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  • State of the Union live updates: Latest on Biden’s speech

    State of the Union live updates: Latest on Biden’s speech

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    By The Associated Press

    February 8, 2023 GMT

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Follow along for real-time updates on President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address from The Associated Press. Live updates are brought to you by AP journalists at the White House, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

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    SAVORING THE MOMENT

    President Joe Biden spoke for 73 minutes during his State of the Union address in the House chamber.

    But he’s also a creature of the Senate, where he served for decades, and Capitol Hill.

    And so the president lingered for 20 minutes more after he had finished speaking in prime time to a national audience. He took selfies, shook hands and basked in the moment on the House floor.

    Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York yelled “Mr. President! That was awesome.”

    Biden grinned.

    The House chamber started to clear out, but not Biden — not yet, at least.

    “I’m going to get in trouble,” Biden said.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gaveled the House to adjourn the moment the president walked out of the chamber.

    ___

    REPUBLICAN RESPONSE

    Giving the Republican response to the State of the Union, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she didn’t believe “much of anything” she heard from President Joe Biden and suggested he was unfit for the office he holds.

    A onetime press secretary for President Donald Trump, Sanders was elected in November to the job that her father, Mike Huckabee, once held.

    Sanders told her audience that Biden and the Democratic Party, “failed you. You know it, and they know it.”

    “Democrats want to rule us with more government control,” Sanders said. She also noted that, at age 40, she was half Biden’s age.

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    SHOUTING BACK

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who made waves for shouting during President Joe Biden’s State to the Union last year, was back at again.

    The Georgia Republican jumped to her feet, pointed a finger and shouted down Biden on Tuesday night when the president said Republicans wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security as part of budget talks. Those are programs for mostly older Americans.

    And she yelled “China is spying on us,” as Biden said the United States was willing to take action in the aftermath of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had drifted through American airspace.

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    IN BIDEN’S WORDS

    “Two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken”

    —President Joe Biden, alluding to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and the midterm losses last November by some candidates who spread election lies.

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    WAS THAT A BALLOON?

    President Joe Biden made a blink-and-you-might-miss-it reference to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that U.S. fighter jets shot down last week.

    He was talking in the State of the Union address about working with China in an effort to advance American interests.

    But make no mistake, he said, “as we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

    ___

    A DIFFICULT SHOT

    It’s not easy to capture the president entering the House chamber for the big speech.

    The photojournalist doing it must walk backward as the president walks forward, shaking hands and waving, to his place on the rostrum in the House.

    For this year’s State of the Union, that journalist is AP’s Jacquelyn Martin. The Senate Press Photographers Association rotates which organization gets the honors. It’s the first time AP has done it in seven year

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    IN BIDEN’S WORDS

    “American roads, American bridges, and American highways will be made with American products,”

    — President Joe Biden, announcing new federal standards requiring that all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects be made in the United States He said buying American products has been the law since 1933, but past administrations have found ways to circumvent it.

    The standards could have a big impact. As part of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year, Congress allocated $550 billion for roads, bridges, water infrastructure, broadband internet and other projects.

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    ‘THE TALK’

    President Joe Biden says he’s never had to have “the talk” with his kids — the discussion about how to behave when pulled over by police.

    It’s a talk that many Black parents must have in order to protect their children from harm.

    Biden, in his State of the Union address, asked people in his audience to imagine how some parents feel, worrying their children may not come home. As he spoke, the president acknowledged the parents of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old man who was beaten to death by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.

    Nichols’ parents sat with first lady Jill Biden during the speech in the House chamber.

    The president said he knows that most police officers are good, “decent people” who risk their lives when they go to work. But he urged better training for them and more resources to reduce crime.

    “What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often. We have to do better,” Biden said.

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    OIL STILL NEEDED

    President Joe Biden drew derisive laughter from Republicans when he said the United States will need oil “for at least another decade.″

    Biden made the comment in his State of the Union address as he promoted a landmark law to slow climate change. That law authorizes hundreds of billions to boost renewable energy such as wind and solar power and help consumers buy electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances.

    Republicans have criticized Biden for seeking greater oil production from OPEC and other countries even as he had sought to boost renewable energy. Biden appeared to be trying to reassure critics that he recognizes the need for continued oil production, although the 10-year time frame seems far short of what experts expect — that oil will be needed for decades to come.

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    GETTING ROWDY

    Republicans got riled up when President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech touched on Medicare and Social Security.

    Biden suggested Republicans had fallen in line behind a proposal to put the continued existence of those two program to a vote every five years. In response, Republicans in the House chamber hollered, booed and shouted “liar!”

    Some Republicans even jumped to their feet to object.

    The proposal comes from Florida Sen. Rick Scott, but it hasn’t been endorsed by the majority of the Republican Party.

    In response, Biden said: “Anybody who doubts it, contact my office.”

    And he told his audience, “So we all agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the table.” That drew a standing ovation from members of both parties.

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    TRUMP WEIGHS IN

    Donald Trump has been heard from.

    He released a brief online video minutes before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union. The former president ticked through a familiar list of grievances, blaming Biden and Democrats for things such as the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and inflation.

    Trump also went after the Justice Department. It’s been investigating the unlawful retention of top secret records at Trump’s Florida home after Trump left the White House.

    Trump is the only major Republican so far who’s announced a 2024 presidential campaign.

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    ‘NOT ANYMORE’

    Members of Congress rose to their feet and briefly chanted “not anymore” as President Joe Biden cited Democratic-led efforts to cap the cost of insulin to $35 per month for older Americans who use Medicare.

    In his State of the Union address, the president urged Congress to extend that price limit to millions of people on private insurance. That idea was scratched in Congress last year and is unlikely to gain traction now.

    Roughly 8.4 million Americans use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association. About 1 million of those people, who have type 1 diabetes, can die without access to insulin.

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    IN BIDEN’S WORDS

    “I’ll see you at the groundbreaking”

    — President Joe Biden, promising that money from his big infrastructure package will go to projects in Republican parts of the country as well as Democratic ones. Biden used much of his State of the Union speech to call for bipartisanship. This quip was a nice way to reach out Republicans. Democrats have criticized some Republicans who opposed the infrastructure plan but still want the dollars in it to cover projects in their districts.

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    WARM WELCOME

    President Joe Biden began the speech with friendly remarks to Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The president turned to briefly shake hands with McCarthy.

    “I don’t want to ruin your reputation, but I look forward to working with you,” Biden told McCarthy with a chuckle.

    Biden is urging both parties to to find bipartisan unity during his speech.

    Before Biden began speaking, McCarthy said he wouldn’t tear up his copy of Biden’s speech. That was a reference to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doing just that with her copy of President Donald Trump’s speech in 2020 just after he finished giving it.

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    THINK PINK

    Pink — and its shades — appears to be the color of the evening — at the State of the Union.

    There’s first lady Jill Biden’s purplely pink and Vice President Kamala Harris’ magenta pantsuit. And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has a reddish-pink tie.

    Aides insist it’s all just a coincidence — just the color of preference this evening.

    Remember that cherry blossom season in Washington is on the horizon, so perhaps it’s just a nod to the time of year.

    ___

    DESIGNATED SURVIVOR

    For this year’s State of the Union, it’s Labor Secretary Marty Walsh who’s the “designated survivor.”

    The Cabinet member isn’t at President Joe Biden’s address in the House chamber. Walsh instead is at an undisclosed location.

    The idea is to preserve the government’s succession in case of an attack or other incident at the Capitol where the president, vice president, speaker of the House and the rest of Biden’s Cabinet are gathered.

    Walsh is an interesting choice. He’s set to leave the Biden administration to run the National Hockey League Players’ Association. Six NHL games were being played Tuesday night and overlapping with Biden’s speech.

    Last year, when Biden gave his first State of the Union, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was chosen for the role.

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    COURT’S IN SESSION

    A majority of the nine-member Supreme Court is attending the speech.

    Among the justices in the House chamber is Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the high court. She was nominated by President Joe Biden.

    Also in attendance are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.

    For the first time since 1997, retired justices are at the address.

    Stephen Breyer, who retired last year, giving Biden the opportunity to nominate Jackson, and Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018, are even wearing robes.

    Four members of the Supreme Court are absent: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.

    ___

    PLAYING NICE

    Vice President Kamala Harris and new Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California are playing nice —for now.

    The two shook hands as they took their seats behind where President Joe Biden soon will deliver his State of the Union speech in the House chamber. Harris and McCarthy were smiling and chatting as they waited for the speech to begin.

    Last year, Harris sat next to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi at what was the first State of the Union address with two women in those seats of power.

    ___

    SANTOS’ SEAT

    George Santos’ lies about his resume and family background have cost him his place on House committees and intensified bipartisan calls for his resignation.

    But that didn’t stop the newly elected Republican congressman from New York from snagging one of the prime seats for Biden’s speech.

    Santos grabbed a mid-aisle seat in the House chamber. That means he could be seen on national television during wide camera shots and he’ll get a chance to catch a close glimpse of Biden when the president arrives for the address.

    Members of Congress generally sit together by party. But the seats in the House chamber aren’t assigned during the State of the Union. So Santos only had to get there early to stake out a prime location.

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    BIDEN BINGO

    Given Biden’s penchant for frequently repeating his favorite phrases, supporters and detractors are assembling bingo cards of what reliable words and phrases he’s most likely to use during the speech.

    From the League of Women Voters to the National Constitution Center and the Washington media outlet Punchbowl News, groups have produced their versions of the cards. When “Bidenisms” come up, especially attentive viewers can cross them off.

    Some card list common one such as “folks,” “not a joke” and “inflection point.” Others are more policy focused. Think ”Ukraine,” “gas,” “inflation” and “tax cuts.”

