FBI Visits McConnell Headquarters in Ashley Judd Tape Investigation

Office of Sen. Mitch McConnell(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) -- Federal investigators visited Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s campaign headquarters in Louisville on Wednesday, and campaign staffers handed over information pertinent to the investigation of a leaked tape that revealed the campaign’s strategy against potential challenger Ashley Judd, a source connected to the McConnell campaign tells ABC News.

The visit is a sign that the leak is being considered seriously by the FBI, which was alerted to the incident Tuesday. McConnell, R-Ky., has suggested that liberal forces in Kentucky bugged his campaign headquarters and leaked a tape of a strategy session to Mother Jones magazine.

In a radio interview, campaign manager Jesse Benton told Mike Huckabee that FBI agents were at headquarters for about an hour.

“They tell us that they’re running down some leads,” Benton said. “For various reasons they need to be very cautious about what they share with me and then what I’m allowed to share on the public side. I can’t comment any further, but this is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

The McConnell campaign is committed to making sure “this is prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” according to Benton, who was among the aides in the room for the session that was captured on tape.

The tape revealed the McConnell campaign’s plan to attack Judd as “emotionally unbalanced,” and to focus on her religious beliefs. Judd last month announced that she would not seek the Democratic Senate nomination, after several months of publicly flirting with a run.

In the aftermath of the tape’s release, McConnell has attacked the political left for what he called “Nixonian tactics” of bugging his campaign headquarters, though it’s still not clear who made the tape and who distributed it. The campaign is already fundraising off of the controversy.

Also on Wednesday, Benton claimed Mother Jones mistakenly transcribed the speaker at the beginning of the presentation. He said the line, “So I just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through” should instead read, “So I just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, in their free time, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through.”

“Jesse” may refer to Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager, but the word “LA” probably refers to legislative aides or legislative assistants, people who work in McConnell’s senate office.

The distinction is important, because the line Mother Jones reported raised the question of whether McConnell’s aides violated campaign law.

ABC News reporters listened to the recording several times but could not make a definitive judgment on what was said.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Ashley Judd ‘Seriously Considering’ Senate Bid

Mike Coppola/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Actress Ashley Judd is “seriously considering” running for Senate, according to Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear.

Beshear, a Democrat, spoke with Judd on the phone last week about her potential Senate bid which would pit her against Republican rival and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“I talked to her again the other day, she called me and we had a good conversation,” Beshear said at a press conference with local reporters on Tuesday.

Though the governor did not go into specifics about their chat, he did say that Judd is “seriously considering a race for the United States Senate and the Democratic primary.”  Beshear told local reporters that the actress would be an “effective and formidable opponent” against McConnell in a general election.

Beshear is not the only Kentuckian convinced that Judd might take a stab at politics.  Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, a big supporter of Judd, told ABC News, “I would be surprised if she doesn’t run at this point.”

“My impression is this is something she wants to do, and she is now taking the time to make the contacts she needs to make throughout the state to try and generate commitments of support and in some cases fundraising,” Yarmuth said.  “She is certainly acting like a candidate, a potential candidate."

Though Judd has neither confirmed nor denied a run in the 2014 Senate cycle, the actress has already received criticism from Republican opponents.  Just last month, she was the subject of an attack video posted online by a conservative super PAC, American Crossroads, who called her an “Obama-following, radical Hollywood liberal.”

The Hollywood starlet has captured the attention of young Kentuckians but it seems as if now McConnell is trying to do the same. On Wednesday, his campaign team released a “Harlem Shake” video on YouTube. Though McConnell does not appear in the video himself, a giant McConnell head is dancing aside a slew of patriotically dressed Harlem Shakers at Churchill Downs, the thoroughbred racetrack known as the Home of the Kentucky Derby.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Politicians Prepare for Long Haul After Automatic Spending Cuts

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The White House and congressional leaders are giving no indication that the $85 billion in mandatory across-the-board federal spending cuts known as the sequester will be lifted any time soon.

Two days have passed since President Obama signed the order to reduce the budget of most government programs by between 5 percent and 7 percent, but with weeks remaining for sequestration’s stronger effects to gradually fester, politicians confirmed today that the near future will amount to yet another game of chicken in the nation’s capitol, maybe indefinitely.

On ABC’s This Week, White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said he expected Republican opposition on Capitol Hill to eventually succumb to constituent pressure.

