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  • Texas’ Redrawn US House Map That Boosts GOP Begins a Key Court Test

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    A panel of federal judges will begin Wednesday to consider whether Texas can use a redrawn congressional map that boosts Republicans and has launched a widening redistricting battle ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

    The case in an El Paso courtroom is the first test of Texas’ new map, which was quickly redrawn this summer to give Republicans five more seats at the urging of President Donald Trump in an effort to preserve the slim Republican U.S. House majority.

    Civil rights groups and dozens of Black and Hispanic voters joined the lawsuit, saying the new map intentionally reduces minority voters’ influence. Their lawsuit argues that the new district lines represent racial gerrymandering prohibited by the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

    Texas Republican lawmakers and state leaders deny these claims, saying the map is a legal partisan gerrymander.

    The hearing is expected to last more than a week. It is unclear how quickly the judges will issue a ruling.

    The new map eliminated five of the state’s nine “coalition” districts, where no minority group has a majority but together they outnumber non-Hispanic white voters.

    “Race and party have folded onto each other,” said Keith Gaddie, a Texas Christian University political science professor who has testified as an expert witness in redistricting cases over the past 25 years. “What could be seen as being racial gerrymandering could just be partisan gerrymandering.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering.


    Texas says critics cloak partisan fears in rhetoric about race

    The new Texas map is designed to give Republicans 30 of the state’s 38 House seats, up from 25 now.

    The state’s attorneys argue that Texas officials’ persistent statements about their partisan motives show they weren’t engaged in illegal racial gerrymandering but were in a “political arms-race,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said in a recent court filing.

    The move in Texas has subsequently led some other states — Republican-led as well as those led by Democrats — to respond with some redistricting plans of their own in a scramble to try to dominate the midterm elections.

    In court filings, Paxton’s office argued that Republicans are offsetting past Democratic gerrymanders, and the Texas map’s critics “seek to use race as a foil to kneecap Texas’s efforts to even the playing field.”

    “Whenever they do not get what they want, they cry racism,” its filing said.


    Making a case involves detailed election analysis

    The case will be heard by a panel of three judges, one each appointed by Trump, and Presidents Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan.

    Attorneys for groups and voters challenging the map aim to show that a trial is likely to prove the new lines deny minority voters opportunities to elect candidates of their choosing.

    “States have to follow rules when they redistrict,” said Nina Perales, an attorney representing some the voters and groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens. “They provide essentially the buffer guards to protect the democratic process.”

    The judges are likely to hear a detailed analysis of voting patterns.

    “The minority community has to be what’s called politically cohesive, which tends to mean that members of that community overwhelmingly tend to prefer the same candidates in elections,” said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University.


    Critics see new, ‘sham’ minority districts

    The new map decreased the total number of congressional districts in which minorities comprise a majority of voting-age citizens from 16 to 14.

    Republicans argue the map is better for minority voters. While five “coalition” districts are eliminated, there’s a new, eighth Hispanic-majority district, and two new Black-majority districts.

    Critics consider each of those new districts a “sham,” arguing that the majority is so slim that white voters, who tend to turn out in larger percentages, will control election results.

    “There is growing animus against African-American and other communities who have historically been disenfranchised,” said Derrick Johnson, the NAACP’s national president. “This is consistent with the current climate and culture germinating from the White House.”

    Critics also argued that the 2021 map itself didn’t have enough minority districts. For example, Perales said, Houston has enough Hispanic voters for two such districts, and the new map has one.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • US Judge Disqualifies Nevada Prosecutor From Four Cases in Blow to Trump

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    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. District Court Judge on Tuesday disqualified Nevada’s lead federal prosecutor Sigal Chattah from supervising four criminal cases, dealing another setback to President Donald Trump’s administration’s maneuvers to keep his picks in power.

    U.S. District Judge David Campbell found that Chattah is not validly serving as acting U.S. Attorney and therefore “her involvement in these cases would be unlawful.”

    The Justice Department declined to comment.

    Chattah, who had most recently served as Nevada’s chairwoman for the Republican National Committee, was appointed in late March to serve a 120-day stint as interim U.S. attorney.

    When her tenure was about to expire around July 26, the Trump administration extended her appointment under a different federal law, making her acting U.S. attorney, a move that effectively front-ran the U.S. District Court from being able to appoint someone to serve in the role.

    Federal public defenders in Nevada brought the legal challenge to Chattah’s authority in four separate criminal cases, arguing she should be disqualified because her appointment was unlawful and asking for the cases to be dismissed.

    Chattah is one of several U.S. attorneys who have been appointed through unusual methods throughout the country. Similar personnel moves were made by the Justice Department to keep other top prosecutors in place, including with Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba in New Jersey, John Sarcone in the Northern District of New York, Bilal Essayli in the Central District of California and Ryan Ellison in New Mexico.

    In August, a federal judge ruled that Habba’s appointment was unlawful and that she was ineligible to participate in any ongoing cases. The Justice Department is appealing that decision.

    Reuters reported on Tuesday that Chattah has asked the FBI to investigate debunked Republican claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, a probe she hopes will influence congressional races and ensnare Democrats.

    (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis and Lincoln Feast.)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Groups Press for Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Report on Trump’s Classified Documents Case

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A First Amendment group and watchdog organization pressed a federal appeals court on Tuesday to compel the release of a Justice Department special counsel’s report on the criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

    Even though the charges against the Republican president were dismissed last year, the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report related to the classified documents case has remained under wraps because of an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The case accused Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them, but Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment was illegal and threw out the charges.