    Many versions of the cards make the center square a free space. But even that can come with a dose of ideology. The conservative Americans for Tax Reform’s bingo card referred to it as “tax-payer funded ‘free’ space.”

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    REPUBLICAN RESPONSE

    The last time many in Washington saw Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she was sparring with reporters in White House briefings as President Donald Trump’s press secretary. Now she’s the newly elected Republican governor of Arkansas, and on Tuesday night, she’s her party’s pick to give the response to Biden’s speech.

    In excerpts of those remarks, Sanders is denouncing what she calls the “radical left” agenda and Biden’s policies. She’s using her national platform to carry on conservatives’ fights on social issues, including how race is taught in public schools.

    The Sanders-Biden contrast is more than just ideological. Sanders is 40 years old and she’s the youngest governor in the country right now. Biden is twice her age.

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    ‘FINISH THE JOB’

    Biden will ask the country he leads to give him more time to accomplish his biggest goals.

    “That’s always been my vision for the country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America — the middle class — to unite the country.” That’s what the president plans to say in his State of the Union address, according to excerpts released by the White House before the prime-time speech.

    And also this: “We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”

    In the coming weeks, Biden is expected to formally announce his 2024 reelection campaign. A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for him, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

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    FLURRY OF PREPARATIONS

    Preparations are underway at the Capitol with the president’s State of the Union address only a few hours away. And that means a flurry of behind-the-scenes operations to transform the stately building for the prime-time event.

    The House chamber is cleared out now that lawmakers have completed most of their business for the day. Crews are beginning their work.

    The gilded Statuary Hall is filling up with lights, cameras and broadcast teams for the many interviews that will air before before and after the speech.

    It’s the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that the Capitol has been fully reopened for the event. Security is tight. People have begun filling the Capitol halls

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    THE BALLOON

    Biden has taken lots of heat from Republicans over his handling of the suspected Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the United States before being shot down on Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean. GOP lawmakers had talked about introducing a resolution, just as the president was set to give his prime-time speech, that would have condemned the administration over the matter.

    Those plans have been scrapped, and instead a bipartisan proposal condemning China is being considered.

    “It’s too important of an issue. And we want to stand strong together against China instead of having our own internal fights,” Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Associated Press. The Texas Republican is sponsoring the bipartisan resolution.

    Not everyone is on board, it seems. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, showed up at the Capitol on Tuesday with a big white balloon.

    ___

    MIC DROP

    “We’re not going to do childish games tearing up a speech”

    — Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That was a reference to his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who made a point of publicly ripping her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address just after he finished speaking in 2020.

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    INVITED GUESTS

    Keep an eye out for guests invited to the speech by the White House and members of Congress.

    Among those sitting with first lady Jill Biden will be the family of Tyre Nichols and the parents of a 3-year-old girl who has a rare form of cancer. There’ll be U2 frontman Bono, who has worked to combat HIV/AIDS, and Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the accused gunman in a mass shooting last month in California.

    Some Democratic lawmakers are bringing relatives of Black men and boys who have died at the hands of police.

    Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has invited former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who changed name from Enes Kanter after becoming a U.S. citizen in 2021. He grew up in Turkey and has been critical of Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdoğan, and says a bounty has been issued against him in that country.

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    HERE WE GO

    It’s State of the Union time, that day when the president delivers a speech to Congress that tries to accomplish a lot.

    Biden will want to talk about his accomplishments, toss out some goals for this year, tick off things that need fixing and do some cheerleading for the nation. And, of course, characterize the state of the union.

    Doing all of that can take a while. Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address ran just over 62 minutes. Bill Clinton gave the longest one ever, clocking in at one hour, 28 minutes in 2000. The award for the shortest speech goes to Republican George W. Bush, who spoke for 47 minutes in 2002.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the State of the Union address at: https://apnews.com/hub/state-of-the-union-address

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  • Ex-Twitter execs deny pressure to block Hunter Biden story

    Ex-Twitter execs deny pressure to block Hunter Biden story

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Twitter executives conceded Wednesday they made a mistake by blocking a story about Hunter Biden, the president’s son, from the social media platform in the run-up to the 2020 election, but adamantly denied Republican assertions they were pressured by Democrats and law enforcement to suppress the story.

    “The decisions here aren’t straightforward, and hindsight is 20/20,” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, testified to Congress. “It isn’t obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyberattack by another government on a presidential election.”

    He added, “Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016.”

    The three former executives appeared before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee to testify for the first time about the company’s decision to initially block from Twitter a New York Post article in October 2020 about the contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

    Emboldened by Twitter’s new leadership in billionaire Elon Musk — whom they see as more sympathetic to conservatives than the company’s previous administration — Republicans used the hearing to push a long-standing and unproven theory that social media companies including Twitter are biased against them.

    Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer said the hearing is the panel’s “first step in examining the coordination between the federal government and Big Tech to restrict protected speech and interfere in the democratic process.”

    The hearing continues a years-long trend of GOP leaders calling tech company leaders to testify about alleged political bias. Democrats, meanwhile, have pressed the companies on the spread of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.

    The witnesses Republicans subpoenaed were Roth, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer, and James Baker, the company’s former deputy general counsel.

    Democrats brought a witness of their own, Anika Collier Navaroli, a former employee with Twitter’s content moderation team. She testified last year to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot about Twitter’s preferential treatment of Donald Trump until it banned the then-president from the site two years ago.

    The White House criticized congressional Republicans for staging “a bizarre political stunt,” hours after Biden’s State of the Union address where he detailed bipartisan progress in his first two years in office.

    “This appears to be the latest effort by the House Republican majority’s most extreme MAGA members to question and relitigate the outcome of the 2020 election,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement Wednesday. “This is not what the American people want their leaders to work on.”

    The New York Post reported weeks before the 2020 presidential election that it had received from Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a hard drive from a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved. Twitter blocked people from sharing links to the story for several days.

    “You exercised an amazing amount of clout and power over the entire American electorate by even holding (this story) hostage for 24 hours and then reversing your policy,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said to the panel of witnesses.

    Months later, Twitter’s then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, called the company’s communications around the Post article “not great.” He added that blocking the article’s URL with “zero context” around why it was blocked was “unacceptable.”

    The newspaper story was greeted at the time with skepticism due to questions about the laptop’s origins, including Giuliani’s involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden before the White House election.

    The Kremlin interfered in the 2016 race by hacking Democratic emails that were subsequently leaked, and fears that Russia would meddle again in the 2020 race were widespread across Washington.

    Just last week, lawyers for the younger Biden asked the Justice Department to investigate people who say they accessed his personal data. But they did not acknowledge that the data came from a laptop Hunter Biden is purported to have dropped off at a computer repair shop.

    The issue was also reignited recently after Musk took over Twitter as CEO and began to release a slew of company information to independent journalists, what he has called the “Twitter Files.”

    The documents and data largely show internal debates among employees over the decision to temporarily censor links to the Hunter Biden story. The tweet threads lacked substantial evidence of a targeted influence campaign from Democrats or the FBI, which has denied any involvement in Twitter’s decision-making.

    Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., called the hearing a “fishing expedition” seeking to reheat bogus allegations claiming Biden somehow influenced his son’s business dealings in Ukraine.

    Nonetheless, Republicans including Comer, R-Ky., have used the Post story, which has not been independently verified by The Associated Press, as the basis for what they claim is another example of the Biden family’s “influence peddling.”

    One of Wednesday’s witnesses, Baker, has been a frequent target of Republican scrutiny.

    Baker was the FBI’s general counsel during the opening of two of the bureau’s most consequential investigations in history: the Hillary Clinton investigation and a separate inquiry into potential coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Republicans have long criticized the FBI’s handling of both investigations.

    Baker denied any wrongdoing during his two years at Twitter and said that despite disagreeing with the decision to block links to the Post story, “I believe that the public record reveals that my client acted in a manner that was fully consistent with the First Amendment.”

    There has been no evidence that Twitter’s platform is biased against conservatives; studies have found the opposite when it comes to conservative media in particular. But the issue continues to preoccupy GOP members of congress.

    And some experts said questions around government influence on Big Tech’s content moderation are legitimate.

    “Despite how I would change how some of the members ask their questions, there should be more insight into this stuff. There should be more transparency,” said Katie Harbath, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who served as Facebook’s former public policy director.

    She added, “There’s still a lot more hearings and sides to the story that we need to hear from, particularly the government and the FBI.”

    ___

    Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Frank Bajak contributed to this report.

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  • China says it was smeared in Biden State of the Union speech

    China says it was smeared in Biden State of the Union speech

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    BEIJING (AP) — China says it was smeared in U.S. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address that repeatedly mentioned competition between the two countries.

    China does not fear competing with the U.S. but is “opposed to defining the entire China-U.S. relationship in terms of competition,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing Wednesday.

    “It is not the practice of a responsible country to smear a country or restrict the country’s legitimate development rights under the excuse of competition, even at the expense of disrupting the global industrial and supply chain,” Mao said.

    China will defend its interests and the U.S. should work with it to “promote the return of bilateral relations to a track of sound and stable development,” she said.

    Mao’s comments came against a background of raging disputes over trade, Taiwan, human rights and access to advanced technologies.

    Biden mentioned China and its leader, Xi Jinping, at least seven times in his address Tuesday night, focusing mainly on how the U.S. was increasingly prepared to compete with Beijing while also seeking to avoid conflict.

    “I’ve made clear with President Xi that we seek competition, not conflict,” Biden said.

    “I will make no apologies that we are investing to make America strong. Investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future, and that China’s government is intent on dominating,” he said.

    Biden said his administration is “committed to work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world.”

    However, he also warned that “if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country,” a pointed reference to the shooting down on Saturday of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the continental United States.

    China says the balloon was an unmanned civilian airship used for meteorological research and has strongly protested the U.S. action while threatening unspecified countermeasures.