“My belief is that as this pain starts to gradually spread to communities affected by military spending, to children who need mental health services, to people who care about our border security, I believe that more Republican colleagues who are concerned about this harm to their constituents will choose bipartisan compromise on revenue raising tax reform with serious entitlement reform,” he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

The White House says Obama spent Saturday on the phone with senators from both parties searching for a compromise.

But in an interview aired on NBC this morning, House Speaker John Boehner admitted that while he wasn’t sure how the government’s ongoing fiscal woes could be resolved, after months of dire warnings from both sides it was unclear whether sequestration would even have a negative consequence.

“I don’t know whether it’s going to hurt the economy or not,” he said. “I don’t think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

As the Friday deadline passed, both parties remained at an impasse over the central question that has plagued this debate for over a year: Whether to include new tax revenue in a broader deficit reduction deal.

The White House has insisted on more revenue through the closing of tax loopholes that benefit top income brackets. Meanwhile, Republicans have largely balked at the idea, although their leadership has indicated they could agree to new revenue under the condition it was used solely on the deficit — not to finance new government spending.

Today Boehner stuck to his party’s stance that they had already yielded revenue to the president during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, which saw income taxes increase on household income over $450,000.

“The president got $650 billion of higher taxes on the American people on January the first,” he said. “How much more does he want?”

On CNN the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, was asked if he could assure the sequester wasn’t here to stay.

“I’m absolutely confident we’re going to reduce spending the amount of money that we promised the American people we would in the law the president signed a year-and-a-half ago,” he responded.

Some Capitol Hill watchers suggest the cuts may remain in place until at least the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. Meanwhile, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 750,000 jobs could be lost if the sequester is allowed to be fully implemented and the country’s GDP would shrink by up to half of a percent.

While the parties continue to duke it out over these budget cuts, at least one crisis appears to have been averted: On Friday, Democrats and Republicans appear to have agreed to not allow the sequester to get in the way of negotiations to continue full funding for the federal government. The funds are slated to run out on March 27.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Obama’s "Jedi Mind Meld" a Sci Fi Faux Pas

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) -- It had no real bearing on his press conference about the very serious matter of the U.S. deficit and the upcoming sequester, but the President showed himself to be neither committed Trekkie nor Star Wars fanboy at a White House press conference Friday.

After an hour-long meeting between Democrats and Republicans ended without any resolution to the dreaded sequester that is set to kick in Friday, a reporter asked the president why he didn’t lock congressional leaders in a room and make them work until there was a deal.

Here’s how he responded:

I am not a dictator, I’m the president.

So ultimately, if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say “we need to go to catch a plane,” I can’t have Secret Service block the doorway, right?

(Cross talk.)

No, no, I understand. And — and I — and I — I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington that somehow, even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow, you know, do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.

Well, you know, they’re elected. We have a — a constitutional system of government. The speaker of the House and the leader of the Senate and all those folks have responsibilities.

What I can do is I can make the best possible case for why we need to do the right thing. I can speak to the American people about the consequences of the decisions this Congress is making or the lack of decision-making by Congress.

Wait. Jedi mind meld? There are Jedi mind tricks, of course, from Star Wars. And there is Vulcan Mind Meld, from Star Trek. But in equating the two, the president erred. He mixed Star Wars and Star Trek.

The people who spend a lot of time on Twitter in the middle of the day, naturally got immediately diverted from sequestration and decided instead to poke fun at the Sci-Fi/Fantasy conflagration by the commander-in-chief.

Of course, there is an argument that he could be forgiven for the mix-up. The two franchises will now sort of be linked since Star Trek reboot director J.J. Abrams is signed on to direct a Star Wars reboot.

If America can bring Star Wars and Star Trek together like that, why can’t she fix the deficit?

Obama complained that Republicans won’t negotiate with him. House Speaker John Boehner, appearing at his own press conference up on Capitol Hill, said Republicans wouldn’t accept any more addition revenue -- taxes -- as part of any deficit reduction plan. They accepted some earlier this year as part of a deal to extend Bush era tax cuts for most Americans.

Obama rattled off the things he would accept as long as Republicans would accept more revenue.

“Give me an example of what I’m supposed to do,” he said to a reporter, suggesting the White House and Republicans just can’t find an earthly way to agree.

Maybe Obama could use a bit of the Force to achieve a bit of mind meld.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Obama, Republican Leaders to Meet as Sequester Cuts Look Likely

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The budget ax is about to fall, and there's little lawmakers in Washington are doing to stop it.

Despite a parade of dire warnings from the White House, an $85 billion package of deep automatic spending cuts appears poised to take effect on Friday.

