Nov. 15, 2022 US election coverage

Our live coverage of the 2022 midterm elections has moved. You can follow the latest news and results here.

Former President Donald Trump has launched another White House bid.

Prosecutors, investigators and lawmakers in Washington, DC, New York, Georgia, Florida and across the United States are among those who will be interested in what Trump has to say about the myriad legal issues facing the former president, his business and his allies.

Multiple federal and state investigations are ongoing regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, his handling of sensitive government documents and his family business.

Trump and his company deny any wrongdoing or criminality in all matters, state and federal, and have aggressively maintained innocence. Trump has also won dismissals of two lawsuits this week in cases brought by his niece and his former attorney.

Here’s an updated list of notable investigations, lawsuits and controversies:

Mar-a-Lago documents: Did Trump mishandle classified material? The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were brought to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury in Washington has been empaneled and has interviewed potential witnesses to how Trump handled the documents. The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

2020 Election and Jan. 6 insurrection: Probes by the House select committee: The House select committee investigating the US Capitol attack has uncovered dramatic evidence of Trump’s actions before and on Jan. 6, especially efforts to use the levers of government to overturn the election. The committee is expected to issue a report before the end of the year, presumably marking the end of its investigation — especially if the Republicans take over the House of Representatives.

2020 Election and Jan. 6 insurrection: Justice Department investigation: The Justice Department has an investigation of its own into the post-2020 election period. While the DOJ has not acted publicly during the so-called quiet period leading up to the midterms, a grand jury in Washington has been hearing from witnesses. Recently, the DOJ moved to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin.

Read about the other notable legal obstacles Trump faces here.

Republicans are one seat away from winning the 218 seats necessary to claim a House majority, according to CNN projections.

As control of the House still hangs in the balance, the GOP on Tuesday voted to nominate California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader since 2019, for speaker. 

Here’s where things stand right now in House races:  

Democrats would need to win all of the 11 remaining races to retain control.

Here’s a look at what races have not been called yet:

CNN’s Andrew Menezes, Maeve Reston, Eric Bradner and Renée Rigdon contributed reporting to this post.

Complaining about how he is under criminal investigation for taking presidential documents to his Florida home and resort, former President Donald Trump repeated a debunked claim about former President Barack Obama’s handling of presidential documents. 

“Obama took a lot of things with him,” Trump said Tuesday night. 

Facts First: This is false – as the National Archives and Records Administration pointed out in August when Trump previously made this claim. Though Trump claimed that Obama had taken millions of records to Chicago, NARA explained in a public statement that it had itself taken these records to a NARA-managed facility in the Chicago area – which is near where Obama’s presidential library will be located. It said that, as per federal law, “former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration.” 

NARA has also debunked Trump’s recent claims about various other presidents having supposedly taken documents to their own home states. In those cases, too, it was NARA that moved the documents, not the former presidents. It is standard for NARA to set up temporary facilities near where former presidents’ permanent libraries will eventually be located. 

Former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday evening that his administration, unlike former President Barack Obama’s administration, had convinced countries like Guatemala and Honduras to take back their gang members that had come to America.  

“The worst gangs are MS-13. And under the Barack Hussein Obama administration, they were unable to take them out. Because their countries where they came from wouldn’t take them,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago. 

Facts First: It’s not true that, as a rule, Guatemala and Honduras wouldn’t take back their citizens during President Barack Obama’s administration, though there were some individual exceptions.  

In 2016, just prior to Trump’s presidency, neither Guatemala nor Honduras was on the list of countries that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) considered “recalcitrant,” or uncooperative, in accepting the return of their nationals.  

For the 2016 fiscal year, Obama’s last full fiscal year in office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported Guatemala and Honduras ranked second and third, behind only Mexico, in terms of the country of citizenship of people being removed from the US. You can read a longer fact check, from 2019, here. 

As he has on other occasions during President Joe Biden’s tenure, former President Donald Trump used misleading figures when discussing the price of gas on Tuesday night.

He said: “We were $1.87 a gallon for gasoline, and now it’s sitting five, six, seven and even eight dollars, and it’s gonna go really bad.” 