    The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and American Oversight are now pressing for the report’s release in separate filings Tuesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The groups argue there is no legitimate reason to keep secret the report stemming from what was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the prosecutions Trump confronted before his White House return.

    “Transparency isn’t optional in a democracy. The public has a right to know what Special Counsel Smith found, and the Justice Department cannot continue to withhold a report that should have been released nearly a year ago under federal law,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. “By keeping this order in place, Judge Cannon is undermining both accountability and the rule of law.”

    The Knight Institute filed a motion in February urging Cannon to allow for the report’s release, but the judge has yet to rule. It’s asking the appeals court to force Cannon to issue a ruling, calling the delay “manifestly unreasonable.”

    “This report is of singular importance to the public because it addresses allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Knight Institute, said in a statement. “There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression, and it should be posted on the court’s public docket without further delay.”

    The classified documents case had been seen as the most legally clear-cut of the four Trump had faced, given the breadth of evidence that prosecutors say they had accumulated, including the testimony of close aides and former lawyers, and because the conduct at issue occurred after Trump left the White House in 2021 and lost the powers of the presidency.

    Trump had denied any wrongdoing and criticized all the cases against him as a politically motivated attempt to thwart his bid to return to the White House.

    The first volume of Smith’s report — focused on Trump’s 2020 election interference case — was publicly released in January. In that portion of the report, Smith defended his decision to bring criminal charges over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and said he believed it would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • The Latest: Hegseth Declares an End to ‘Politically Correct’ Leadership in the US Military

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    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of U.S. military officials to an in-person meeting Tuesday to announce directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness as well as an end to “woke” culture in the military.

    “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said.

    He said he’s loosening disciplinary rules and weakening hazing protections.

    Hegseth and President Donald Trump abruptly called military leaders from around the world to convene at a base in Virginia without publicly revealing the reason until Tuesday morning. While meetings between top military brass and civilian leaders are nothing new, experts say the scale of the gathering, the haste with which it was called and the mystery surrounding it are particularly unusual.


    The department will overhaul its inspector general process

    Hegseth said the Pentagon’s watchdog has been “weaponized” and therefore will be retooled with new policies.

    There will be more anonymous or frivolous complaints, Hegseth said, nicknaming his new directive the “no more walking on eggshells policy.”

    The announcement comes amid an ongoing investigation by the inspector general’s office into Hegseth’s team and its use of the Signal encrypted messaging app. Earlier this year, a report in The Atlantic showed Hegseth shared sensitive military information in a chat that included senior national security officials and a journalist.


    Hegseth talks about new tests, weight requirements

    Hegseth said the Pentagon will add a combat field test for certain units that resemble the Army’s expert physical fitness assessment or the Marine Corps combat fitness test. Hegseth said every member of the joint force will be required to meet height and weight requirements.

    “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he said.

    Hegseth maintained, as he has done in the past, that he would not allow facial hair.

    “No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression,” Hegseth said. “We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans.”


    Hegseth sticks to his usual talking points

    Hegseth’s address has largely focused on his own long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by so-called “woke” policies.

    “The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things,” Hegseth argued, before adding that his speech “is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden.”

    Hegseth used the platform to slam topics like physical fitness and grooming standards, environmental policies and transgender troops while talking up well-worn ideas like “the warrior ethos” and “peace through strength.”


    Defense Department to review its definition of ‘toxic leadership’

    Hegseth said concerns over “toxic leadership” have been misrepresented in the military, demanding a new review.

    “We’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called ‘toxic leadership,’ bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second-guessing,” he said.

    Hegseth defended his own leadership and demand for high standards as “not toxic.” He said that while “nasty” bullying and hazing still won’t be allowed, the terms were weaponized in previous administrations.


    Hegseth: ‘We became the woke department, but not anymore’

    The defense secretary is announcing a variety of directives that he argues will help clear out what he calls “woke garbage” in the nation’s military.

    Hegseth said there will be a new requirement for every combat arms to use the highest male standard only. He also announced a new combat field test.

    “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men,” he said. “This job is life and death. Standards must be met.”


    Family says a Mexican man shot at a Dallas ICE facility has died

    A second detainee shot in an attack on a Dallas immigration field office last week has died, his family said Tuesday.

    In a statement shared by the League of United Latin American Citizens, the family confirmed that Miguel Ángel García-Hernández, 32, succumbed to his injuries after being removed from life support.

    The Mexican man was one of three detainees shot in the Sept. 24 attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas. That attack left one man dead and two other detainees critically wounded. Officials previously identified the man who was killed in the attack as Norlan Guzman-Fuentes.


    Hegseth says the department’s mission is ‘warfighting’

    The defense secretary is using phrases he often does, referring to warfighting and a “warrior ethos” during the beginning of his remarks.

    Saying the era of the Department of Defense is over, he said “preparing to win” is the goal as the Trump administration wants to rebrand to the Department of War.

    “Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department,” he said.


    Meeting of military leaders kicks off

    Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, kicked off a gathering of military leaders standing before a giant American flag by saying that “we are living in dynamic and potentially dangerous times.”

    “Even as we strive for and seek peace, we must be prepared for war,” Caine said.


    FBI boss Kash Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws

    On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

    The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

    Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

    It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.


    120 Iranians detained in the US for entering the country illegally will be returned to Iran, state TV says

    Iran said Tuesday that 120 Iranians detained in the United States for illegally entering the country will be returned to Iran in the coming days.

