Latest news with #AmericansAdvancingFreedom
Fox News
02-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Pence group lashes out at Trump tariffs ahead of 'Liberation Day' event: 'Tax on American consumers'
Former Vice President Mike Pence's policy advocacy organization came out against President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day," arguing his tariff plans "are essentially a tax on American consumers and businesses." In a post on X on Wednesday, along with a letter to Congress, the group Americans Advancing Freedom (AAF) stated the tariffs "are essentially a tax on American consumers and businesses." This marks one of the rare occasions when the group, founded in 2021 based on the principles of Trump's first term, has opposed his policies. "Congress has a constitutional responsibility to reclaim its authority over taxation," AAF's general counsel Marc Wheat wrote in the letter. Wheat said Congress could achieve this by passing Sen. Mike Lee's Article One Act, which was introduced in 2023 under the Biden administration. The bill would require Congress to approve national emergency declarations declared by the president within 30 days as well as place other barriers around such orders. "The Framers knew from experience the dangers of abuse of the taxing power," Wheat wrote. Trump is expected to roll out his plan for reciprocal tariffs, which would impose higher taxes on countries that export goods to the U.S. on Wednesday afternoon, dubbing it "Liberation Day." "April 2, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Tuesday's White House press briefing. "Our country has been one of the most open economies in the world, and we have the consumer base, hands down – the best consumer base. But too many foreign countries have their markets closed to our exports. This is fundamentally unfair." "The lack of reciprocity contributes to our large and persistent annual trade deficit that's gutted our industries and hollowed out key workforces," she continued. "But those days of America, beginning tomorrow, being ripped off, are over. American workers and businesses will be put first under President Trump, just as he promised on the campaign trail." The White House has been discreet about Trump's planned tariff announcement, only explaining reciprocal tariffs will restore fairness to U.S. trading after decades of disproportionate trade deals with other countries. "I think it's going to be something that's going to bring a lot of wealth back to our country, tremendous wealth back to our country, actually," Trump told the media Monday. "And, other countries are understanding, because they've been ripping us for 50 years, longer." Trump and his administration said the tariff plan will boost business in the U.S. by encouraging companies to establish operations on American soil to bypass the tariffs, thereby creating job opportunities for American workers. In February, Trump signed executive orders imposing 25% tariffs on most goods imported from Canada and Mexico – citing national security concerns related to drug trafficking and illegal immigration – with Canadian oil and energy exports facing a 10% tariff.
Fox News
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Clinton-era law 'weaponized' by Biden against pro-lifers must go, Pence group urges House GOP
FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence's nonprofit conservative coalition, Americans Advancing Freedom (AAF), is urging House Republicans to "end the weaponization" of a Clinton-era law that they say unfairly targets pro-life activists. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in May 1994. The FACE Act made it a federal crime to use force, threats or obstruction to interfere with individuals seeking or providing abortion services, which includes blocking access to clinics, threatening or using violence against patients or clinic workers, and damaging abortion-related property. In one of his first actions since taking office, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen pro-life activists who were serving multiyear sentences for participating in 2020 pro-life demonstrations at abortion clinics. Three of those pardoned were elderly. The Biden administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) had charged them with violating the FACE Act. Trump said during the pardons that the advocates "should not have been prosecuted." "Congress must do its part to support President Trump's effort to end the weaponization of government by repealing the FACE Act in its entirety," reads the AAF memo, sent to Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday afternoon. "There's no question that the Biden Administration weaponized the FACE Act against pro-life Americans." "During the Biden Administration, pro-life Americans faced early morning SWAT team raids, unjust prison sentences, and alleged mistreatment while in custody," the memo continues. Last month, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight held a hearing, "Entering the Golden Age: Ending the Weaponization of the Justice Department," where Peter Breen, the executive vice president and head of litigation at the Christian nonprofit law firm Thomas More Society, testified that one of his clients was subject to such SWAT raids and a lengthy prison sentence. "The Biden DOJ engaged in a systematic campaign to abuse the power of the federal government against pro-life advocates, while that same DOJ ignored hundreds of acts of vandalism and violence against pro-life churches, pregnancy help centers, and other advocates," Breen said. While the tide is turning in a different direction from the previous administration's pro-abortion agenda, conservative lawmakers are now looking at the FACE Act as the next step in the pro-life movement. In January, Trump also revoked two previous executive orders from the Biden administration that expanded abortion services. The new order reaffirms the policy established by the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal taxpayer dollars for elective abortions. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, re-introduced legislation in January around the same time to repeal the law. Roy's office presented data indicating that 97% of FACE Act prosecutions between 1994 and 2024 targeted pro-life individuals. He is supported in this effort by 32 co-sponsors in the House, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced companion legislation in the Senate. In 2023, several media outlets reported that under the Biden administration, the DOJ initiated at least 15 criminal cases under the FACE Act involving approximately 46 pro-life defendants since January 2021, with victims in all but one case being abortion-rights supporters.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘A sign of a sickness': abortion opponents grapple with RFK Jr. nomination