The cuts -- known in Washington as the sequester -- will hit every federal budget, from defense to education, and even the president's own staff.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats and Republicans each staged votes on Thursday aimed at substituting the indiscriminate across-the-board cuts with more sensible ones.  Democrats also called for including new tax revenue in the mix.  Both measures failed.

Leaders on both sides publicly conceded that the effort was largely for show, with little chance the opposing chamber would embrace the other's plan.  They will discuss their differences with President Obama at the White House on Friday.

"It isn't a plan at all, it's a gimmick," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday of the Democrats' legislation.

"Republicans call the plan flexibility" in how the cuts are made, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  "Let's call it what it is.  It is a punt."

The budget crisis is the product of a longstanding failure of Congress and the White House to compromise on plans for deficit reduction.  The sequester itself, enacted in late 2011, was intended to be so unpalatable as to help force a deal.

Republicans and Democrats, however, remain gridlocked over the issue of taxes.

Obama has mandated that any steps to offset the automatic cuts must include new tax revenue through the elimination of loopholes and deductions.  House Speaker John Boehner and the GOP insist the approach should be spending cuts-only, modifying the package to make it more reasonable.

"Do we want to close loopholes?  We sure do.  But if we are going to do tax reform, it should focus on creating jobs, not funding more government," Boehner said, explaining his opposition to Obama's plan.

Boehner, McConnell, Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will huddle with Obama at the White House on Friday for the first face-to-face meeting of the group this year.

"There are no preconditions to a meeting like this," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Thursday.  "The immediate purpose of the meeting is to discuss the imminent sequester deadline and to avert it."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Obama to Meet with Congressional Leaders After Sequester

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- They are finally going to have a meeting.

A congressional source with direct knowledge of the plans tells ABC News' Jonathan Karl that the top four congressional leaders -- Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- will meet with President Obama at the White House on Friday to attempt to negotiate a way to avoid the across-the-board spending cuts that both sides have said should be avoided.

This meeting -- the very first one the president has had with Republican leaders to talk about the across-the-board cuts known as the sequester -- will come after the cuts actually go into effect, which is midnight Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney would not confirm the meeting, but the source tells ABC News that the White House reached out to the Congressional leadership on Tuesday afternoon to request the meeting.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

McConnell: President Is Offering 'Armageddon or Tax Hikes' to Avert Sequester

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said President Obama is offering only two options to avert the looming sequestration cuts -- “Armageddon or tax hikes.”

“Instead of engaging with us, the president just set up more roadblocks,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “For more than a year he resisted and dismissed every Republican attempt at a compromise. He refused to offer any kind of reasonable alternatives and he even threatened to veto any other proposals aimed at averting the sequester. And now, here we are and with the president presenting the country with two options. Armageddon or a tax hike.”

“Well it’s a false choice and he knows it.  But then the president is master at creating the impression of chaos as an excuse for government action. Do nothing, fan the flames of catastrophe and then claim the only way out is more government in the form of higher taxes,” he continued.

McConnell criticized Obama for traveling to Newport News, Va. on Tuesday, as the president highlights how the budget cuts would affect the military and defense contractors, rather than collaborating with Congress on a way to prevent the cuts from taking place.

“Today, he’s off campaigning again in Virginia instead of working with us to resolve the issue,” McConnell said. “The president’s been running around acting as the world’s going to end because congress might actually follow through on the idea he proposed, he proposed and signed into law, all the while pretending he’s somehow powerless to stop it."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid meanwhile accused Republicans in Congress of being “part of the problem” in finding a solution to the upcoming cuts.

“We want to work with Republicans to come to a balanced, responsible way to reduce this sequester, the impact of it.  My Republican colleagues are standing in the way,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “They only want cuts and more cuts.”

“The only Republicans in America that don’t support this balanced approach are the Republicans that serve here in Congress, in the Senate and the House,” Reid added. “With only three days left to protect American families, our economic recovery from this latest crisis, it’s time for Republicans to work towards a solution instead of being a part of the problem.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Will Ashley Judd Challenge Mitch McConnell for Senate?

Mike Coppola/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Actress Ashley Judd is making moves to take on GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

She hasn't announced it yet, but her biggest supporter in Kentucky, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, tells ABC News, "I would be surprised if she doesn't run at this point."

"My impression is this is something she wants to do, and she is now taking the time to make the contacts she needs to make throughout the state to try and generate commitments of support and in some cases fundraising," Yarmuth says.  "She is certainly acting like a candidate, a potential candidate."

"I think in her own mind ... she has made a decision to run and she's doing the right thing and not ruffling any feathers along the way," he adds.