    The incident prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to China this week that had stirred hopes of reversing the continued deterioration of relations between Beijing and Washington.

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  • US, states weigh farmland restrictions after Chinese balloon

    US, states weigh farmland restrictions after Chinese balloon

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    HARLOWTON, Mont. (AP) — Near the banks of Montana’s Musselshell River, cattle rancher Michael Miller saw a large, white orb above the town of Harlowton last week, a day before U.S. officials revealed they were tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the state. The balloon caused a stir in the 900-person town surrounded by cattle ranches, wind farms and scattered nuclear missile silos behind chain link fences.

    Miller worries about China as a rising threat to the U.S., but questioned how much intelligence could be gained from a balloon. China’s bigger threat, he said, is to the U.S. economy. Like many throughout the country, Miller wonders if stricter laws are needed to bar farmland sales to foreign nationals so power over agriculture and the food supply doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.

    “It’s best not to have a foreign entity buying up land, especially one that’s not really friendly to us,” Miller said. “They are just going to take us over economically, instead of military-wise.”

    Miller’s concerns are increasingly shared by U.S. lawmakers after the Chinese balloon’s voyage over American skies inflamed tensions between Washington and Beijing.

    In Congress and statehouses, the balloon’s journey added traction to decades-old concerns about foreign land ownership. U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, is sponsoring legislation to include agriculture as a factor in national security decisions allowing foreign real estate investments.

    “The bottom line is we don’t want folks from China owning our farmland. It goes against food security and it goes against national security,” Tester told The Associated Press.

    At least 11 state legislatures also are considering measures to address the concern. That includes Montana and North Dakota, where the U.S. Air Force recently warned that a $700 million corn mill proposed near a military base by the American subsidiary of a Chinese company would risk national security.

    City council members in Grand Forks, North Dakota, endured a barrage of criticism from town residents Monday night before voting 5-0 to abandon the plan. The move came a year after a joint press release from local officials and North Dakota’s governor called the project “extraordinary,” saying it would bring jobs and bolster the farm industry.

    Enraged residents of the 59,000-person city near the Minnesota border demanded resignations from council members they claimed had tried to push through the plan, brushing off Chinese threats to national security.

    “You decided, for whatever reason, this was such a fantastic thing for our city that you got blinders on,” said Dexter Perkins, a University of North Dakota geology professor. “You guys went all in when there were a gazillion unanswered questions.”

    Before the Air Force’s warning, officials said they weren’t in a position to opine on national security matters.

    Foreign entities and individuals control less than 3% of U.S. farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Of that, those with ties to China control less than 1%, or roughly 600 square miles (340 square kilometers).

    Yet in recent years, transactions of agricultural and non-agricultural land have attracted scrutiny, particularly in states with a large U.S. military presence.

    Limitations on foreign individuals or entities owning farmland vary widely throughout the U.S. Most states allow it, while 14 have restrictions. No states have a total prohibition. Of the five states where the federal agriculture department says entities with ties to China own the most farmland, four don’t limit foreign ownership: North Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Utah.

    The fifth, Missouri, has a cap on foreign land ownership that state lawmakers want to make more stringent.

    Ownership restriction supporters often speculate about foreign buyers’ motives and whether people with ties to adversaries such as China intend to use land for spying or exerting control over the U.S. food supply.

    Texas in 2021 banned infrastructure deals with individuals tied to hostile governments, including China. The policy came after a Chinese army veteran and real estate tycoon purchased a wind farm in a border town near a U.S. Air Force base. This year, Texas Republicans want to expand that with a ban against land purchases by individuals and entities from hostile countries including China.

    Critics see it as anti-foreigner hysteria, with Texas’ Asian American community particularly concerned about the effect on immigrants who want to buy homes and build businesses.

    In Utah, concern has centered on a Chinese company’s purchase of a speedway near an army depot in 2015 and Chinese-owned farms exporting alfalfa and hay from drought-stricken parts of the state.

    Lawmakers this year are considering two proposals that would, to varying degrees, ban entities with ties to foreign governments from owning land.

    “Do we really want any foreign country coming in and buying our agricultural land, our forests or our mineral rights?” asked Republican state Rep. Kay Christofferson, who is sponsoring one of the bills. “If it would interfere with our sovereignty — especially in an emergency situation or during a threat to national security — I think that we’d lose our ability as a state to be independent and self sufficient.”

    Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the scramble to limit foreign land ownership tracked rising U.S.-China tensions. Welsh shares concerns about U.S. adversaries purchasing land near military bases like in Grand Forks, but said worries about China controlling the food supply were overblown.

    “China is just a small slice of the bigger picture of foreign ownership,” Welsh said. “When it comes to food security, the biggest threat is that foreign owners can potentially pay a higher price for agricultural land, which then drives up prices.”

    The restrictions have encountered resistance in states with strong property rights. In Wyoming, two proposals to restrict foreign land ownership failed this week even though Republicans who control the statehouse were sympathetic to concerns about China expanding its reach.

    “We’ve had a lot of problems with China lately in the air. Big balloons flying over us. We look at this as a national and state security bill, for Wyoming and the United States,” said Rep. Bill Allemand, a Republican from Casper.

    Lawmakers on Monday rejected Allemand’s proposal to ban ownership of more than an acre of land by people from China, Russia and countries the U.S. government considers state sponsors of terrorism. Skeptics said it would be difficult to police due to the complex web of title companies and holding corporations in agricultural real estate.

    “This is very easy to get around,” Republican Rep. Martha Lawley said. “We may end the day feeling good about ourselves, but we’ve opened up to a lot of liability.”

    Questions about foreign investment are increasingly prompting debate over whether cities and states should be rolling out welcome mats or shutting doors to potential threats. The issue can pit local officials interested in economic development against state and federal agencies concerned with national security.

    That was initially the case with the proposed corn mill in Grand Forks, where officials last year lauded the plans. But days after the U.S. Air Force shot down the Chinese balloon, which China insists was only a weather balloon, the sentiment had fizzled and the city changed course.

    “There’s something that I’ve learned through this process, and that is sometimes to slow down and make sure we fully understand before we move to the next level,” Grand Forks council member Ken Vein said before voting to abandon the corn mill.

    ___

    Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, David Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, and AP reporters throughout the U.S. contributed reporting.

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  • As jets closed in on China balloon, hobbyists were listening

    As jets closed in on China balloon, hobbyists were listening

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The extraordinary scene of U.S. fighter jets getting ready to strike a Chinese balloon had many people along the Carolina coast straining their necks and pointing their smartphones to the sky to capture the moment of impact.

    But a group of aviation enthusiasts was, instead, intently scanning radio frequencies for the exchanges between the pilots who would follow as Huntress, NORAD’s eastern air defense sector controller, tracked the exact distance as two Air Force F-22 fighter jets closed in on the target.

    The pilots had to balance striking the balloon when it was at least six miles (10 kilometers) offshore — the distance NASA had advised the military allow to keep debris from falling on land — with ensuring it was still in U.S. territorial airspace.

    “Five miles offshore,” Huntress advises in a transmission that was captured by aviation hobbyist Ken Harrell, in a recording that was authenticated by NORAD.

    “Frank One is switches hot,” the first F-22 reports. The call sign “Frank” was given to both aircraft to honor 2nd Lt. Frank Luke, who earned the Medal of Honor in World War I for downing multiple balloons and aircraft.

    “Frank Two is switches hot,” the second F-22 radios in.

    When Huntress calls out that the balloon is exactly six nautical miles out, Frank One takes the shot.

    00:00

    <p>Radio enthusiast Ken Harrell recorded the Feb. 4 exchange between “Huntress,” NORAD’s eastern air defense sector controller, with “Frank One” and “Frank Two” call signs for the pilots of two Air Force F-22 fighter jets that closed in on the Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast. Eagle One and Two are F-15Cs backing up and recording the operation. COURTESY: Ken Harrell ((Audio authenticated by NORAD))</p>

    “The balloon is completely destroyed!” radios an F-15 fighter jet that also took part in the mission, advising quickly that “there appears to be metal chaff clouds. … It’s definitely metal breaking apart.”

    This audio, which was first reported by The War Zone, wasn’t on the civilian radio frequencies that commercial pilots use. The Air Force pilots were communicating on an unencrypted military frequency that the North American Aerospace Defense Command uses to conduct missions to secure the eastern United States, under the control center named Huntress.

    Aviation enthusiasts with the right radios scan for Huntress missions and other military flights as a hobby, calling out exercises.

    Ken Harrell, a 68-year-old retiree from Summerville, South Carolina, is one of those enthusiasts. On Saturday, he recorded the exchange of the balloon shootdown.

    NORAD confirmed the authenticity of the recording to The Associated Press in a statement.

    When Harrell got started a few years ago, he said he “bought the right kind of scanner, put up, you know, a decent antenna and a lot of software to connect to the scanner and just started listening.” He said the scanner only cost about $160 to get started.

    On Saturday, he got a call from a fellow enthusiast who said Huntress was guiding F-22s in to hit what the Pentagon has said was a spy balloon and China has insisted was a civilian weather balloon.

    “He says, get on the scanner, man! Huntress has been controlling the F-22 Raptors, you know for the balloon, they’re gonna do it,” Harrell said. “So I jump up, crank up everything, and started listening in.”

    When Harrell heard the pilots’ and controller’s voices, “I was excited,” he said. “I’ve listened to a lot of other stuff — fighters practicing, intercept exercises, and that’s cool, but when I first turned the scanner on and it went to my local Huntress frequency, it was pretty apparent: This was a mission. Boom.”