The nation's leading anti-abortion groups are holding their fire in the battle over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to lead the government's health agencies, despite harboring serious concerns about his past support for abortion rights. Their reluctance to oppose Kennedy stems in part from the deference the anti-abortion movement feels it owes Trump after he nominated the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and took a slew of anti-abortion actions last week. But movement leaders acknowledge they remain worried that the Kennedy pick, particularly after Trump sought distance from the movement during his 2024 campaign, could also forebode a presidency less supportive of their goals than Trump's first. With Kennedy set to face senators at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday — and no clear indication yet of whether he has the 50 votes he'll need to become health secretary — only one conservative group has publicly opposed him because of his abortion stances. Its leaders are frustrated their fellow abortion opponents aren't joining them. 'Our role really is to ask conservatives to take the life issue seriously and to not sweep it under the rug for political expediency,' said Tim Chapman, who leads Americans Advancing Freedom. 'If [anti-abortion groups] are not able to do that, that shows a sign of a sickness within the conservative movement itself.' Co-founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, Americans Advancing Freedom is urging senators to vote against Kennedy's confirmation, arguing his history of supporting abortion rights is disqualifying. No other anti-abortion group has done the same, though none has endorsed Kennedy, either. Many leaders in the movement told POLITICO they are waiting to see what he says in his hearing before the Senate Finance Committee to decide their stance. 'We just need some reassurance,' Marjorie Dannenfelser, the leader of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told POLITICO on Friday at the March for Life in Washington. 'His answers to senators have basically been, 'My policies will be the Trump administration's policies.'' Lila Rose, the leader of the anti-abortion group Live Action, put it more bluntly. 'If RFK doesn't firmly pledge to take basic pro-life actions, it will be disqualifying,' she said. 'And if he's going to, in any way, get in the way of the pro-life agenda and protecting life, then it's completely disqualifying.' Yet some anti-abortion leaders like what they've heard so far from Kennedy, and said they're increasingly optimistic he will be an ally if confirmed. Students for Life of America, for instance, hopes their claims that abortion pills are contaminating the environment will resonate with him. 'Is he a 100 percent, dyed-in-the-wool pro-life activist? No, we all know that,' Kristan Hawkins, the group's president, said in an interview. 'But I feel confident enough in the position that I'm arguing about drinking water pollution — that's going to perk up his ears.' If confirmed, Kennedy would play a key role in shaping the Trump administration's abortion policies. The 'basic pro-life actions' Rose and other anti-abortion leaders are demanding include rules that limit the availability of abortion pills or ban them, as well as the elimination of several Biden executive orders that expanded access to the procedure and protected the privacy of abortion patients. The nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services said he supported removing nearly all government restrictions on abortion less than a year ago when he was running for president, though he later walked it back. Kennedy has since told Senate Republicans that he would be there to serve Trump's policy agenda, not his own — an argument that seemed to satisfy even Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), previously a Southern Baptist minister who describes himself as 'the Senate's most pro-life member.' Kennedy's nomination has become a test of Trump's influence on people inside and outside of government who might have been expected to oppose him. Major health care industry groups have declined to publicly call on senators to reject Kennedy despite his vociferous criticism of them. The American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday said it was sharing with senators stories about the importance of vaccination, tying the outreach to Kennedy's confirmation hearings, but stopped short of opposing him. Conservative senators have found reasons to overlook his more progressive ideas, to the consternation of anti-abortion activists like Chapman. 'If you're a pro-life senator, and you've run on that issue year after year, I just think you have an obligation to go the extra mile on this one,' he said. The anti-abortion movement's quandary with Kennedy mirrors its uneasy alliance with Trump, who called himself 'very pro-choice' before running for president, then nominated three of the judges who overturned Roe v. Wade — only to reject many anti-abortion advocates' top priorities during his 2024 campaign. Trump recently vowed, for example, that his FDA wouldn't block access to abortion pills. Since taking office for the second time, however, Trump has won back the trust of many anti-abortion leaders by reimposing restrictions on international health programs, threatening to withdraw from the World Health Organization — which has asserted that abortion is an essential health care service — and pardoning nearly two dozen people convicted of forcibly entering and temporarily shutting down abortion clinics. 'It's incredibly tough right now for a lot of pro-life groups or even conservative groups to even think of going against what the administration wants,' Chapman said. 'The Kennedy nomination is in many ways a proxy for that [Trump] question: What is our commitment as Republicans to the pro-life movement today?'