    As many as 400 Iranians would be returning to Iran as part of the deal with the U.S., Iranian state television said, citing Hossein Noushabadi, director-general for parliamentary affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He said the majority of those people had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

    The U.S. has not acknowledged striking a deportation deal with Iran.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • US Government on Brink of First Shutdown in Almost Seven Years Amid Partisan Standoff in Congress

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A partisan standoff over heath care and spending is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or permanently laid off.

    The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills. Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands, while President Donald Trump and Republicans are refusing to negotiate at all, arguing that it is a stripped down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

    It was unclear, so far, if either side would blink before the deadline.

    “It’s now in the president’s hands,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Monday after a meeting with Trump at the White House that yielded little apparent progress. “He can avoid the shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.”

    Vice President JD Vance, who was also in the meeting, said afterward, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”

    While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate will likely need at least eight votes from Democrats to end a filibuster and pass the bill with 60 votes, since Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it.


    No agreement at the White House

    Trump had shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

    As he headed into the meeting, Trump made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms.

    “Their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said.

    It was Trump’s first meeting with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term, and he did more listening than talking, Jeffries told House Democrats at the Capitol afterward, according to a lawmaker who attended the private caucus meeting and requested anonymity to discuss it.

    Schumer said after the closed-door meeting that they had “had candid, frank discussions” with Trump about health care. Vance also said Trump found several points of agreement on policy ideas.

    Schumer said Trump “was not aware” of the potential for health insurance costs to skyrocket once the subsidies end Dec. 31.

    But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious negotiations. Hours later, Trump posted a fake video of Schumer and Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.

    Jeffries posted in response that “Bigotry will get you nowhere.”

    He added, “We are NOT backing down.”


    Expiring health care subsidies

    Democrats are pushing for an extension to Affordable Care Act tax credits that have boosted health insurance subsidies for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits, which are designed to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year.

    “We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” Jeffries said.

    Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but they want to place new limits on them.

    “We’re willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune told reporters at the White House, adding, “But as of right now, this is a hijacking of the American people, and it’s the American people who are going to pay the price.”


    A crucial, and unusual, vote for Democrats

    Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when it would end. But party activists and voters have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

    Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.

    Schumer said he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says things have changed since then, including the passage of the massive GOP tax cut bill this summer that reduced Medicaid.

    Some of the Democrats who voted with Schumer in March to keep the government open were still holding out hope for a compromise. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters said Monday that there is still time before the early Wednesday deadline.

    “A lot can happen in this place in a short period of time,” Peters said.


    Shutdown preparations begin

    Federal agencies were sending out contingency plans if funding lapses, including details on what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed. In its instructions to agencies, the White House has suggested that a shutdown could lead to broad layoffs across the government.

    Russ Vought, Trump’s budget director, told reporters at the White House that a shutdown would be managed “appropriately, but it is something that can all be avoided” if Senate Democrats accepted the House-passed bill.

    Before joining the administration, Vought had advised hardline conservatives in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to negotiate for policy concessions. But on Monday, he berated Democrats for engaging in a similar ploy.

    “This is hostage taking. It is not something that we are going to accept,” he said.

    Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump Can Slash Education Department’s Civil Rights Staff, Court Rules

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    (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Monday allowed the U.S. Department of Education to proceed with plans to lay off civil rights staff as it paused an injunction that the Trump administration said should have been removed after a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

    A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold an injunction that President Donald Trump’s administration opposed. The injunction by U.S. District Judge Myong Joun ordered the Education Department to reinstate staff in its Office for Civil Rights.

    Joun declined in mid-August to lift the injunction. But the Trump administration argued that decision defied a Supreme Court ruling in July that allowed the government to fire 1,300 Education Department employees.

    The Department of Justice asked the 1st Circuit to intervene so it did not have to go back to the Supreme Court.

    The Education Department and lawyers for the plaintiffs challenging the cuts did not respond to requests for comment.

    Both cases followed a March announcement by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon of a mass layoff that would cut in half the staff of a department that Trump has called for shuttering, which only Congress could ultimately authorize.

    Joun, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, in May blocked the department-wide job cuts at the behest of a group of Democratic-led states, school districts and teachers’ unions. But on appeal, the 6-3 conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court on July 14 lifted Joun’s injunction.

    That decision, though, did not address a narrower injunction Joun later issued covering just the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools and was facing a loss of half of its 550 employees.

    Those cuts were challenged by two students and the Victim Rights Law Center, which represents sexual assault victims. Citing the Supreme Court’s order, the Justice Department said the injunction those plaintiffs won could no longer stand.

    In declining to lift it, Joun called the Supreme Court’s brief July order “unreasoned,” echoing a critique by other lower-court judges of the short orders emanating from the high court’s emergency docket, also called the “shadow docket.”

    The Justice Department said Joun’s “disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling represents an affront to the Supreme Court’s authority.”

    The 1st Circuit panel, comprised entirely of Biden appointees, on Monday paused the injunction, calling the cases similar.

    U.S. Circuit Judge Seth Aframe concurred but warned that the “unreasoned” Supreme Court order’s “import will be limited as this case moves ahead,” as the courts weigh whether the layoffs unlawfully impeded the office’s functions.

    (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Cynthia Osterman)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • US House Members Hear Pleas for Tougher Justice Policies After Stabbing Death of Refugee

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    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — U.S. House members visited North Carolina’s largest city on Monday to hear from family members of violent-crime victims who pleaded for tougher criminal justice policies in the wake of last month’s stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte commuter train.

