people are still missing.
Day and his wife, Krystal, had no boat, so they waded through the water to help save the five children and two mothers who were stuck on the roof of their home.
“At 3 o’clock in the morning, I was in that water with my wife. I put a child under each arm and one around my neck and took them back to my house. The oldest child was holding a small dog,” Day said.
After Day and his wife rescued the children and the two women, he set his sights on rescuing his former high school English teacher, Ella Prater, and his second grade teacher, Irma Gayheart, who both lived nearby.
“I just kept pacing back and forth because I saw the water rising and I knew my two former teachers were probably trapped in their houses,” Day said. “It was heartbreaking.”
He then enlisted the help of three other neighbors to help check on his teachers, who both live alone, according to Day.
When they saw Prater, Day said they held her “by both side of her arms and never looked back. We said, ‘We have to go.'”
It took Gayheart a few minutes to answer the door, but when she did, she told him she was okay, but had been sitting on her kitchen counter top watching the water rise.
“I wasn’t going to leave her there because she’s a special lady to me. You could tell by looking at her face that she was drained,” Day said. “She spent the night on the kitchen counter top and the water was up by the counter top.”
With the help of his neighbors, Day was able to reunite both teachers with their families, who were waiting for any updates about their whereabouts.
“These are two of the most special women you’ll meet in your life, and when they show you love, they show you true love. They truly care about everyone that’s around them and that stuck with me my whole life,” Day said when explaining why he risked his life to rescue his teachers.
The ordeal has been emotionally draining, but he’s glad the children and former teachers are safe, Day told CNN.
House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson reiterated their call for Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to step aside in a letter on Monday, citing concerns about “your lack of transparency and independence, which appear to be jeopardizing the integrity of a crucial investigation run by your office.”
Maloney and Thompson also are demanding transcribed interviews with key DHS IG staffers. CNN first reported that DHS inspector general investigators dropped efforts to recover missing Secret Service text messages in July 2021, a year before Cuffari raised concerns about Secret Service and DHS transparency to congressional oversight committees.
“The Committees have obtained new evidence that your office may have secretly abandoned efforts to collect text messages from the Secret Service more than a year ago,” the letter said. “These documents also indicate that your office may have taken steps to cover up the extent of missing records, raising further concerns about your ability to independently and effectively perform your duties as Inspector General (IG).”
The committees are requesting a slate of communications and documents by Monday, ranging from correspondence related to any decisions not to collect or recover text messages to communications related to notifying Congress.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, on Monday reiterated his call for the Justice Department to investigate the missing text messages.
“This is about the destruction of critical evidence, whether it’s material to the January 6 episode or not. The fact that this man, Joseph Cuffari, as inspector general, could not get the information that should have been transferred from administration to the other and didn’t report it properly to Congress or to the agency that he’s working at, we may have jeopardized some very critical evidence when it comes to the historic record on January 6 and he treated it as almost a routine event rather than something that should have been highlighted,” Durbin told CNN’s Don Lemon.
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General said it “does not discuss ongoing administrative reviews and does not confirm the existence of, or otherwise comment about criminal investigations.”
Watchdog defends himself
However, in an internal email to employees obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with CNN, Cuffari defended himself and commended them for their work amid an “onslaught of meritless criticism.”
“In the past couple of weeks, DHS OIG has been the subject of a tremendous amount of public speculation,” Cuffari told staff in an email obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with CNN.
“Because of US Attorney General guidelines and quality standards, we cannot always publicly respond to untruths and false information about our work,” he wrote. “I am so proud of the resilience I have witnessed in the face of this onslaught of meritless criticism.”
The email, sent at 2:28 p.m. Monday, arrived shortly before key House Democrats accused Cuffari’s office of manipulating and omitting information about its investigation into missing Secret Service and top DHS officials’ text messages.
The letter shows a DHS deputy inspector general, Thomas Kait, wrote an email to a DHS senior liaison, Jim Crumpacker, on July 27, 2021, advising DHS investigators were no longer seeking text messages. Kait is one of the staffers the committee wants to interview now.
“Jim, please use this email as a reference to our conversation where I said we no longer request phone records and text messages from the USSS [United States Secret Service] relating to the events on January 6th,” the email said, according to the letter.
The letter also confirms CNN reporting that the probe into text messages was reopened in December 2021.
Lawmakers said in Monday’s letter that Kait also removed “key language” from a February memo to DHS underscoring the significance of text messages to the inspector general’s investigation. The original memo mentioned that most DHS components had not provided requested information and noted text message content is a “critical source of information for the DHS OIG review,” but the final version stated the opposite, saying that they had received responses, according to the letter.
“These documents raise troubling new concerns that your office not only failed to notify Congress for more than a year that critical evidence in this investigation was missing, but your senior staff deliberately chose not to pursue that evidence and then appear to have taken steps to cover up these failures,” the letter states.
It goes on to cite missing text messages for the two top Homeland Security officials under former President Donald Trump — acting Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli. Information obtained by the committee revealed that the inspector general’s office was aware in February that those messages couldn’t be accessed but didn’t notify Congress. CNN has reached out to Cuccinelli for comment.
Latest twist in saga
Monday’s letter is yet another twist in the ongoing saga over missing messages around January 6. Memos obtained by CNN indicate that the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly reminded the workforce to comply with the inspector general and relevant Hill committees.
After the Office of Inspector General raised concerns to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about compliance with requests, the secretary issued a September 2021 memo to the workforce saying that employees should cooperate with interviews and provide information.
“The Department is committed to supporting the OIG’s mission. DHS employees are expected to cooperate with OIG audits, inspections, investigations, and other inquiries. Any effort to conceal information or obstruct the OIG in carrying out its critical work is against Department directives and can lead to serious consequences,” the memo says.
Then, in October 2021, DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer issued a memo specific to January 6, 2021, and saying the office was cooperating with the House select committee investigating the Capitol Hill insurrection.
“I am therefore directing the Department and its Components to respond to any Select Committee requests it receives expeditiously and thoroughly,” that memo states. “Such cooperation and transparency are vital to the Department’s obligation to safeguard our Nation and its foundational democratic principles.”
POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — The Republicans competing for the U.S. Senate nomination in Tuesday’s primary here spent their final day of campaigning in a familiar state of suspense — checking their phones for a statement from Donald Trump.
But by day’s end, the former president injected more chaos into an already tumultuous race, simply endorsing “ERIC” — a first name shared by two rival candidates — former governor Eric Greitens and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt — as he suggested he was leaving it to voters to choose between them.
“There is a BIG Election in the Great State of Missouri, and we must send a MAGA Champion and True Warrior to the U.S. Senate, someone who will fight for Border Security, Election Integrity, our Military and Great Veterans, together with having a powerful toughness on Crime and the Border,” Trump wrote in a statement. “I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
Trump’s endorsements in the 2022 Republican primaries
The unusual statement came hours after Trump wrote on Truth Social: “I will be endorsing in the Great State of Missouri Republican race (Nomination) for Senate sometime today!” In recent days, several of the candidates to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R) made an 11th-hour pitch for the nod in the bitterly contested race.
At his final pre-election rally at a St. Louis-area GOP headquarters, Schmitt told supporters that he’d been “endorsed by President Trump,” and that he’d thanked Trump when he called with the news. On Twitter, before his final rally at an airport near the state’s largest city, Greitens, too, said that he’d thanked Trump over the phone.
The dual endorsement was a small victory for Senate Republicans, who had worried that Trump would endorse Greitens outright. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had lobbied Trump on Monday, urging him not to back Greitens, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private interaction.
The day’s events amounted to a new dose of turmoil in a race that has been filled with it. Greitens, who governed this state for 16 months before he resigned amid personal and political scandals and has more recently faced domestic violence accusations that he denies, has campaigned as a martyred outsider who wrestled in the same “swamp” as Trump. To stop him, GOP-aligned donors had poured at least $6 million into a super PAC, Show Me Values, with ads that highlight the accusations of abuse and warn that he isn’t fit to represent Missouri.
“We’ve got all the right enemies,” a defiant Greitens told an evening crowd at a house party here last week. “What that tells me is that they recognize that our campaign is a threat to business as usual.”
Ahead of Tuesday, some Republicans here were hopeful that the ads had neutralized Greitens, and that a possible endorsement from Trump would seal the race for Schmitt. The campaign for a seat Republicans have held since 1987 has tested whether concerns about electability, and a scandal-plagued candidate dragging down the party, are enough to stop a candidate who taps into conservative grievances and distrust in the media and party establishment.
Schmitt and Rep. Vicky Hartzler, who is backed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), have attacked Greitens while trying to distance themselves from Republican leaders. By the race’s final weekend, both had called for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to be replaced as GOP leader, and both were warning that Greitens could put the seat at risk in November.
“Are you going to vote for the former governor who’s abused his wife and his kid, assaulted his child, and quit on Missouri?” said Schmitt at a rally with supporters in Columbia last week. The attorney general, who has pushed for Trump’s support as he’s risen in limited public polling, was referencing allegations from Greitens’s ex-wife, which the candidate had called a distraction, after separate accusations that forced him from office in 2018 resulted in no charges against him.
“This man is a quitter,” said Schmitt. “And when the going gets tough, he got going.”
Schmitt said after those remarks that he was still seeking Trump’s endorsement, with the former president likely “aware of the separation in the polls this last week.” But Trump, whose endorsements in other states have occasionally saddled the party with weak nominees, remained quiet for most of the race, apart from a statement condemning Hartzler.
That left many Republican voters guessing which candidate shares the values and priorities they appreciated from Trump — or at least, the fighting spirit against an establishment they believe had given up too much ground to liberals.
“Eric Schmitt is the establishment candidate,” said Kym Franklin, a 55-year old social worker who supports Greitens. Waiting for the former governor to speak at a Saturday rally, at a sports bar where neon marked the “stairway to heaven” and the “highway to hell,” she compared the ex-governor to ex-presidents. “They both got railroaded, and we the people who voted for them got robbed.”
Show Me Values PAC, funded with start-up cash from pro-Schmitt donors Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R), worked in recent weeks to try to demolish such impressions. In some of its 30-second spots, an actress portraying Greitens’s ex-wife read from an affidavit that accused him of “abuse,” both against her and against their young son. Greitens has called his ex-wife’s allegations “baseless.” But that has been unconvincing to some Republican primary voters.
“I wish Greitens would drop out,” said Matt Fisher, a 42-year-old loan officer who was leaning toward Schmitt. “He continues to embarrass us. He’s a disgrace to our state.”
Greitens entered the primary in March 2021, claiming to Fox News that he’d been “completely exonerated.” An investigation found no wrongdoing on a campaign finance charge, and a felony charge against him alleging invasion of privacy against a woman, his former hairdresser, whom he admitted to having an affair with, was dropped by prosecutors.
The former governor has won some endorsements from Trump allies with intense followings, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Greitens has portrayed himself as a foe of RINOs, which stands for “Republicans in name only.” He had faced criticism for releasing a campaign ad that shows him pretending to hunt down members of his own party with guns — a message his campaign monetized with “RINO hunting permits” to place on vehicle windows.
“We have to recognize we are in a fight against evil,” Greitens said at his Saturday rally in St. Charles County, where he condemned Republicans who he said had defied Trump’s effort to finish a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Blunt, whose retirement plans kicked off this primary, was one of the Republicans who disapproved of Trump’s decision to shuffle around defense funds to pay for the wall. And in March, after the release of an affidavit from Sheena Greitens accusing her ex-husband of abuse, Blunt had called on Greitens to quit the race.
Public and private polling, which has a spotty record in Missouri, found that the affidavit hurt Greitens. The ad campaign focused on the new charges, say strategists, helped Schmitt and Hartzler push ahead. And support for Team PAC, which had given Greitens air cover before the affidavit from his ex-wife, had dried up. In the closing stages of the race, some Greitens backers have waged smaller-scale efforts to help him prevail.
Blake Johnson, a 45-year old contractor, installed a fridge-size Greitens sign on the bed of his Ford F-350. Driving through St. Charles County, a Republican stronghold outside St. Louis, he’d tracked the support he saw for the ex-governor. “I had three people flip me off today, but they were all driving Priuses, so you assume they leaned left,” he said on Saturday. “I had 21 people give me a thumbs up.”
In late June, former U.S. attorney John Wood launched an independent Senate bid and called Greitens a “danger to our democracy,” convincing some Republicans that Greitens might lose a November election that anyone else in his party should win.
“It seems like Greitens might be dead now,” said Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce, a veteran and anti-monopoly campaigner running for his party’s nomination, at a Wednesday night town hall in Columbia. If Greitens lost on Tuesday, Kunce hoped that Wood and the GOP nominee might tumble into “a little civil war — the country club Republicans versus the Trump side.”
Other candidates in the crowded field have also pursued Trump’s backing and run in his mold. Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) has run a shoestring campaign while urging Trump to endorse him. Mark McCloskey, an attorney who became a Trump 2020 surrogate after pointing a rifle at Black Lives Matter protesters marching through his St. Louis neighborhood, is also in the race.
Hartzler and Schmitt have different conservative bona fides, and different strategies for winning. Earlier this year, Hartzler, the farmer-turned-legislator, was censored by Twitter — a badge of honor in GOP primaries — for an ad singling out transgender female athletes.
“Women’s sports are for women,” Hartzler said in the ad, which focused on University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas. “Not men pretending to be women.”
But on July 8, shortly after the Missouri Farm Bureau endorsed Hartzler, Trump posted an anti-endorsement of the candidate on his Truth Social website. “I don’t think she has what it takes to take on the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump wrote.
“Maybe he’s listened to some lies from my opponents,” Hartzler speculated in an interview on Friday, after a meet-and-greet at a restaurant in Missouri’s conservative Bootheel region.
About 60 voters showed up to eat ribs and talk policy at the Hickory Log Restaurant, a day after Greitens drew a smaller crowd. While she had called Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6 “unpresidential,” voters, she said, knew she supported his policy agenda.
“It’s caused my supporters to be even more energized,” Hartzler said of the Trump statement. “They have overwhelmingly said: Clearly, he doesn’t know you. We know you, and we want to fight even harder for you.”
As the primary drew closer, Schmitt had checked more of Trump’s boxes. After a Wednesday stop at a restaurant in Columbia, and after dodging questions about whether McConnell, whom Trump has criticized, should remain the GOP’s leader in the Senate, Schmitt took the same position as Trump, Greitens, Hartzler and McCloskey. It was time for McConnell to go.
“Mitch McConnell hasn’t endorsed me, and I don’t endorse him,” Schmitt told reporters after a stop at a restaurant in Columbia. The Senate needed “new leadership,” he added, and the GOP had “changed pretty dramatically” since the 80-year old McConnell got to the Senate.
As Schmitt and Greitens touted Trump’s words on Tuesday, other Missouri Republicans cracked a smile. Hartzler congratulated Eric McElroy, a comedian who filed for the Senate race but ran no visible campaign. “He’s having a big night!” Hartzler said in a statement.
State Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, whose campaign for the seat had received little traction, joked on Twitter that his name is Eric and he was “honored and humbled” to get the endorsement.
A bipartisan group of senators has unveiled compromise legislation to guarantee federal access to abortion, an effort to codify abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where it is unlikely to gain enough Republican support.
The legislation, co-authored by Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), is an attempt to create a middle ground on an issue that is largely pitting antiabortion Republicans against pro-abortion rights Democrats.
Since the Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June, 17 states have either outlawed or mostly banned abortion. A handful of other states are in the process of prohibiting abortion, and on Tuesday, Kansas will be the first state where voters are set to go the polls to determine whether the state will reverse the constitutional right to an abortion.
The compromise legislation unveiled Monday ensures federal abortion rights up to viability, and allows post-viability abortion when the health of the mother is in jeopardy. The statute does not specify what week is viability or what constitutes when a mother’s health is in danger. Both issues are to be defined by the pregnant person’s medical practitioner.
“It clearly uses viability as a key distinction,” Kaine said. “Pre-viability women should have significant freedom — a state can regulate but can’t put an undue burden. Post-viability, the state can regulate a lot more, but can never stop a woman from accessing an abortion for her life and health.”
The measure comes after Senate Democrats attempted to pass partisan legislation that would codify Roe. The vote in May, after a draft version of the Supreme Court decision was leaked, failed, gaining the support of 49 Democrats. One Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and all Republicans, voted against it, including Collins and Murkowksi because, they said, it went far beyond codifying Roe.
Kaine admits, however, that the proposal being unveiled Monday does not have the support of 10 Republicans needed for it to pass the Senate. Still, he said it’s an important marker in the conversation.
The bipartisan bill, called the Reproductive Freedom for All Act, also ensures access to contraception, which abortion advocates fear will be outlawed in some conservative states or that Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court case that granted a personal right to contraception, would be overturned. The bill also includes a conscience clause, which allows a provider to opt out of abortion services if it violates a religious belief, an issue that was important to Collins.
“There’s a majority of the U.S. Senate that wants to codify Roe v. Wade, and to leave the impression that there’s only a minority that wants to codify Roe v. Wade, I think, is that’s a weak position to be in,” Kaine said in an interview Monday.
“For five decades, reproductive health-care decisions were centered with the individual — we cannot go back in time in limiting personal freedoms for women,” Murkowski said in a statement.
It’s not clear that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would bring up the bill for a vote ahead of the midterm elections in November. There has been disagreement in the Democratic caucus on whether a bipartisan bill that has no chance of passage should be brought forward, which would make it more difficult for Democratic candidates to contrast themselves with Republicans. And many Democrats, Kaine said, would prefer the Democratic version of the bill, the Women’s Health Protection Act, which includes fewer limitations on abortion.
Kaine calls the bill the bare minimum.
“What the four of us were trying to do was put a statutory minimum in place that replicated what the law was a day before Dobbs,” he said.
Recent polling by The Washington Post-Schar School found that a majority of respondents — 58 percent — supported access to abortion until viability, including 77 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents. Just 34 percent of Republicans, however, supported it.
Abortion rights groups are critical of the proposal, in part because it won’t pass the Senate because of the 60-vote threshold in that chamber.
“This bill is just another political stunt that would not actually address the abortion rights and access crisis that has pushed care out of reach for millions of people already,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. “Unless these senators are willing to end the filibuster to pass this measure, there’s no reason to take it seriously.”
A side agreement reached between Democratic leadership and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) as part of their broader deal on an economic package would overhaul the nation’s process for approving new energy projects, including by expediting a gas pipeline proposed for West Virginia, according to a one-page summary obtained by The Washington Post.
To win Manchin’s support for the climate, energy and health-care package that was etched last week, Democratic leaders agreed to attempt to advance separate legislation on expediting energy projects. These changes would fall outside the bounds of the Senate budget procedure the party is using to pass its budget bill, making it impossible for Democrats to approve that with just 51 votes. The new agreement would require 60 votes to be approved and would need GOP support to be signed into law. Republicans have supported similar measures in the past, but the agreement could face defections from liberal Democrats, who have warned against making it easier to open new oil and gas projects.
The 100-seat Senate is now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but Vice President Harris can cast a tiebreaking vote.
The two-week scramble that saved Democrats’ climate agenda
The side deal would set new two-year limits, or maximum timelines, for environmental reviews for “major” projects, the summary says. It would also aim to streamline the government processes for deciding approvals for energy projects by centralizing decision-making with one lead agency, the summary adds. The bill would also attempt to clear the way for the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would transport Appalachian shale gas about 300 miles from West Virginia to Virginia. This pipeline is a key priority of Manchin’s.
Other provisions would limit legal challenges to energy projects and give the Energy Department more authority to approve electric transmission lines that are deemed to be “in the national interest,” according to the document. One provision in the agreement could make it harder for government agencies to deny new approvals based on certain environmental impacts that are not directly caused by the project itself, said Sean Marotta, a partner at the Hogan Lovells law firm who represents pipeline companies.
“This is a pretty vague outline, but if you had this kind of efficient streamlining it could lead to the necessary build-out of energy infrastructure not just for fossil fuels but for all types of energy that are necessary for reliability and decarbonization,” said Neil Chatterjee, former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
How the Schumer-Manchin climate deal might impact you and change the U.S.
Still, the agreement poses new challenges for Democratic lawmakers who are weighing these permitting changes as the necessary price to pay to secure Manchin’s support for hundreds of billions in new clean energy investments. Climate groups have largely said that trade is worthwhile, because Manchin’s vote on the broader package will unlock long-sought subsidies and tax credits for solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. But many Democrats have been wary. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said previously: “I really want to see all the details on the permitting. We all knew that any deal that would be struck between Schumer and Manchin would have a lot of fossil fuels in it. The question is on balance.”
The agreement appears to have been the only way to secure Manchin’s vote for the broader climate deal. Manchin had voiced concerns about approving hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for fossil fuel projects that could be defeated by red tape or climate lawsuits, and said the United States must do much more to avoid its dependence on authoritarian petrostates.
“Manchin holds all the cards here, and this is his ante,” said Liam Donovan, a GOP political strategist. “Democrats can only do so much under the reconciliation rules, so they inevitably have to look beyond the scope of the bill to seal the deal.”
The immediate reaction to the details of the agreement were mixed. Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank, pointed out that “it appears this deal does not circumvent the necessity of gathering information about the impacts of a proposed project,” meaning its environmental impact could be mitigated. She also pointed out that the broader energy package includes additional funding for agencies to review new energy projects.
In both public and private talks, Manchin has made clear that he views approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a top priority. Supporters have characterized it as a way to help make the United States an exporter of liquefied natural gas, which the United States is sending to help Europe amid the war in Ukraine.
Climate groups have opposed the project, with a 2017 analysis by Oil Change International, an advocacy group, finding that the greenhouse gas emissions from the Mountain Valley Pipeline would approximate 26 coal plants or 19 million passenger cars.
Democrats’ climate provisions would dwarf the impact of the West Virginia pipeline, in terms of their impact on emissions. The firm Energy Innovation found that greenhouse gas emissions would fall by as much as 41 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 with the bill.
“We must pass the Inflation Reduction Act if we want to get on track to cutting carbon pollution in half by a decade,” said Leah Stokes, an energy policy expert at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Without this legislation we don’t have a pathway to get there; with it, we have a fighting chance. There are provisions I don’t agree with, but we have to be clear-eyed: Failure is not an option right now. We have to get climate investments over the finish line.”