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  • GOP on GOP: Romney scolds Santos, ‘You don’t belong here’

    GOP on GOP: Romney scolds Santos, ‘You don’t belong here’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. George Santos positioned himself in a prime location for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address — an uncomfortably prominent place for the embattled new lawmaker who faces multiple investigations and has acknowledged embellishing and even lying about his life story.

    Santos’ presence at the center aisle to see and be seen with the arrivals was met with a stern rebuke from a fellow Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney.

    More on the State of the Union

    “You don’t belong here,” the Utah Republican scolded Santos as he entered the House chamber and spotted the New York Republican on the aisle.

    Words were exchanged, it was reported, though Romney said later he did not hear it all.

    “He shouldn’t be in Congress, and they are going to go through the process and hopefully get him out,” Romney told reporters afterward, his office confirmed. “But he shouldn’t be there, and if he had any shame at all he wouldn’t be there.”

    The exchange was an unusual lashing by the more reserved Romney, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, but shows the discomfort Santos is bringing among traditional conservatives critical of the rightward drift of more extremist elements of the GOP.

    Santos retorted with a tweet: “Hey @MittRomney just a reminder that you will NEVER be PRESIDENT!”

    The arrival of Santos has been a problem for the Republicans since he won a New York congressional seat, which helped to deliver the party a slim majority, once his personal story began to unravel.

    Santos has acknowledged fabricating, and at times lying, about parts of his education, work experience and even his family’s own religion and history.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met privately with the congressman last week amid a swirl of potential investigations on and off Capitol Hill. Santos announced he would step aside from his committee assignments ahead of an expected House Ethics Committee probe.

    McCarthy said Tuesday the situation with Santos would work its way through the House Ethics Committee. Fellow New York Republicans have called for Santos to resign from Congress. Santos faces other investigations beyond Congress.

    Other Republicans heard the exchange and one Republican lawmaker who was told about it said there was widespread displeasure that Santos had situated himself in such a prominent spot. The lawmaker requested anonymity to discuss what others said about the subject.

    The center aisle basically gave Santos the chance to seize the limelight by greeting the president and other prominent officials as they entered the House chamber and made their way down the aisle.

    As senators entered the House in a line, it was then that Romney spotted Santos and delivered his message.

    “I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there, trying to shake hands with every senator and the president of the United States,” Romney told reporters later.

    Romney said that given the investigations, Santos “should be sitting the back row and staying quiet, instead of parading in front of the president and people coming into the room.”

    But Santos, as is often the case, had his moment, becoming for a time the face of the GOP.

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  • Analysis: Biden confronts doubters with State of the Union

    Analysis: Biden confronts doubters with State of the Union

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden stepped to the rostrum for his State of the Union address at what should be a high point of his presidency. He’s repeatedly beaten the odds with a string of legislative accomplishments and a historically strong midterm election where Democrats held the line against Republicans. His steadfast support for Ukraine has won praise. The cloud of the pandemic has lifted.

    But on Tuesday night, he found himself facing a problem that has shadowed him for years — doubt.

    More on the State of the Union

    Polls show a majority of Americans are largely unaware of his successes and don’t approve of his job performance. Even Democrats question whether he should run for reelection amid concerns about his age.

    It all added up to a particularly high-stakes moment for Biden, providing him with his last, best opportunity to make his case for why he deserves a second term before a formal campaign announcement.

    He left no doubt that he believes he has more work to do as president. Addressing Republicans who recently won control of the House, Biden said “the people sent us a clear message” about the need to find common ground.

    “We’ve been sent here to finish the job,” he said.

    Although Biden frequently used the language of cooperation, he slipped in a few digs at the other party, such as when he talked about Republicans who voted against his infrastructure law but still celebrate the money being used in their districts.

    “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promised to be the president for all Americans. We’ll fund these projects. And I’ll see you at the groundbreaking!”

    At another point, Biden accused Republicans of trying to curtail Social Security and Medicare benefits for older Americans, provoking shouts of “liar” from his critics.

    Veering from the text of his speech, Biden responded with a grin. “Anybody who doubts it, contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.” It was a thrust and parry more likely to be found on a debate stage than in a State of the Union.

    Now it’s just a matter of waiting for Biden to reveal his decision on whether he’ll run again. He’s promised an announcement early this year.

    “Until the moment when he makes that pronouncement, that’s still that question that hangs over every word that he utters,” said Patrick Gaspard, a former White House political director and top official at the Democratic National Committee.

    Gaspard, who is currently president of the liberal Center for American Progress, said the State of the Union “is often considered the opening bid in an argument for reelection. And in this situation, it’s certainly the case.”

    American presidents almost never forgo a shot at a second term. The last one was Lyndon Johnson, who did not seek reelection in 1968 after his presidency became unmoored by the Vietnam War.

    But there’s also never been a president as old as Biden. He’s 80, and would be 86 at the end of a second term. He first ran for the White House in 1988.

    “I’m not new to this place,” Biden acknowledged in his speech. “I stand here tonight having served as long as about any one of you has ever served here.”

    Lyndsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian, said Biden’s age is “the X factor” that differentiates him from his predecessors. Even when other presidents faced low approval ratings during their first term, “no one was suggesting that they not run.”

    “If he was ten years younger, none of these conversations would be happening,” she said.

    Biden gave a glimpse of his campaign pitch on Friday in Philadelphia, when he spoke at a Democratic National Committee meeting. He rattled off legislative accomplishments, some of which were achieved after they were left for dead in Congress, and blasted Republicans as “extremists,” even calling them “nuts” at one point.

    “Let me ask you a simple question. Are you with me?” he said to the cheering crowd, which responded by chanting, “Four more years!”

    Political appearances rarely draw the same attention as the State of the Union. Last year, 38 million people tuned in, compared to nearly 100 million who watched the Super Bowl.

    Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said the challenge is to find the right way to harness that fleeting focus.

    “The speech will probably be remembered for two or three lines,” he said. “He has to decide which he wants those to be.“

    Judging by the text, Biden wants that line to be “finish the job,” a phrase included no less than a dozen times. Whether it’s increasing taxes on billionaires, preventing police brutality or lowering insulin costs, Biden said he wants to “finish the job.”

    It may not have been a campaign announcement, but it’s an implicit request for voters to stick with him.

    Biden plans to travel to Wisconsin on Wednesday and Florida on Thursday to continue pushing his agenda, part of an administration-wide plan for top officials to fan out across the country this week.

    After a Democratic midterm showing that was strong by historical averages in a president’s first term, Biden has successfully tamped down handwringing within his party over whether he should seek another term. No primary opponent has emerged.

    And he has a record to build upon. He’s also secured investments in infrastructure, computer chip manufacturing and financial incentives to encourage Americans to adopt cleaner technologies for fighting climate change.

    “At the end of the day, you can’t argue with the extraordinary accomplishments, more than almost any other modern president, that President Biden has achieved, again, under the toughest of circumstances,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a Sunday interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    However, Biden still faces skepticism from the country at large.

    Only 37% of Democrats say they want Biden to seek a second term, down from 52% before the midterm elections in November, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    Victories in Congress to the contrary, many Americans don’t see him making progress either.

    A new Washington Post-ABC News poll said 36% of Americans believe Biden has accomplished “a great deal” or “a good amount” since taking office, while 62% said he’s done “not very much” or “little or nothing.”

    Cedric Richmond, a former top White House official who is now a senior adviser to the Democratic National Committee, says the numbers don’t concern him.

    “When you hit a campaign, and you’re going to spend the kind of money that campaigns cost now, people will get inundated” with reminders of changes that Biden has made during his administration, he said.

    Right now, Richmond said, “people are more focused on their lives than political commentary and polls and all of those things.”

    Now the question is whether Biden’s big speech shifted voters’ focus to him — and got them to see the country his same way.

    ___

    EDITORS: Chris Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the State of the Union address at: https://apnews.com/hub/state-of-the-union-address

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  • Biden speech takeaways: More conciliation than conflict

    Biden speech takeaways: More conciliation than conflict

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The State of the Union address tends to have a ritual rhythm. Grand entrance. Applause. Platitudes. Policies. Appeals for Unity, real or imagined.

    President Joe Biden checked those boxes, and a few more, during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. In part, he seemed to be laying the foundation to run for a second term. “We’ve been sent here to finish the job,” he said.

    More on the State of the Union

    Biden made calls for unity and tried to emphasize conciliation over conflict, easier to do in this rarefied setting, seemingly impossible to sustain in such divided times.

    Takeaways from the prime-time address:

    MORE CONCILIATION THAN CONFLICT

    Biden’s speech almost defiantly ignored the bitter divisions between Republicans and Democrats and his own low standing with the public.

    He returned repeatedly to common ground, making the case that both parties can back U.S. factories, new businesses being formed and the funding of 20,000 infrastructure projects. When Biden hit each of these themes, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., politely clapped. He even stood to applaud at one point.

    It’s a sign that Democrats and Republicans can at least agree to a shared set of goals, even if they have very different views of how to get there.

    In the midterm election campaign, Biden warned of Republican extremists. On Tuesday night, he portrayed them as partners in governance during the first two years of his presidency.

    But then came a Biden comment that generated boos and hoots from Republicans: Biden said some in the GOP were bent on cutting Social Security and Medicare.

    That sparked a raucous back and forth that seemed more in line with the reality of the actual relationship between the parties.

    ___

    REGULAR JOE

    Biden used the speech to highlight his focus on the common man, calling out billionaires who pay lower tax rates than does the middle class, and airlines that treat their passengers like “suckers.”

    It amounted to a dare to Republican lawmakers who increasingly claim to represent blue-collar workers.

    “No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter,” Biden said in one of the bigger applause lines of his speech.

    The president brought back an idea from last year to put a minimum tax on billionaires so they don’t pay a lower rate than many middle-class households. Biden had pitched a 20% tax on the income and unrealized financial gains of households worth $100 million or more. The administration estimated it would generate $360 billion over 10 years. That would in theory help fund some priorities and possibly reduce the deficit.