    A judiciary subcommittee meeting convened in Charlotte to listen to many speakers who described local court systems in North Carolina and South Carolina that they say have failed to protect the public and keep defendants in jail while awaiting trials.

    The meeting was prompted by the Aug. 22 stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail car and the resulting apprehension of a suspect who had been previously arrested more than a dozen times.

    “The same system that failed Mary failed Iryna. Our hearts are broken for her family and her friends and we grieve with them,” Mia Alderman, the grandmother of 2020 murder victim Mary Santina Collins in Charlotte, told panelists. Alderman said defendants in her granddaughter’s case still haven’t been tried: “We need accountability. We need reform. We need to ensure that those accused of heinous crimes are swiftly prosecuted.”

    A magistrate had allowed the commuter train defendant, Decarlos Brown Jr., to be released on a misdemeanor charge in January on a written promise to appear, without any bond. Now Brown is charged with both first-degree murder in state court and a federal count in connection with Zarutska’s death. Both crimes can be punishable by the death penalty.

    Public outrage intensified with the release of security video showing the attack, leading to accusations from Republicans all the way to President Donald Trump that policies by Democratic leaders in Charlotte and statewide are more focused on helping criminals than victims. Democratic committee members argued that Republicans are the ones who have reduced crime-control funds or failed to provide funding for more district attorneys and mental health services.

    “The hearing for me is not really about public safety,” Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, who represents most of Charlotte. “It’s about my colleagues trying to paint Democrats as soft on crime — and we’re not — and engaging in political theater, probably to score some headlines.”

    Dena King, a former U.S. attorney for western North Carolina during Joe Biden’s administration, testified that Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, needs dozens of additional prosecutors to cover a county of 1.2 million people. And a crime statistician said that rates of murder and violent crime are falling nationwide and in Charlotte after increases early in the 2020s.

    Republicans, in turn, blasted Democratic members, saying additional funding wouldn’t have prevented the deaths of Zarutska or the other homicide victims highlighted Monday. And they attempted to question the crime figures as misleading.

    “This is not time for politics. This is not time for any race. It’s not time of any party. It’s about a time of justice,” said GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, representing in part Charlotte’s suburbs. He spoke while holding a poster of a screenshot of the video showing Zarutska and her attacker. Adams protested Norman’s use of the placard.

    In response to Zarutska’s death, the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature last week approved a criminal justice package that would bar cashless bail in many circumstances, limit the discretion magistrates and judges have in making pretrial release decisions and seek to ensure more defendants undergo mental health evaluations. The bill now sits on Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk for his consideration.

    Committee Republicans also cited the need for more restrictive bail policies for magistrates and aggressive prosecutors not willing to drop charges for violent crimes.

    Another speaker, Steve Federico, from suburban Charlotte, demanded justice for his 22-year-old daughter, Logan, who was shot to death in May at a home in Columbia, South Carolina, while visiting friends. The suspect charged in her killing had faced nearly 40 charges within the last decade, WIS-TV reported.

    “I’’m not going to be quiet until somebody helps. Logan deserves to be heard,” Steve Federico told the representatives. “Everyone on this panel deserves to be heard. And we will — trust me.”

    Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump’s Team Keeps Posting AI Portraits of Him. We Keep Clicking

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Here he is, depicted at six months in office, chiseled and brawny, as mighty as the very nation. Here he is as a Star Wars Jedi wielding a patriot-red lightsaber, rescuing our galaxy from the forces of evil. Here he is taking over Gaza, transforming the strip into a luxury resort complete with a golden effigy of himself.

    You can be anything, perhaps you were told growing up. Doctor. Astronaut. Maybe, one day, the president. But even the chief executive of the United States, the free world’s leader, frames himself as something more epic — as someone not entirely himself.

    On the social media accounts of Donald Trump and his second-term administration, a new official image of the president is emerging bit by bit: one generated artificially.

    A sign of the times, certainly — when the appeal of reimagining yourself with artificial intelligence has trickled up from us everyday citizens. Bored with your selfies? Join a viral trend: There’s an image generator or a chatbot that can turn you into a Renaissance-style painting, a Studio Ghibli character or an action figure with box art and accessories.

    The AI images of Trump posted by him and his team opt for the alternative — not deceptive but self-evident in their fictitiousness. Pope Francis dies, and Trump jokes to reporters that he’d like to be pope. A week later, he is, but in an AI-generated image that he posts, reposted by the White House. Trump likens himself to a king in a Truth Social post in February, and AI makes him one in an X post by the White House less than an hour later.

    The artifice arrives in Trump’s usual style — brassy, unabashed, attention-grabbing — and squares with his social media team’s heavy meme posting, which it has promised to continue. The administration’s official social media accounts have grown by more than 16 million new followers across platforms since Inauguration Day, a White House official told NBC News.

    The White House recognizes the appeal. In July, it posted to its X account: “Nowhere in the Constitution does it say we can’t post banger memes.” Attached to the post, a photo of a sign on the White House lawn parodying the naysayers: “oMg, diD tHe wHiTE hOuSE reALLy PosT tHis?”

    Behind the commander in chief’s desire to craft an AI self — not itself uncommon — an infantry of official communications channels stands at his ready. And we, the people, can’t help but tune in.


    Feelings don’t care about your facts

    Like so much on the internet these days, Trump’s AI portraits are primed for people to react, says Evan Cornog, a political historian and author of “The Power and the Story: How the Crafted Presidential Narrative Has Determined Political Success from George Washington to George W. Bush.”