Facts First: This is misleading. While the price of a gallon of regular gas did briefly fall to $1.87 (and lower) during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the national average for regular gas on Trump’s last day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, was much higher than that – $2.393 per gallon, according to data provided to CNN by the American Automobile Association. And while there are some remote gas stations where prices are always much higher than the national average, the national average today is $3.759, per AAA data, not $5, $6, $7 or $8. California, the state with the highest prices, as usual, has an average of $5.423. 

Ivanka Trump listens during an event in Washington, DC, on August 4, 2020.

Minutes after Donald Trump announced another run for the White House, Ivanka Trump released a statement to CNN, saying she didn’t plan to be involved in the campaign. 

CNN was first to report last week that Trump’s daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, would not campaign on behalf of Donald Trump. 

She added: “I am grateful to have had the honor of serving the American people and I will always be proud of many of our Administration’s accomplishments.”

Former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that a missile that was “sent in probably by Russia” landed 50 miles into Poland. “People are going absolutely wild and crazy and they’re not happy,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago.  

Facts First: This claim is false. While Poland says a Russian-made missile did land in their territory Tuesday, killing two Polish citizens, the explosion happened about four miles west from the Ukrainian border.  

Additionally, it remains unclear where the missile was fired from, and why it fell in Poland. 

Rep. Josh Harder speaking at an event in Washington, DC, on January 16, 2020.

Incumbent Democratic Rep. Josh Harder will win in California’s 9th District, CNN projects, defeating Republican Tom Patti. This is a Democratic hold.

Here is where things stand now in House races:

Republicans are one seat away from winning the 218 seats necessary to claim a House majority, according to CNN projections.

Former President Donald Trump claimed in his speech Tuesday that unnamed people aren’t talking about the threat of nuclear weapons because they are obsessed with environmental issues, which he said “they say may affect us in 300 years.” He added, “They say the ocean will rise 1/8 of an inch over the next 200 to 300 years. But don’t worry about nuclear weapons that can take out entire countries with one shot.” 

Facts First: Trump’s claims are false – even if you ignore the absurd contention that people aren’t paying attention to nuclear threats because they’re focused on the environment. Sea levels are expected to rise much faster than Trump said. The US government’s National Ocean Service says on its website that “sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to rise, on average, 10 - 12 inches (0.25 - 0.30 meters) in the next 30 years (2020 - 2050), which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920 - 2020).”  

And though Trump didn’t use the words “climate change” in this claim, he strongly suggested that people say climate change may only affect us in 300 years. That is grossly inaccurate; it is affecting the US today. The Department of Defense said in a 2021 report: “Increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks and creating new security challenges for U.S. interests.” 

Former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had told him that China has no “drug problem” at all because of its harsh treatment of drug traffickers. Trump then repeated the claim himself, saying, “if you get caught dealing drugs in China you have an immediate and quick trial, and by the end of the day, you are executed. That’s a terrible thing, but they have no drug problem.” 

Facts First: Trump’s claim is not true, just as it was when he made similar claims as president. Joe Amon, director of global health at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, said that “yes, China has a drug problem” and that “China, like the US, has a large number of people who use (a wide range of) drugs.” The Chinese government has itself reported that “there were 1.49 million registered drug users nationwide” as of the end of 2021; in the past, officials in China have acknowledged that the number of registered drug users is a significant undercount of actual drug use there.  

And while Trump solely credits harsh punishments for what he claims is China’s success in handling drugs, the Chinese government also touts its rehabilitation, education and anti-poverty efforts. 

Former President Trump announces that he will run for president in the 2024 election.

See photos from the event where former President Donald Trump announced that he will be seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for the 2024 election.

The announcement was made at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

A woman in attendance carries a MAGA purse, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

Members of Trump's family listen to his speech.

Trump’s paperwork establishing his candidacy landed with the Federal Election Committee shortly before he delivered his announcement.

People gather before former Trump’s announcement.

Trump arrives with his wife, former first lady Melania Trump.

See more photos of Trump’s life and career.

Costa speaks during a news conference outside the Capitol on May 12

Incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Costa will win California’s 21st District, CNN projects, defeating Republican Michael Maher. This is a Democratic hold.

Calvert leaves a House GOP caucus meeting in Washington on September 20.

Republican Rep. Ken Calvert will win in California’s 41st District, CNN projects, defeating Democrat Will Rollins. This is a Republican hold.

Former President Donald Trump addressed the disappointing Republican showing in the midterms during his presidential announcement tonight, deflecting blame by saying that voters had not appreciated the gravity of the pain the nation was enduring.

He went on to predict a different outcome in 2024.

“I have no doubt that by 2024, it will sadly be much worse and they will see much more clearly what happened and what is happening to our country and the voting will be much different,” Trump said.

Former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday evening that the US left $85 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan upon its military withdrawal in 2021.

“Perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, where we lost lives, left Americans behind and surrendered $85 billion worth of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” Trump said speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Facts First: Trump’s figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan government forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion — a chunk of about $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew.  

There is not any basis for Trump’s claim that $85 billion worth of equipment was left behind. As other fact-checkers have previously explained, that was a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress has appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. Only part of this funding was for equipment. 

Former President Donald Trump claimed his administration “filled up” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but it has now been “virtually drained” by the Biden administration.  

Facts First: Both parts of Trump’s claim are false. He didn’t fill up the reserve, and the reserve is not currently “virtually drained.” 

Though Trump has repeatedly boasted of supposedly having filled up the reserve, it actually contained fewer barrels of crude when he left office in early 2021 than when he took office in 2017. That’s not all because of him — the law requires some mandatory sales from the reserve for budget reasons, and Democrats in Congress blocked the funding needed to execute Trump’s 2020 directive to buy tens of millions more barrels and fill the reserve to its maximum capacity — but nonetheless, it didn’t get filled. 

As CNN’s Matt Egan and Phil Mattingly reported in mid-October, the US reserve remains the largest in the world even though it was at a 38-year low after Biden released a major chunk of it to help keep oil prices down in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and, coincidentally or not, prior to the midterm elections). The reserve had more than 396 million barrels of crude oil as of the week ending Nov. 4. 

As his predecessor announced a third run for the White House, President Joe Biden tweeted: “Donald Trump failed America.”

The tweet from Biden’s official account included a video lambasting Trump’s record in office, including his economic, jobs, health care, “coddling extremists,” “attacking women’s rights,” and “inciting a violent mob.”

The message came midway through Trump’s announcement speech from Mar-a-Lago.

Biden also sent a text message fundraising appeal to the Democratic National Committee’s text list.

“It’s President Biden, and this is urgent. Trump just announced he’s running for president again. Can you rush $20 to the DNC? txt.democrats.org/fg2” the text said.

Former President Donald Trump boasted about his tariffs on China during his speech Tuesday, claiming, “no president had ever sought or received $1 for our country from China until I came along.” 

Facts First: As we have written repeatedly, it’s not true that no president before Trump had generated any revenue through tariffs on goods from China. In reality, the US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries, and FactCheck.org reported in 2019 that the US generated an “average of $12.3 billion in custom duties a year from 2007 to 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb.”

Also, American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments — and study after study during Trump’s presidency found that Americans were bearing the cost of the tariffs. 

Former President Donald Trump announced another run for the White House in remarks from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. 

“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said.

Trump’s paperwork establishing his candidacy landed with the Federal Election Committee shortly before he delivered his announcement.

Trump’s long-awaited campaign comes as the former president tries to reclaim the spotlight following the GOP’s underwhelming midterm elections performance – including the losses of several Trump-endorsed election deniers – and the subsequent blame game that has unfolded since Election Day. Republicans failed to gain a Senate majority, came up short in their efforts to fill several statewide seats, and have yet to secure a House majority, with only 215 races called in their favor so far out of the 218 needed, developments that have forced Trump and other party leaders into a defensive posture as they face reproval from within their ranks.

But Trump is also betting that his first-out-of-the gate strategy will fend off potential primary rivals and give him an early advantage with deep-pocketed donors, aides say. He is widely expected to be challenged by both conservative and moderate Republicans, though the calculus of some presidential hopefuls could change now that he is running. Others – like his former Vice President, Mike Pence – may proceed anyway.

Read more about Trump’s 2024 bid here and hear him announce his candidacy below:

957520e2-6f1e-41b0-beb7-3ed4bdedd505.mp4

01:37 • Source: CNN