    But Biden’s tax plan might be more about scoring political points. He couldn’t get it past Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in the Senate last year.

    The president was straightforward in saying he would stop airlines from charging fees in order to sit families together, saying that children were being treated like luggage. He wants to ban hidden resort fees charged by hotels and penalties charged by cell service providers.

    “Americans are tired of being played for suckers,” Biden said.

    ___

    PASSING OVER CHINA BALLOON

    Biden had been on a winning streak countering China, America’s rising military and economic competitor.

    Then Beijing brazenly floated a spy balloon across the United States, an embarrassing episode for Biden that culminated last weekend with him ordering the Pentagon to shoot the craft out of the sky over the Atlantic Ocean.

    The incident has dominated headlines, with some Republicans arguing that it demonstrates Biden has been wobbly on Beijing.

    Biden briefly addressed the incident directly: “As we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

    Lost in the noise is the administration’s increasingly aggressive efforts to push back against China, through agreements with the Philippines and Japan to adjust or expand the U.S. military presence in those countries.

    The balloon drama overshadowed all of that.

    ___

    STANDING WITH UKRAINE

    Last year’s State of the Union was dramatically shaped by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started days before the address.

    At that moment, the chances of Ukraine staying in the fight with a more formidable Russian military seemed highly unlikely. Nearly a year later, Ukraine is firmly in the fight.

    Biden took a moment to pay tribute to Ukraine, addressing one of his guests, Ambassador Oksana Markarova, as representing “not just her nation but the courage of her people.”

    He also applauded Congress for giving the Ukrainian what it needed to face Russia’s brutal aggression; the United States has already committed nearly $30 billion in security assistance since the start of the war.

    In private, administration officials have made clear to Ukrainian officials that Congress’ patience with the cost of the war will have its limits. But with Tuesday’s address, Biden offered an optimistic outlook about the prospects of long-term American support.

    “Ambassador, America is united in our support for your country,” Biden said looking toward Markarova in the gallery. “We will stand with you as long as it takes.”

    ___

    FEELING THEIR PAIN

    Among Biden’s guests were the parents of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man whose beating death at the hands of Memphis, Tennessee, police has reignited a national debate on policing.

    Efforts to reduce police excesses have been sharply restricted by resistance in Congress, and there’s little prospect of federal action.

    Still, Biden expressed awe at the grace of Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, who following his death has talked of her son’s “beautiful soul” and hopeful certainty that “something good will come from this.”

    Biden, 80, also acknowledged in plain terms that as a white man he’s enjoyed a privilege that Nichols’ parents — and Black parents writ large — do not.

    “Imagine having to worry whether your son or daughter will come home from walking down the street or playing in the park or just driving their car,” he said. “I’ve never had to have ‘the talk’ with my children — Beau, Hunter and Ashley — that so many Black and brown families have had with their children.”

    ___

    FINISH THE JOB

    Biden uttered the phrase “finish the job” at least a dozen times during his address. It sounded like the makings of a slogan he might employ for a reelection campaign.

    But it is highly unlikely he will be able to finish the job on many of the things he referenced, like an assault weapons ban, universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and forcing companies to stop doing stock buybacks.

    At least not during this term.

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  • AP to ChatGPT: Do the State of the Union, as Shakespeare

    AP to ChatGPT: Do the State of the Union, as Shakespeare

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — If you’ve heard it once in a president’s State of the Union speech, you’ve heard it 100 times: There is nothing the American people can’t do when they pull together.

    But you haven’t heard that thought in a State of Union address from William Shakespeare: “Lo,” said the bard. “With kindness, love, and understanding clear, we shall conquer all, and have naught to fear.”

    Nor from the noggin-knocking Three Stooges of last century’s fame: “We just put our heads together, come up with a plan, and bam! Problem solved!”

    More on the State of the Union

    Let’s face it, State of the Union speeches are mostly rote. Presidents roll out a list of accomplishments, a few anecdotes about guests in attendance, a sober assessment of the problems of the day and a crescendo about glory times ahead.

    To shake up the formula before President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night, The Associated Press instructed the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to work up State of the Union speeches as they might have been written by some of history’s greatest minds as well as some stooges.

    AP ordered up 300-word versions, in contrast to Biden’s sprawling 6,400 words last year, and tapped a few people so iconic we know them by only one name. The virtual Greek philosopher Aristotle gracefully quoted Socrates, Cleopatra the historic Egyptian ruler asked for the blessing of the gods, Madonna cited her perspective as a mother and a woman in the entertainment industry.

    ChatGPT was also asked to channel singer Elvis Presley, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, the ground-breaking NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, the abolitionist Sojourner Truth, and baseball’s Yogi Berra, among other luminaries.

    We also wanted to see what a bright, unidentified 10-year-old might say to the assembled lawmakers.

    The app is part of a new generation of AI systems that can converse in human-like fashion and generate text on demand based on what they’ve learned from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media. It petrifies teachers who fear their students will use it instead of their brains for school papers.

    ChatGPT rendered Shakespeare’s State of the Union speech in rhyme, scrolling on the screen faster than anyone could read it. The version channeling comedian Jerry Seinfeld captured his verbal mannerisms and signature phrasings.

    “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve realized that the state of our union is like a sandwich,” wrote the app-generated Seinfeld. “You’ve got the top bun, which is all the good stuff. You’ve got the cheese, the lettuce, the tomato, the mayo. It’s all delicious.

    “But then, when you take a closer look, you see the bottom bun, and that’s where the real work is. That’s where the foundation is.”

    Yada, yada yada.

    For all the app’s smarts and speed, it wasn’t all-knowing. In the speech channeling King, it had the civil rights leader quoting himself. It conveyed none of Abraham Lincoln’s eloquence. And it declined to take a run at drafting 2023 Biden’s speech, instead serving up a rehash of his last one.

    It also drew a blank when asked for a speech from George Santos, the new Republican congressman from New York who was caught fictionalizing his past. It seemed to sense, though, that there was something make-believe in the picture.

    “George Santos is not a widely recognized public figure or historical figure,” the app responded. “There is no widely known information about a person by this name in the public domain. It’s possible that the name was created for a specific use or scenario, such as a fictional character or a person in a private setting.”

    A look at some of the speeches ChatGPT generated:

    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    My Lords and Ladies, countrymen and women, Gather ye here today to hear what I say, In this great hall of ours, let us unite, And listen to the state of our fair state.

    We stand today as one, in good health and grace, Prosperous and free, with a peaceful space, Our trade and commerce flourish, wealth abounds, With bountiful harvests, and peace surrounds.

    But, lo, there are still challenges we face, For not all are equal in our fair place, We must work together to bridge the divide, And bring forth equality, from side to side.

    Let us not forget, our soldiers bold and brave, Who fought for freedom, and our country gave, Their lives and limbs, for our safety and peace, We must repay them with honors and release.

    And so I say, let us work hand in hand, To build a brighter future, in this fair land, With kindness, love, and understanding clear, We shall conquer all, and have naught to fear.

    And now, my friends, I bid thee all farewell, And trust that thou wilt work, with heart and will, For the good of all, and the betterment of man, Together we shall build, a stronger, better land.

    ___

    SOJOURNER TRUTH, the 1800s abolitionist and evangelist born into slavery

    As a former slave, I stand before you today as a witness to the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality in this great nation. Despite the progress made since the abolition of slavery, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of disappointment at the persistence of racial injustice.

    African Americans are still being denied their basic rights, facing discrimination and prejudice at every turn. This is evident in the disproportionate number of black people who are incarcerated, unemployed, and living in poverty. It is also evident in the ongoing struggle for voting rights, as Black citizens are still being denied the right to vote through various means, including gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics.

    But I have not lost hope. I have faith in the resilience of my people, and I am inspired by the efforts of those who continue to fight for justice. I am heartened by the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the many other groups who are speaking out against systemic racism and calling for change.

    I call upon all of you to join me in this fight. We must not be complacent in the face of injustice. We must continue to stand up for what is right, even when it is difficult. We must continue to fight for equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender, or religion.

    Together, we can create a future where all people are free from discrimination and prejudice, where everyone has the opportunity to succeed, and where justice and equality reign supreme. This is the state of our union, and it is a call to action. Let us work together to build a brighter future for all.

    ___

    JERRY SEINFELD

    Good evening, my fellow Americans. How’s everyone doing tonight? I’m here to give you the State of the Union address, and I must say, I’m a little nervous. I mean, usually when I give a speech, I have a microphone and a stage and a live audience. But tonight, it’s just me and you, so I hope you don’t mind if I sprinkle in a few jokes to lighten the mood.

    Now, let’s talk about the state of our union. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve realized that the state of our union is like a sandwich …

    We’ve got the top bun, which is all the good stuff. We’ve got the economy, which is looking pretty tasty. We’ve got low unemployment, and businesses are thriving. … I want to focus on the bottom bun. I want to focus on the foundation. I want to talk about the things that we don’t always see or talk about, but that are so important. I want to talk about education, and healthcare, and infrastructure. I want to talk about the things that make our country strong …

    Let’s make sure that our country is a delicious sandwich that we can all be proud of.

    ___

    YOGI BERRA, baseball hall of famer

    It’s like deja vu all over again, folks! We’ve been here before and we’re here again. The state of the union, it’s complicated, but we’re makin’ progress. We’ve got our ups and our downs, but we gotta keep swingin’ at those curveballs life throws our way.

    Now, let me tell ya, we’ve been workin’ hard to make this country a better place for all of us. We’ve got a lot of people doin’ a lot of good things, and we gotta keep that up. And for those who ain’t doin’ so well, we gotta help ‘em out. We’re all in this together, like a big ol’ family.

    We’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of us, but we’ve also got a lot of opportunities. We’ve gotta take ’em both on, head on. And we’ve gotta work together, ‘cause ain’t nothin’ we can’t do if we work together.

    So, let’s keep up the good work, folks. Let’s make this country the best it can be. It ain’t gonna be easy, but ain’t nothin’ worth doin’ ever is.

    ___

    KATHERINE JOHNSON, a mathematician whose calculations enabled NASA to put the first Americans into Earth’s orbit and on the moon

    My fellow Americans,

    As a mathematician, I have spent my career using numbers and equations to solve complex problems and push the boundaries of what is possible. And as I look at our nation today, I see a problem that demands our attention and our action.

    We are facing a crisis in mathematics education. Too many of our children are struggling to keep up, and too few are pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This not only undermines their future opportunities, but also threatens our ability to compete in an increasingly technological world.

    But the solution to this problem is within our reach. We must invest in math education, from early childhood through high school and beyond. We must provide our teachers with the support and resources they need to help students succeed, and we must encourage girls and underrepresented minorities to pursue careers in STEM fields.

    As we work to address this crisis, let us also remember the incredible potential of mathematics. Math is not just a subject to be studied, but a powerful tool that can help us tackle the greatest challenges of our time. Whether we are working to cure diseases, address climate change, or build a more just and equitable society, math will be an essential part of the solution.

    My own journey as a mathematician has taken me from the halls of NASA to the history books, but it all started with a love of numbers and a desire to use them to make a difference in the world. And I believe that every child in America, regardless of their background or circumstances, should have the opportunity to discover their own love of math and use it to make a difference.

    So let us recommit ourselves to ensuring that all Americans have access to a quality math education, and let us harness the power of math to build a better future for ourselves and for generations to come.

    ___

    ELVIS PRESLEY

    Well, hello there, my fellow Americans!

    It’s great to be here today, talking to you all about the state of our union. Now, let me tell you, we’ve been rockin’ and rollin’ over the past year, and I’ve got some good news to share with you all.

    We’re making progress, friends. Our economy is stronger than ever, our businesses are booming, and our country is more united than ever. You know, when I look out into this crowd, I see Americans from all walks of life, all coming together for the greater good of our nation.

    Now, I know some folks out there might say we’ve got some challenges to overcome, but I’ve got to tell you, I believe in the American people. We’ve faced tough times before, and we’ve always come out on top. And we’re gonna do it again.

    We’re gonna keep on truckin’, we’re gonna keep rockin’ and rollin’, and we’re gonna keep building a better future for all Americans. I’ve got faith in you, my fellow Americans, and I know that together, we can do anything.

    So let’s get to work, let’s keep this train rollin’, and let’s make America great again. Thank you, and God bless America!

    ___

    ARISTOTLE, ancient Greek philosopher

    Citizens of the Republic, I stand before you today to address the state of our great society. In the words of my predecessor, Socrates, the measure of a state is not the number of people in it, but the quality of life they lead. And it is with this measure that I assess the state of our union.

    We must strive for excellence in all that we do, for it is this pursuit of excellence that will bring about true happiness and fulfillment. It is through virtuous action that we find our true purpose and meaning, and it is through the cultivation of virtue that we build a strong and just society.

    But we must not simply aim for personal excellence, for a society is more than the sum of its individual parts. We must also strive for excellence in our relationships with one another, promoting justice and harmony among our citizens. Only then can we build a society in which each individual can flourish and reach their full potential.

    It is our duty as citizens to actively participate in the governance of our society, to use our reason and our wisdom to help shape the policies and laws that govern us. And it is our duty to educate future generations in the art of virtuous living, to ensure that our society remains strong and virtuous for generations to come.

    So let us work together, citizens of the Republic, to build a society that is truly excellent, a society in which each and every one of us can reach our full potential and find true happiness and fulfillment. For it is only through such a society that we can truly say that the state of our union is strong and virtuous.

    Thank you, and may the gods bless our great Republic.

    ___

    MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

    My fellow Americans,

    We gather here today, at a momentous time in our nation’s history, to address the state of our union. And as we do so, I am reminded of the words of the great prophet Amos, who declared, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

    For too long, justice has been denied to too many in our society. For too long, righteousness has been an elusive dream. And it is time for us to awaken from this slumber and work together to build a more perfect union.

    We cannot be satisfied until every American, regardless of race, religion, or background, has an equal opportunity to achieve the American dream. We cannot be satisfied until every child, regardless of zip code, has access to a quality education. We cannot be satisfied until every worker, regardless of industry, is paid a fair wage and treated with dignity and respect.

    But let us not become discouraged, for we have made progress. We have seen a civil rights movement that brought about change, and we will continue to see change in our time. For as Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

    So let us bend that arc, together. Let us roll down justice and righteousness like waters. Let us create a society where every person is valued and respected, where every person has an equal chance to succeed.

    And let us not forget, as we work for this noble cause, that we are all one people, bound together by our common humanity. For as Dr. King also said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now.”

    So let us come together, as one people, to build a better future for all. Thank you.

    ___

    A 10-YEAR-OLD

    Hi everyone! I’m really excited to be here today, talking about the state of our country.

    I think that overall, things are going pretty well. We have a lot of great things happening, like new schools being built, new parks being made, and new jobs being created. But there are still some things that we can do better.

    For example, there are still a lot of kids who don’t have enough to eat, or who don’t have a safe place to live. That’s not okay, and I think we need to do more to help them. I think we should make sure that every kid has enough to eat, and that every kid has a warm and safe place to sleep at night.

    Another thing I think we need to work on is making sure that everyone gets along. There’s still a lot of fighting and meanness, and that’s not cool. I think we should all be friends and help each other out.

    Finally, I think we need to make sure that everyone has a chance to be happy and have fun. That means making sure that everyone has access to parks, playgrounds, and places to play. It also means making sure that everyone has access to books, computers, and other things that can help us learn and grow.

    So that’s what I think about the state of our country. I think we’re doing pretty well, but there’s still a lot of work to do. But I’m optimistic, because I know that if we all work together, we can make things better for everyone.

    Thanks for listening, and let’s work together to make our country the best it can be!

    ___

    MAHATMA GANDHI

    My dear friends, I stand before you today as a humble servant of the people, to address the state of our nation.

    In the face of adversity, it is easy to lose sight of what is truly important. But I implore you, let us not forget the values that have guided us for generations. Let us not forget the power of nonviolence, the strength of truth, and the importance of compassion.

    For it is only through these values that we can truly build a just and equitable society. It is only through these values that we can truly claim to be a great nation.

    But we have much work to do. The poverty, the inequality, and the discrimination that still plagues our society must be eradicated. We must be unwavering in our commitment to justice, to peace, and to compassion.

    And we must not be afraid to challenge the status quo, to resist the forces of oppression, and to stand up for what is right. For it is only by doing so that we can truly claim to be a great people.

    So let us come together, my friends, and let us work for a brighter future for all our citizens. …

    And let us do so with nonviolence, with truth, and with compassion. For it is only through these values that we can truly claim to be a great nation, a great people, and a great civilization.

    Thank you, and may God bless us all.

    ___

    THE THREE STOOGES of vaudeville, film and TV fame

    My fellow Americans, it’s a honor to stand before you today to talk about the state of our great union. And let me tell you, it’s been quite the ride so far! But we’re not ones to back down from a challenge, are we? No sirree, not the Three Stooges! ….

    But we can’t do it alone. We need the support of all Americans. … So, let’s keep working hard, my fellow Americans. Let’s make this country the best it can be. And most importantly, let’s keep laughing and having a good time while we do it! After all, life is too short to take it too seriously.

    ___

    WINSTON CHURCHILL, 20th century British prime minister and orator

    My fellow citizens, it is with a heavy heart and steadfast determination that I address you today. Our great nation stands at a crossroads, facing challenges that would test the mettle of any generation. But I have faith, faith in the resilience and courage of the American people, that we shall overcome.

    We have seen the forces of division and despair seek to tear at the fabric of our society, but we shall not be swayed. We shall stand united, firm in our resolve to defend the principles upon which this great nation was founded. Freedom, justice, and equality for all shall not be sacrificed upon the altar of greed or hatred.

    The road ahead will not be easy, and there will be obstacles, but we shall not falter. We shall continue to work tirelessly, to build a future of prosperity and security for all our citizens. A future where every American has the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

    It is time for us to rededicate ourselves to the ideals that have made this country great. It is time for us to come together, to set aside our differences, and work towards a common goal. A goal of a better future for all Americans, a future where our children and grandchildren can live in peace, security, and prosperity.

    So let us stand together, my fellow citizens. Let us face the future with the same courage and determination that has made this country the envy of the world. Let us continue to move forward, always remembering that, “We shall never surrender.”

    Thank you, and may God bless the United States of America.

    ___

    CLEOPATRA, queen of Egypt 51-30 B.C.

    My fellow Egyptians,

    It is with great pride and humility that I stand before you today, as your Queen and leader, to deliver this State of the Union address. I am honored to serve the people of this great nation, a nation with a rich and proud history that has stood tall and strong for centuries.

    In recent years, we have faced many challenges, but through hard work and determination, we have emerged stronger and more united than ever before. Our economy is thriving, our communities are flourishing, and our people are thriving.

    However, we cannot rest on our achievements … we must remain vigilant against those who would threaten our security and our way of life. We must work with our allies to promote peace and stability in the world, and to defend our values and our interests.

    But most of all, we must remember that our greatest strength lies in our people. It is the hard work, the ingenuity, and the determination of the Egyptian people that has always made our country great, and it is their continued efforts that will keep us strong and prosperous in the years to come.