    “By the time you’ve seen it, you’ve understood it. And that’s, of course, the efficacy,” Cornog said. “It requires no effort, either for the person generating it, but particularly for the person consuming it.”

    The expressive power of political imagery, regardless of the truth of its message, has long been understood by politicians and their detractors.

    President William Henry Harrison’s log cabin and hard cider campaign symbols, representing him as a “man of the people,” helped him win the election of 1840. Thirty years later, political cartoonist Thomas Nast would turn public opinion against William Marcy “Boss” Tweed with his scathing portrayals of the politician, whom he depicted satirically overweight from greed. “Let’s stop those damned pictures!” Tweed once said, or so the story goes.

    The decades since witnessed the birth of photo, film, TV, the internet, computer printers, image-editing software and digital screens that shrank until they could fit in our pockets, making it increasingly easy to create and disseminate — and manipulate — imagery.

    By contrast, today’s generative AI technology offers greater realism, functionality and accessibility to content creation than ever before, says AI expert Henry Ajder. Not to mention, of course, a capacity for endless automated possibility.

    Past presidents “had to actually have fought in a war to run as a war hero,” Cornog says. Now, they can just generate an image of themselves as one. On a horse — or no, a battlefield. With an American flag waving behind him and an eagle soaring.

    The AI images of Trump shared by him and his administration chase a similarly heroic vision of the president. Potency — his and the country’s — is a consistent theme, Cornog added.

    Indeed, generative AI allows for an exposure of perhaps uncomfortably intimate inner worlds as people use such technology to illustrate and communicate their “fantasy lives” or cartoonish versions of themselves, says Mitchell Stephens, author of “The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word.”

    But it can just as easily fulfill an inverse desire: to depict or reinforce a subjective concept of reality.

    “Quite a lot of people are sharing AI-generated content, which is clearly fake but is almost seen as a revelatory kind of representation of someone,” Ajder said. This content feeds a mentality that mutters, “We all know they’re really like this.”

    “And so, even if people know it’s fake,” Ajder said, “they still see it as kind of reflecting and satisfying a kind of truth — their truth about what the world is like.”


    Commenters take up the mantle

    The lack of subtlety in Trump’s AI images of himself helps explain their consistent virality.

    Commenters can be found lamenting the demise of presidential decorum (“I never thought I’d see the day when the White House is just a joke. This is so embarrassing.”) or relishing those very reactions (“Watching the left explode over this has been a treat.”).

    Other responses, even from the president’s base, remain unconvinced (as one X user griped under the White House post of Trump as pope: “I voted for you, but this is weird and creepy. More mass deportations and less of whatever this is.”).

    But that is tradition for Trump, who finds no trouble cashing the currency of our attention economy: Whether you cracked a smile or clutched your pearls, he still made you look.

    “In his first administration, he used Twitter in a way no president had,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project, an organization that facilitates the transition between presidents. “What they do in this administration is taking it further, as you’ve had an increase in what can be done online.” Or, as one Reddit user referred to the president: “Troll in Chief.”

    Does Trump really think he should be pope? Does the White House really think him a king? Accuracy isn’t the point, not for a man who frequently arbitrates what counts as truth. Trump’s use of AI sticks to a familiar recipe for bait: crude comedy sprinkled with wishful thinking.

    “It’s fine,” Trump said in May, when asked whether the AI-generated post of him as pope diminished the substance of the official White House account.

    “Have to have a little fun, don’t you?”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Georgia’s 2026 Candidates Still Can’t Escape Fallout From Trump’s False 2020 Election Claims

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Fallout from the 2020 presidential election feels like it may never end in Georgia.

    Maybe more any other state, the decisions made after Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow win — and Donald Trump’s false claims of victory — still define politics in the Peach State.

    In Georgia, 2020 may guide the Republican choice for governor in 2026, influence the Democratic primary for governor, and resonate in the U.S. Senate race.

    Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s Georgia victory is running for governor in 2026. Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who also opposed Trump’s push, is seeking the governorship as a “proud Democrat.” The current lieutenant governor, Republican Burt Jones, wears his support of Trump’s 2020 cause as a badge of honor.

    And Georgia’s incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is seeking reelection, might not have won in January 2021 but for 2020’s chaotic fallout.

    “It’s all tied up in the staying power of one Donald Trump,” said Jay Morgan, former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party, explaining why ripples from 2020 still matter.

    Some Republicans fear showcasing those differences could repulse some voters. Buzz Brockaway, a former Republican state legislator, said there’s a chance “relitigating the 2020 election” will dominate some Georgia races. “If you’re a Republican, that’s bad news, because no one cares beyond a few activists,” he said.

    In a September Gallup poll, about one-quarter of U.S. adults named economic issues as the most important problem facing the country, while about 4% pointed to issues related to elections and democracy.


    A dispute that never dies

    Disputes over 2020 animate politics far beyond Georgia. In Michigan, state House Republicans in June proposed impeaching Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a 2026 candidate for governor, in part over claims she improperly backed Biden’s 2020 victory. In Arizona, a Republican legislator who questioned election administration in the state’s most populous county was elected in 2024 to oversee voting there. In Pennsylvania, lawsuits continue over a 2020 voting-by-mail law, and it could become a 2026 campaign theme because the GOP-endorsed challenger to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — state Treasurer Stacy Garrity — supports Trump’s call to eliminate mail voting.

    Supporting Trump’s false claim of a 2020 victory remains a Republican purity test. GOP primary foes are attacking both Louisiana U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s reelection bid and Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s run for governor, arguing they didn’t back Trump to the hilt after the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    But in Georgia, 2020 is a factor in every marquee race.

    Jones was already endorsed for governor by Trump before an August kickoff rally. There, allies proclaimed Jones the true GOP choice because Jones aided Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia. Jones was one of 16 Republicans who declared themselves as electors even though Biden had won, and Jones backed a call for a special session to declare Trump the winner. Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, Jones’ top rivals for the Republican nomination, spurned Trump’s efforts.

    “In reality, these politicians are MAGA today because it benefits them, but they weren’t willing to be MAGA when it might cost them,” state Sen. Greg Dolezal told the pro-Jones crowd. ”In 2020, when President Trump needed allies, these politicians were silent.

    Last week, Jones’ campaign released an ad calling Carr and Raffensperger “Georgia’s team Never Trump,” saying only Jones “always supported” Trump.


    Some Republicans try to sidestep

    Other Republicans are finessing the divide, siding with Trump on current issues while sidestepping past differences. Raffensperger didn’t mention Trump once in his 2-minute announcement video for governor, instead focusing on his defense of Georgia’s voting system against Biden and two-time Georgia Democratic governor nominee Stacey Abrams. Raffensperger only indirectly alluded to the 2020 firestorm, saying “I’m prepared to make the tough decisions; I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia, no matter what.”

    Like Raffensperger, Carr is voicing agreement with Trump’s policies, while emphasizing his own record fighting crime and recruiting jobs.

    Meanwhile, Duncan quit the Republican Party after years of criticizing Trump and is trying to forge a new identity as a Democrat. At a Black-owned Atlanta coffee shop this month, he campaigned under a mural of prominent Democrats, including Ossoff and one of Duncan’s Democratic opponents for governor, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Duncan sought to retool some of his old themes for his new party, including the importance of small businesses and technology, while trumpeting his record as a proven Trump opponent.

    “With regards to Donald Trump, whoever wins that Republican primary is going to have to take the keys out of their pocket for the state and hand them over to Donald Trump,” Duncan told The Associated Press.

    Republican Gov. Brian Kemp came under Trump’s fire after refusing his election-related demands in 2020 although he now maintains a a public peace with the president. But Kemp is trying to make former football coach Derek Dooley the Republican Senate nominee to challenge Ossoff with a variation of a strategy that Raffensperger and Carr are using. Dooley is asserting agreement with Trump, but promising to “put hardworking Georgians first.” His top opponents for the Republican nomination, U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, leave not an inch of daylight between them and Trump.

    Democrats hope GOP divisions will drive independents to them in 2026. Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey said swing voters are turned off by kowtowing to Trump.

    “There is a toeing of the line, bending of the knee.” Bailey said. “Whether something is true or right depends on who said it, namely whether Trump said it.”

    But Morgan said there’s still a fervor for Trump propelling conservative voters.

    “2020 galvanized the base that allowed Donald Trump to be the nominee of the Republican Party once again,” Morgan said. “And that base is absolutely essential for anybody seeking a Republican nomination. And then beyond that, that base has to turn out for that candidate to win.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Oregon Leaders Say Trump Is Deploying 200 National Guard Troops Within the State

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Two hundred members of the Oregon National Guard are being placed under federal control and deployed to protect immigration enforcement officers and government facilities, according to a Defense Department memo received by state leaders on Sunday.

    The deployment is being made over the objections of state leaders and is similar to one last summer in Los Angeles, where protesters demonstrated against deportation operations, but is on a much smaller scale.

    There was no immediate comment from the White House. Multiple Pentagon officials were contacted, but none would confirm or deny the authenticity of the memo.

    President Donald Trump had announced on Saturday that he would send troops to Portland. The state’s governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, said Sunday that she objected to the deployment in a conversation with the president.

    “Oregon is our home — not a military target,” she said in a statement.

    Dan Rayfield, the state attorney general, said he was filing a federal lawsuit arguing that Trump was overstepping his authority.

    “What we’re seeing is not about public safety,” he said. “It’s about the president flexing political muscle under the guise of law and order, chasing a media hit at the expense of our community.”

    The Pentagon memo provided by Oregon leaders drew a direct comparison between the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June and the proposed deployment to the state, adding “This memorandum further implements the President’s direction.”

    While the memorandum does not specifically cite Portland as the target of the proposed deployment, Trump, in a social media post on Saturday, said he directed the Pentagon, at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

    “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary,” Trump added.

    The action also would be far less than Trump’s deployment to Washington, D.C., where more than 1,000 National Guard troops, including units from other states, have patrolled the streets for weeks. He also has been suggesting that he will send troops into Chicago, but so far has not done so.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Arnold Palmer’s daughter reacts to Donald Trump’s references to her father

    Arnold Palmer’s daughter reacts to Donald Trump’s references to her father

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    One of the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’s daughters calls Donald Trump’s references to her father’s genitalia “a poor choice of approaches” to honoring his memory, adding that she wasn’t upset by the remarks.

    “There’s nothing much to say. I’m not really upset,” Peg Palmer Wears, 68, told The Associated Press in an interview on Sunday. “I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?”

    On Saturday in Latrobe, Pennsylvania — the city where Palmer was born in 1929 and learned to golf from his father — Trump kicked off his rally in the campaign’s closing weeks with a detailed, 12-minute story about Palmer that included an anecdote about what Palmer looked like in the showers.

    “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said with a laugh. “I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”

    In an AP interview, Arnold Palmer’s daughter Peg Palmer Wears, who will be casting her ballot in North Carolina, says she believes in privacy at the ballot box.

    Wears said that she had only had passing encounters with Trump at functions decades ago but that her father and the GOP presidential nominee, an avid golfer who owns courses around the world, primarily shared a kinship over “an interest in golf and a love of golf.”

    Emotional at times as she recalled conversations with her father, who died in 2016 at 87, Wears said her father “believed in the Republican Party.”

    “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about what my father would say about something or what’s happening,” Wears said. “We didn’t always agree on things, but he was a quintessential American who believed fervently in this country, even when he questioned its direction.”

    Asked three times Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” about what he thought of Trump’s remarks, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., refused to answer.

    “I’ll address it, let me answer it,” Johnson said, without ever answering the question. “Don’t say it again. We don’t have to say it. I get it.”

    Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., told ABC’s “This Week” that he didn’t like Trump’s comments, including one in which he used a profanity to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris, but that the former president’s remarks would not sway voters one way or the other.

    “I mean it’s just par for the course. He speaks in hyperbole. He gets his crowds riled up,” Sununu said.

    But Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who backs Harris, argued the comments show how little Trump is focusing on important issues, which will turn off voters.

    “I think you have a lot of Americans, whether you are conservative, whether you’re progressive or moderate, who say, ‘Really?’” Sanders said on CNN. “We have major issues facing this country. Is this the kind of human being that we want as president of the United States?

    Wears, who declined to say for whom she would vote in the Nov. 5 election, said she would be casting her ballot in North Carolina, a pivotal state, and described herself as an “unaffiliated” voter.

    “The people of western Pennsylvania are very smart people, and they’re very hard working, and they’ll make their own decisions, as I will make my own decision, using all the history and awareness I have,” Wears said of the upcoming election. “And that’s what I hope people go vote with.”

    ___

    Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • ‘Chaos agent’: Suspected Trump hack comes as Iran flexes digital muscles ahead of US election

    ‘Chaos agent’: Suspected Trump hack comes as Iran flexes digital muscles ahead of US election

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — With less than three months before the U.S. election, Iran is intensifying its efforts to meddle in American politics, U.S. officials and private cybersecurity firms say, with the suspected hack of Donald Trump’s campaign being only the latest and most brazen example.

    Iran has long been described as a “chaos agent” when it comes to cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns and in recent months groups linked to the government in Tehran have covertly encouraged protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, impersonated American activists and created networks of fake news websites and social media accounts primed to spread false and misleading information to audiences in the U.S.

    While Russia and China remain bigger cyber threats against the U.S., experts and intelligence officials say Iran’s increasingly aggressive stance marks a significant escalation of efforts to confuse, deceive and frighten American voters ahead of the election.

    The pace will likely continue to increase as the election nears and America’s adversaries exploit the internet and advancements in artificial intelligence to sow discord and confusion.

    “We’re starting to really see that uptick and it makes sense, 90 days out from the election,” said Sean Minor, a former information warfare expert for the U.S. Army who now analyzes online threats for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which has seen a sharp increase in cyber operations from Iran and other nations. “As we get closer, we suspect that these networks will get more aggressive.”

    The FBI is investigating the suspected hack of the Trump campaign as well as efforts to infiltrate the campaign of President Joe Biden, which became Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign when Biden dropped out. Trump’s campaign announced Saturday that someone illegally accessed and retrieved internal documents, later distributed to three news outlets. The campaign blamed Iran, noting a recent Microsoft report revealing an attempt by Iranian military intelligence to hack into the systems of one of the presidential campaigns.

    “A lot of people think it was Iran. Probably was,” Trump said Tuesday on Univision before shrugging off the value of the leaked material. “I think it’s pretty boring information.”

    Iran has denied any involvement in the hack and said it has no interest in meddling with U.S. politics.

    That denial is disputed by U.S. intelligence officials and private cybersecurity firms who have linked Iran’s government and military to several recent campaigns targeting the U.S., saying they reflect Iran’s growing capabilities and its increasing willingness to use them.

    On Wednesday Google announced it had uncovered a group linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that it said had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to Biden and Trump since May.

    The company, which contacted law enforcement with its suspicions, said the group is still targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Harris. It wasn’t clear whether the network identified by Google was connected to the attempt that Trump and Microsoft reported, or were part of a second attempt to infiltrate the campaign’s systems.

    Iran has a few different motives in seeking to influence U.S. elections, intelligence officials and cybersecurity analysts say. The country seeks to spread confusion and increase polarization in the U.S. while undermining support for Israel. Iran also aims to hurt candidates that it believes would increase tension between Washington and Tehran.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    That’s a description that fits Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of an Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.

    The two leaders of the Senate intelligence committee issued a joint letter on Wednesday warning Tehran and other governments hostile to the U.S. that attempts to deceive Americans or disrupt the election will not be tolerated.

    “There will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process,” wrote the committee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, along with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the vice chairman.

    In 2021, federal authorities charged two Iranian nationals with attempting to interfere with the election the year before. As part of the plot, the men wrote emails claiming to be members of the far-right Proud Boys in which they threatened Democratic voters with violence.

    Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Iranian government had covertly supported American protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Groups linked to Iran’s government also posed as online activists, encouraged campus protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.

    Recent reports from Microsoft and Recorded Future have also linked Iran’s government to networks of fake news websites and social media accounts posing as Americans. The networks were discovered before they gained much influence and analysts say they may have been created ahead of time, to be activated in the weeks immediately before the election.

    The final weeks before an election may be the most dangerous when it comes to foreign efforts to impact voting. That’s when voters pay the most attention to politics and when false claims about candidates or voting can do the most damage.