Yarmuth, the only Kentucky Democrat in Congress, says he expects the decision to come soon.

The race will be one of the most watched in the country, with outside money pouring into the state.

Yarmuth notes, "It would be a great economic stimulus.  It would be Christmas for six months or more," especially for local television stations that would run political commercials.

"I think the contrast would be so marked and I think it will be someone with a vision for the future and someone so stuck in a rut in the past that he no longer represents the future of the commonwealth," he says.

One thing that's guaranteed is it will be a brutal race -- a 30-year veteran of Washington against a Hollywood star active in liberal Democratic politics from a legendary family.  Judd's mother is the country singer Naomi Judd and her half-sister is the singer Wynonna Judd.

Yarmuth says Ashley Judd is ready and has even done opposition research on herself to see areas McConnell will try to "exploit."

"I think she has no illusions about what Mitch McConnell will do and the fact that his entire career he has demonized opponents and never talks about himself," Yarmuth says.  "In her world she is used to dealing with a lot of nonsense so I think she will deal with it very well."

And it's already started.  McConnell released a Web video called "Obama's Kentucky Candidate," which shows the president trying to find a candidate to take on McConnell.  It goes after Judd and other Kentucky Democrats who may get into the race.  

The video focuses on an issue that is clear to become one in the race: that Judd lives in Tennessee and not in Kentucky.  In it, Judd calls both Tennessee and San Francisco "home."

Judd's family does go back eight generations in the state, though, and she is from Ashland in eastern Kentucky.

Yarmuth says the residency issue would not be a "particularly effective" one because "her roots are so firmly established growing up here."

"Everyone knows that Kentucky is her first love," he says.  

Yarmuth calls the carpetbagger attacks a "waste of time" and hopes McConnell "keeps making them."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Planned Parenthood TV Ad Hits Senate Minority Leader

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) -- Planned Parenthood is airing a new TV ad attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Kentucky Republican joined a brief with 10 other GOP lawmakers this week supporting the craft chain Hobby Lobby in its lawsuit seeking to avoid mandatory health coverage of birth control pills in its employee health plans.  Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch led the group of senators in their effort, The Washington Times reported.

Planned Parenthood, displeased with that development, Friday unveiled this TV ad running on network affiliates in the Lexington and Louisville markets:

The group did not say how much it is spending to air the ad. It announced new online ads targeting the other Republican lawmakers on the brief: Sen. Dan Coats (IN), Sen. Thad Cochran (MS),  Sen. Pat Roberts (KS), Rep. Lamar Smith (TX) and Rep. Frank Wolf (VA).

McConnell is facing reelection in 2014, and the GOP super PAC American Crossroads has already aired a TV ad attacking one of his would-be challengers, Ashley Judd.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

Sen. Mitch McConnell: “The Tax Issue Is Finished”

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday he will not accept any new revenue in future deals with congressional Democrats and President Obama.

“The tax issue is finished.  Over. Completed,” McConnell said on “This Week.” “That’s behind us. Now the question is what are we going to do about the biggest problem confronting our country and that’s our spending addiction.

“We didn’t have this problem because we weren’t taxing enough,” McConnell added.

He blamed Obama and Democrats for waiting to resolve budget issues until the last minute.

 “Why we end up in these last-minute discussions is beyond me. We need to function,” McConnell said. “I mean, the House of Representatives, for example, passed a budget every year.  They’ve passed appropriation bills.

“The Senate Democratic majority and the president seem to like these last-minute deals.”

McConnell said that the biggest issue facing the country in the next year is the deficit and spending. And he predicted that the issue would occupy the congressional agenda in the first three months of the year, overtaking Obama’s other priorities, including gun control.

“But the biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” McConnell said. “That’s going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March.  None of these issues, I think, will have the kind of priority that spending and debt are going to have over the next two or three months.”

On the expected nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as the secretary of Defense by Obama, McConnell said he would evaluate Hagel’s past statements before determining whether he could support his nomination in the Senate.

“I’m going to take a look at all the things that Chuck has said over the years and review that, and in terms of his qualifications to lead our nation’s military,” McConnell said. “The question we will be answering if he’s the nominee, is do his views make sense for that particular job?  I think he ought to be given a fair hearing, like any other nominee, and he will be.”

McConnell, who in 2008 praised Hagel for his clear voice and stature on foreign policy and national security, now says he will reserve judgment on his possible nomination until after a Senate confirmation hearing.

“I’m going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck’s views square with the job he would be nominated to do,” he added.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio