Day: May 19, 2024

(NewsNation) — Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Sunday that he remains opposed to the bipartisan Senate immigration deal that was blocked in February when it was criticized by former President Trump.

Johnson said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” that additional legislation isn’t necessary.

“It’s not talked about much but the Supreme Court in 2018 said that current law exudes deference to the executive president. President Trump used that executive authority to secure the border. President Biden used that exact same executive authority to open it back up. So he had the executive authority, we didn’t need a border bill but we would have been happy to strengthen the authority,” Johnson said.

Under the initial proposal, migrants would not be able to apply for asylum at all if illegal border crossings reach certain numbers. The policy was similar to one first used by President Donald Trump. Known as Title 42, it justified the quick expulsion of migrants from the country in the name of stopping the spread of COVID-19.

The bill proposed a similar expulsion authority if the number of migrant encounters tallied by Customs and Border Protection reaches 4,000 a day over a five-day average across the Southern border. Once the number of encounters reaches 5,000, expulsions would automatically take effect.

Johnson accused Biden of wanting to “flood” the U.S. with migrants because “they will eventually vote for Democrats.”

The senator, without evidence, also accused an unnamed non-governmental organization (NGO) of instructing migrants to vote for Biden in the 2024 presidential election.

“We know that an NGO, you know that some American taxpayers are funding some of these NGOs, are literally giving the migrants before they come to the U.S. a piece of paper that says ‘When you get to America, vote for Joe Biden.’ So I think it’s pretty obvious what the Democrats trying to do here.”

(NewsNation) — Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is urging Americans to vote for her in states where she is still on the ballot, to send a message to the Democratic nominee President Joe Biden.

Williamson joined NewsNation’s “Morning in America” to discuss her role in the 2024 election, despite suspending her campaign in February and then “unsuspending” it after beating Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) in the Michigan primaries.

Despite Biden having secured the Democratic nomination, Williamson says there is still a way for voters to send a message to Biden.

“The President has won the nomination, that’s not the question here. The issue is that in the states where I am still on the ballot, people still have the opportunity to weigh in with their views on how America should operate,” Williamson said. “We need universal health care, we need tuition, free college and tech school, we need a guaranteed living wage.”

“It’s not just the Democratic Party, the system is bleeding voters because people are disgusted. People recognize that both major political parties don’t, in the final analysis, seem so much to be serving the people or serving democracy so much as serving their own donor base,” Williamson said.

Williamson first ran for president in 2020 and made national headlines by calling for a “moral uprising” against then-President Donald Trump while proposing the creation of the Department of Peace. She also argued that the federal government should pay large financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.

Her second White House bid featured the same nontraditional campaigning style and many of the same policy proposals. But she struggled to raise money and was plagued by staff departures from her bid’s earliest stages.

BEIRUT (AP) — The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister on Sunday sent shock waves around the region.

Details remained scant in the hours after the incident, and it was unclear if Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the other officials had survived.

Here’s what we know so far.

WHO WAS ON BOARD THE HELICOPTER AND WHERE WERE THEY GOING?

The helicopter was carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Raisi was returning from a trip to Iran’s border with Azerbaijan earlier Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, the news agency said.

WHERE AND HOW DID THE HELICOPTER GO DOWN?

The helicopter apparently crashed or made an emergency landing in the Dizmar forest between the cities of Varzaqan and Jolfa in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, near its border with Azerbaijan, under circumstances that remain unclear. Initially, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the helicopter “was forced to make a hard landing due to the bad weather and fog.”

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE SEARCH OPERATIONS?

Iranian officials have said the mountainous, forested terrain and heavy fog impeded search-and-rescue operations. The president of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, said 40 search teams were on the ground in the area despite “challenging weather conditions.” The search is being done by teams on the ground, as “the weather conditions have made it impossible to conduct aerial searches” via drones, Koulivand said, according to IRNA.

IF RAISI DIED IN THE CRASH, HOW MIGHT THIS IMPACT IRAN?

Raisi is seen as a protégé to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor for his position within the country’s Shiite theocracy. Under the Iranian constitution, if he died, the country’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, would become president. Khamenei has publicly assured Iranians that there would be “no disruption to the operations of the country” as a result of the crash.

WHAT HAS THE INTERNATIONAL REACTION BEEN?

Countries including Russia, Iraq and Qatar have made formal statements of concern about Raisi’s fate and offered to assist in the search operations.

Azerbaijani President Aliyev said he was “deeply concerned” to hear of the incident, and affirmed that Azerbaijan was ready to provide any support necessary. Relations between the two countries have been chilly due to Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, Iran’s regional arch-enemy.

Saudi Arabia, which is traditionally a rival of Iran although the two countries have recently made a rapprochement, also expressed concern in a statement and said it “stands by Iran in these difficult circumstances.”

There was no immediate official reaction from Israel. Last month, following an Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus that killed two Iranian generals, Tehran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. They were mostly shot down and tensions have apparently since subsided.

People in Iran are setting off fireworks after hearing that the helicopter of the President of the Islamic Regime in Iran has crashed pic.twitter.com/1LxgDMAzR0

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 19, 2024