    So-called ‘hack-and-leak’ attacks like the one reported by Trump’s campaign involve a hacker obtaining sensitive information from a private network and then releasing it, either to select individuals, the news media or to the public. Such attacks not only expose confidential information but can also raise questions about cybersecurity and the vulnerability of critical networks and systems.

    Especially concerning for elections, authorities say, would be an attack targeting a state or local election office that reveals sensitive information or disables election operations. Such an incursion could undermine trust in voting, even if the information exposed is worthless. Experts refer to this last possibility as a “perception hack,” when hackers steal information not because of its value, but because they want to flaunt their capabilities while spreading fear and confusion among their adversaries.

    “That can actually be more of a threat — the spectacle, the marketing this gives foreign adversaries — than the actual hack,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former National Security Council analyst who specializes in cyber threats.

    In 2016, Russian hackers infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails, ultimately obtaining and releasing some of the campaign’s most protected information in a hack-and-leak that upended the campaign in its final weeks.

    Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it easier than ever to create and spread disinformation, including lifelike video and audio allowing hackers to impersonate someone and gain access to their organization’s systems. Nevertheless, the alleged hack of the Trump campaign reportedly involved much simpler techniques: someone gained access to an email account that lacked sufficient security protections.

    While people and organizations can take steps to minimize their vulnerability to hacks, nothing can eliminate the risk entirely, Wilde said, or completely reduce the likelihood that foreign adversaries will mount attacks on campaigns.

    “The tax we pay for being a digital society is that these hacks and leaks are unavoidable,” he said. “Whether you’re a business, a campaign or a government.”

    __

    Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report from New York.

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  • The Ego Has Crash-Landed

    The Ego Has Crash-Landed

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    Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.

    Donald Trump dominated the news cycle this weekend. Everybody’s talking about the outrageous things he said at his rally in Dayton, Ohio—above all, his menacing warning of a “bloodbath” if he is defeated in November. To follow political news is to again be immersed in all Trump, all the time. And that’s why Trump will lose.

    At the end of the 1980 presidential debate, the then-challenger Ronald Reagan posed a famous series of questions that opened with “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

    Why that series of questions was so powerful is important to understand. Reagan was not just delivering an explicit message about prices and wages. His summation also sent an implicit message about his understanding of how and why a vote was earned.

    As a presidential candidate that year, Reagan arrived as a hugely famous and important person. He was the champion of the rising American conservative movement, a former two-term governor of California, and, before that, a movie and television star. Yet when it came time to make his final appeal to voters, candidate Reagan deflected attention away from himself. Instead, he targeted the spotlight directly at the incumbent president and the president’s record.

    David Frum: The ruin that a Trump presidency would mean

    When Reagan spoke of himself, it was to present himself as a plausible replacement:

    I have not had the experience the president has had in holding that office, but I think in being governor of California, the most populous state in the Union—if it were a nation, it would be the seventh-ranking economic power in the world—I, too, had some lonely moments and decisions to make. I know that the economic program that I have proposed for this nation in the next few years can resolve many of the problems that trouble us today. I know because we did it there.

    Reagan understood that Reagan was not the issue in 1980. Jimmy Carter was the issue. Reagan’s job was to not scare anybody away.

    Reagan was following a playbook that Carter himself had used against Gerald Ford in 1976. Bill Clinton would reuse the playbook against George H. W. Bush in 1992. By this playbook, the challenger subordinates himself to a bigger story, and portrays himself as a safe and acceptable alternative to an unacceptable status quo.

    Joe Biden used the same playbook against Donald Trump in 2020. See Biden’s closing ad of the campaign, which struck generic themes of unity and optimism. The ad works off the premise that the voters’ verdict will be on the incumbent; the challenger’s job is simply to refrain from doing or saying anything that gets in the way.

    But Trump won’t accept the classic approach to running a challenger’s campaign. He should want to make 2024 a simple referendum on the incumbent. But psychically, he needs to make the election a referendum on himself.

    That need is self-sabotaging.

    In two consecutive elections, 2016 and 2020, more Americans voted against Trump than for him. The only hope he has of changing that verdict in 2024 is by directing Americans’ attention away from himself and convincing them to like Biden even less than they like Trump. But that strategy would involve Trump mainly keeping his mouth shut and his face off television—and that, Trump cannot abide.

    Trump cannot control himself. He cannot accept that the more Americans hear from Trump, the more they will prefer Biden.

    Tom Nichols: Donald Trump is a national-security risk

    Almost 30 years ago, I cited in The Atlantic some advice I’d heard dispensed by an old hand to a political novice in a congressional race. “There are only two issues when running against an incumbent,” the stager said. “[The incumbent’s] record, and I’m not a kook.” Beyond that, he went on, “if a subject can’t elect you to Congress, don’t talk about it.”

    The same advice applies even more to presidential campaigns.

    Trump defies such advice. His two issues are his record and Yes, I am a kook. The subjects that won’t get him elected to anything are the subjects that he is most determined to talk about.

    In Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye, the private eye Philip Marlowe breaks off a friendship with a searing farewell: “You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.” When historians write their epitaphs for Trump’s 2024 campaign, that could well be their verdict.

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  • The Washington Post – Breaking news and latest headlines, U.S. news, world news, and video – The Washington Post

    The Washington Post – Breaking news and latest headlines, U.S. news, world news, and video – The Washington Post

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    Kremlin denies blowing up dam, blames ‘Ukrainian sabotage’ instead

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