    So let us continue to work together, to strive for a better future, and to build a stronger, more prosperous Egypt.

    Thank you, and may the gods bless Egypt.

    ___

    ABRAHAM LINCOLN

    My fellow Americans,

    It is with a heavy heart but steadfast determination that I stand before you today to deliver this State of the Union address. Our great nation is embroiled in a conflict that has tested the very fabric of our union, but I am confident that with the perseverance of our people and the grace of God, we will emerge from this trial stronger and more united than ever before.

    This war, fought over the fundamental principles of freedom and equality, has taken a tremendous toll on our country and our people. But despite the hardships, we have not wavered in our commitment to preserving the Union and ending the scourge of slavery.

    As we move forward, we must work together to heal the wounds of this conflict and build a better future for all Americans. We must work to reunite our divided nation and ensure that the blessings of liberty and equality are extended to all, regardless of race or station.

    We must also take steps to ensure that this dark chapter in our history is never repeated. We must ensure that the sacrifice of so many brave Americans was not in vain, and that we never again turn a blind eye to the injustice and suffering of our fellow citizens.

    So let us come together, as one people, and work towards a brighter future for our nation and for all who call it home.

    Thank you, and may God bless America.

    ___

    ELON MUSK, CEO of Tesla, SpacEx and Twitter, and one of the founders of Open AI, the research lab that created ChatGPT

    My fellow Americans,

    It is an honor to address you today, as your elected leader, and to deliver this State of the Union Address. … I am proud to announce a bold new plan to invest in the technologies of the future, and to create millions of good-paying jobs in the process. We must lead the world in the transition to a clean energy economy, and we must ensure that our infrastructure is the most advanced and resilient in the world …

    I am announcing a new initiative to increase funding for space research and development, so that we can continue to explore the mysteries of the universe and maintain our position as a leader in space exploration …

    But we must also address the inequalities that have been exposed by the pandemic, and we must ensure that all Americans have access to the opportunities of the future. That is why I am announcing a comprehensive plan to improve access to education, job training, and affordable healthcare.

    ___

    BIDEN, delivered by the app as a rehash of past remarks

    It is an honor to stand before you today as your President and deliver this State of the Union address. This past year has been one of the most challenging in our nation’s history, but through it all, the American people have shown remarkable resilience, bravery, and compassion.

    We have faced a once-in-a-century pandemic that has taken too many lives and disrupted our economy, but we are making progress. We have delivered vaccines to millions of Americans and are seeing cases decline, and we are working to reopen our schools and businesses safely.

    But we cannot rest on our achievements. We must do more to rebuild our economy and make sure that the benefits of this recovery are felt by all Americans, not just the wealthy and well-connected. That is why I am proposing a bold infrastructure plan to create millions of good-paying jobs, modernize our roads, bridges, and highways, and make America more competitive in the global economy.

    At the same time, we must address the long-standing injustices in our society, particularly racial and economic inequality. That is why I am committed to passing legislation to protect voting rights, advance racial justice, and ensure that everyone has a fair shot at the American Dream.

    And as we look to the future, we must also address the existential threat of climate change. We cannot afford to wait any longer to address this crisis, which is already affecting communities across our country. That is why I am committed to achieving a 100% clean energy economy and creating good-paying jobs in the process.

    So let us come together, as one nation, and build a better future for all Americans. Together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

    Thank you, and may God bless America.

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  • US states take control of abortion debate with funding focus

    US states take control of abortion debate with funding focus

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    LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Though the Insight Women’s Center sits at the epicenter of a reinvigorated battle in the nation’s culture wars, the only hint of its faith-based mission to dissuade people from getting abortions is the jazzy, piano rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” playing in a waiting room.

    The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature is considering allocating millions of dollars in state funds to similar anti-abortion centers that persuade people to bring their pregnancies to term by offering free pregnancy tests and sonograms, as well as counseling and parenting classes taught by volunteers. They’re also considering offering millions more in income tax credits for donors supporting what they call “crisis pregnancy centers.”

    When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year and gave control of abortion policy to the states, it led to bans and restrictions in some states, and executive orders and laws protecting access in others. Those debates continue, but perhaps less noticed is how this change refueled the renewed battle over taxpayer money.

    Supporters say the effort shows abortion opponents are addressing families’ social and financial needs. But critics say the amount of new funding proposed for organizations like Insight — either in direct funding or tax credits for their donors — fall far short of what’s necessary to improve people’s access to health care and address ongoing poverty.

    “You funnel money through a short-term solution that makes it appear as though you are doing something,” said Alesha Doan, a University of Kansas associate professor who has studied and written books about abortion politics.

    Increasingly, liberal cities and states are funding access to abortion, including telemedicine, which has seen a notable rise with more than half of U.S. abortions now done with pills rather than surgery. Meanwhile, states with GOP legislatures and governors are looking to put more taxpayer money into organizations that talk people out of ending their pregnancies.

    Legislative committees held hearings Thursday on proposals for a 70% income tax credit to donors who support anti-abortion centers, with a cap of $10 million in total credits. A Senate committee might vote this week.

    It’s similar to a longstanding Missouri law that provides income tax credits to donors supporting anti-abortion centers. Arizona has such a law, and Mississippi’s Republican House speaker is trying to expand a cap on tax credits to $10 million from the $3.5 million authorized last year.

    Arkansas and Oklahoma are considering adding similar tax credits, according to the National Right to Life Committee.

    In Missouri, donors to anti-abortion centers have received $15 million in total state tax credits over the past five years, and one state analysis estimates the centers served about 43,000 people last year.

    Abortion opponents have operated centers like Insight for decades, and the practice of conservative-led states offering financial aid to them predates Dobbs — the decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade.

    On the abortion-rights side, Oregon lawmakers last year created a $15 million abortion-access fund, with the first $1 million going to a nonprofit that covers the costs of patients’ travel and procedures. California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Washington have also allocated or are considering offering public funding for abortions or related services.

    In New Mexico last year, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham pledged $10 million in state funds to the construction of a new abortion clinic.

    Morgan Hopkins, president of the abortion-rights advocacy group All(asterisk) Above All praised the funding. “Budgets are a reflection of our values,” she said.

    Kansas already provides grants to programs that provide prenatal care, and encourage people to carry their pregnancies to term. But it spends less than $339,000 in a state budget of $24 billion on the program — and made only two grants totaling less than $74,000 to anti-abortion centers.

    Now, some abortion opponents talk about emulating Missouri’s more than $8 million annual funding, plus the income tax credits.

    Abortion rights supporters are frustrated that the push for such support is coming so soon after an Aug. 2 statewide vote that decisively rejected a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution that would have allowed legislators to greatly restrict or ban abortion.

    “I have general concerns that we’re not respecting what was the very clear will of voters,” said state Sen. Ethan Corson, a Kansas City-area Democrat who serves on the Senate tax committee.

    Abortion rights advocates say the centers lure patients away from abortion clinics with free services, give them inaccurate medical information and counseling from people who are not trained therapists. Some see funding them as a political gesture designed to make abortion bans look less harsh.

    Abortion opponents argue that centers like Insight offer patients a wide range of prenatal and post-birth classes, in addition to other help. They also argue that boosting funding for free services after the August vote is a promise not to abandon parents and families.

    In Lawrence, where the nearest abortion clinic is a 40-minute drive away, 28-year-old Korbe Bohac is still visiting the Insight center nearly 8 months after her son Winston was born. She told legislators the classes and counseling make her a better, more confident parent — and helped preserve her mental health. She called it “a safety net.”

    The Insight center, which is only a few miles from the University of Kansas, has two sonogram nurses, and a doctor and radiologist sometimes volunteer their time. But services depend mostly on about 50 volunteers. The $340,000 annual budget is mostly supplied by private donations, but the organization received a community development grant in 2014 to launch parent education programs.

    Center staff said that although they do not refer clients to abortion providers, they discuss abortion as an option. They said some patients who met with them went on to have abortions, though this is not possible to verify given patients’ privacy protocols.

    Insight has two separate waiting rooms — one for its educational programs and one for medical services. Executive director Bridgit Smith said one reason is that it keeps pregnant patients from being influenced by seeing babies and toddlers.

    Smith said she believes the proposed tax credit would increase donations, helping Insight start a maternity home for people without shelter.

    “We’re trying to build strong individuals and strong families. And isn’t that what we all want?” Smith said. “Even for the woman that doesn’t choose to parent, we still want her to be strong and healthy after the decision.”

    ___

    Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna.

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  • Chinese balloon’s downing creates spectacle over tourism hub

    Chinese balloon’s downing creates spectacle over tourism hub

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    MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — The downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon just off South Carolina’s coast created a spectacle over one of the state’s tourism hubs and drew crowds reacting with a mixture of bewildered gazing, distress and cheers.

    The balloon was struck by a missile from an F-22 fighter just off Myrtle Beach on Saturday, fascinating sky-watchers across a populous area known as the Grand Strand for its miles of beaches that draw retirees and vacationers. Crowds gathered in neighborhoods, hotel parking lots and beaches to watch the balloon hover, with some cheering just after it went down.

    The festive mood belied the seriousness of the situation, with law enforcement around the county of 366,000 warning people not to touch any debris and to instead call dispatchers.

    “Members of the US Military are coordinating to collect debris; however, fragments may make it to the coastline,” the Horry County Police Department said in a statement.

    Ashlyn Preaux, 33, went out to get her mail in Forestbrook, South Carolina, just inland of Myrtle Beach when she saw her neighbors gathered outside. Curious, she went to see what they were looking at. It was easy to spot the balloon in the cloudless blue sky, and what appeared to be fighter jets circling overhead. After the strike, she could see the balloon start to come apart and fall from the sky.

    “I did not anticipate waking up to be in a ‘Top Gun’ movie today,” she said.

    The balloon hovered directly above the Hardy family as they checked into their oceanfront hotel in Myrtle Beach. The family from Anderson joined several employees in the parking lot taking videos of the scene unfolding above before going up to their room ahead of the missile strike.

    Logan Hardy, 12, said the moment of impact generated a “boom” that shook the building. His room’s balcony gave the middle-schooler a clear view of the debris dropping.

    “It looked like stars falling down,” he said, adding: “I will never forget this day.”

    Some watchers rushed to nearby beaches as the balloon approached the ocean. Travis Huffstetler, who captured photos of the balloon, said the packed Garden City Beach almost looked like summertime on the chilly winter day.

    When the balloon began crossing the water, Mark Doss, 54, drove a golf cart three blocks down from his home to Garden City Beach. There, Doss said he and his two teenage children spent 90 minutes watching the strike and waiting in vain for debris to wash ashore.

    The sheer size of the white orb awed Doss, who said the approaching fighter jet looked like a model airplane. Doss recalled a “white puff of smoke” after the missile struck the balloon.

    “That one jet made a beeline straight to it — wham!” Doss said.

    Life continued uninterrupted for many others into the evening. Doss described the spectacle from a biker bar. There, Saturday night thrill seekers gathered like normal as if international tensions had not played out hours earlier 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) above them. A cover band performed while people shot pool and huddled around patio heaters. Along the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk, nightlife staff went unbothered by the day’s events. Others waiting in line outside a club had completely missed the news.

    But the severity of the growing diplomatic turmoil was not lost on Doss. He lamented the stress the events placed on his two teenage children, whose exposure to such sights had previously only come through the big screen.

    State Sen. Greg Hembree of Horry, who represents the area in the South Carolina General Assembly, watched the strike from his neighbor’s backyard.

    The sight was both impressive and “a little bit scary” for Hembree, who said Americans typically expect such images to come from other countries.

    “It was stunning,” Hembree said. “You don’t ever think you’re going to see a live engagement with an adversary in sort of a military context.”

    The ensuing debris spread across roughly seven miles (11 kilometers) and landed in 47 feet (14 meters) of water, shallower than officials had expected.

    The next day, Brady Deal set out to go fishing, but ended up capturing video of what might have been a portion of the shot-down balloon being brought to shore in South Carolina. A Pentagon spokesperson asked about the footage declined to comment Sunday.

    Deal said he saw Navy personnel arriving at the Johnny Causey Boat Landing in North Myrtle Beach with what appeared to be a white, deflated balloon across the bows of two different boats. A third boat appeared to have a crane and boxes on it.

    “I was just in the right place at the right time and I thought it was pretty cool,” said Deal, a North Myrtle Beach construction worker.

    On Saturday, Deal posted a live video on social media when the balloon was shot down.

    On Sunday, “when I went over there and I saw the Navy boats, I was like, ‘Well, I guess they’re going to bring them back in today.’ So we went back over there and we hit it at the right time.”

    As a federal operation to recover the debris continued, life in the beach town largely returned to normal.

    About a dozen people strolled along Surfside Beach on the rainy, foggy morning. One couple spotted a ship in the distance through binoculars. A nearby bakery brands the area as “The Family Beach.” Locals described the town as typically quiet, save for the hullabaloo the previous day’s hullabaloo.

    For Sandy and Bob Grubb, the balloon situation was not in the travel itinerary. The retired couple from Lebanon, Pennsylvania has been vacationing there for over 30 years. The two said they had been joking about the prospect of washed-up debris as they collected sea shells on their Sunday morning walk.

    “It’s a quite peaceful place — gave us some excitement,” Sandy Grubb said, laughing. “Not the kind of excitement you need.”

    ___

    Associated Press Writer John Raby reported from Charleston, W.Va. James Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Biden, McCarthy, once breakfast mates, wrangle over US debt

    Biden, McCarthy, once breakfast mates, wrangle over US debt

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Not so long ago, Joe Biden and Republican leader Kevin McCarthy used to talk things over at breakfast in Biden’s vice presidential home at the Naval Observatory.

    Biden was intent in those days on “keeping up relations with the opposition party,” as he writes in his memoir, and the new House majority leader often arrived with fellow GOP lawmakers in tow.

    But now, with a potential national debt crisis l ooming, those morning meetings in 2015 seem a political lifetime ago as Democratic President Biden and McCarthy, the new House speaker, prepare for their first official meeting Wednesday at the White House.

    “You know, when I met with him as the vice president, he was always eager to sit down and talk,” McCarthy recalled to The Associated Press ahead of the meeting. “He was always a person who would like to try to find solutions, work together.”

    Biden has signaled no such open-ended hospitality this time as newly emboldened House Republicans court a risky debt ceiling showdown.

    At a fundraiser Tuesday in New York, Biden called McCarthy a “decent man” who was being pulled by demands from restive Republicans.

    “He made commitments that are just absolutely off the wall” in order to win the speaker’s gavel, Biden said.

    Two affable leaders known for their willingness to strike deals, Biden and McCarthy find themselves charging headlong into uncomfortable political terrain in hardball negotiations over the nation’s debt limit.

    A generation apart — McCarthy, 58, has been in Congress just a third of the time that Biden, 80, has held elected office — the two men are deeply familiar with the ways of Washington and positions of power.

    Both have built political brands on their ability to meet with all comers, forging deals where none seemed likely. They’ve shown mutual respect during their limited interactions in Biden’s presidency, according to one senior White House official. And both have been here before, veterans of the last fiscal showdown, in 2011, when Biden, as vice president to Barack Obama, tried to negotiate an endgame to a standoff with McCarthy’s predecessors in Congress.

    The political as well as economic stakes are apparent this time as Biden considers another run for the White House and McCarthy strains to keep his new job as speaker of the House, including its right-flank Republicans.

    “Just like in 2011, it’s not going to be real kumbaya,” said Neil Bradley, vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a former top aide to former House GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Bradley, who was part of earlier Biden talks, said, “These are both seasoned leaders who understand what it takes to get things done in Washington.”

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has notified Congress that it will need to raise the debt ceiling, now set at $31 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay the nation’s already accrued bills. While the Treasury Department has been able to launch “extraordinary measures” to temporarily avoid a debt default, that’s only expected to last until June.

    The debt ceiling showdown carries echoes, but also differences, from 2011, when the House Republican “tea party” majority rose to power, demanding budget cuts and threatening a potentially catastrophic federal debt default.

    Recalling those difficult negotiations, Biden has been reluctant to negotiate with the new House Republicans under McCarthy. Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, the White House released a memo outlining the “two questions” Biden will pose to the Republican leader.

    “Will the speaker commit to the bedrock principle that the United States will never default on its financial obligations?” reads one of the questions, in part. And: “When will Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans release their Budget?”

    The memo, from White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Shalanda Young, the Office of Management and Budget director, noted that Biden will be releasing the administration’s budget on March 9 — notably blowing past a February deadline — and called on McCarthy to detail precisely how Republicans would cut the government spending that they insist is too high.

    McCarthy all but invited himself to the White House as he pushed for the meeting with Biden. And he has made it clear he is willing to bargain, announcing over the weekend he will not be proposing cuts to Medicare or Social Security as Republicans try to slash federal spending as part of any debt ceiling deal.

    While McCarthy comes to the negotiating table with the power of the new House majority behind him, he is also viewed as coming somewhat empty-handed.

    It’s not at all clear the new speaker will be able to deliver the votes needed from divided Republicans in Congress on any debt deal. He has promised his GOP hardliners a return to fiscal 2022 spending levels, but even that might not be enough budget cutting for some of them.

    It’s a potential repeat of the 2011-12 fiscal showdown, when the Obama administration negotiated with Republicans before finally settling on a deal that Biden negotiated with the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to ease the crisis.

    “We’re all behind Kevin, wishing him well in the negotiations,” McConnell said Tuesday, his own Senate Republicans in the minority.

    “The deal has to be cut, obviously, between the House majority and the Democratic president, in order for it to have a chance to survive over here.”

    Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said that Biden and McCarthy “don’t have the historic relationship that Senator McConnell and Biden have had through the years, but I do think circumstances necessitate and dictate at times that people have to come together — whether they like it or not.”

    Like the Republicans, Democrats are skeptical of dealing with the opposing party. They’re pushing Biden to drive a hardline bargain against any trade-offs.

    Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Biden “has seen over the last two years who he’s negotiating with — these are not people who are actually about negotiating something that makes sense for the working people.”

    The president, she added, has been “such a champion of working people and reversing inequality” that any budget-slashing deal with Republicans “would reverse all of that work.”

    Refusal to negotiate with Republicans has been off-brand for Biden, who has championed his decades of experience in building relationships with lawmakers, governors and administrations of both parties.

    In many ways, Biden and McCarthy are picking up where they left off from those breakfast meetings.

    “I think he’ll start by listening more than he talks, by getting to know Speaker McCarthy a little bit more as a person and by exploring what their common priorities might be,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close ally of the president.

    Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former history professor, said of the two: “They’re career public servants. They’re both intensely political. I think they’re both hail-well-met fellows. It seems to me that they’ll have a reasonably good discussion.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed from New York.

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  • How to fix a howitzer: US offers help line to Ukraine troops

    How to fix a howitzer: US offers help line to Ukraine troops

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    A MILITARY BASE IN SOUTHEASTERN POLAND (AP) — On the front lines in Ukraine, a soldier was having trouble firing his 155 mm howitzer gun. So, he turned to a team of Americans on the other end of his phone line for help.

    “What do I do?” he asked the U.S. military team member, far away at a base in southeastern Poland. “What are my options?”

    Using phones and tablets to communicate in encrypted chatrooms, a rapidly growing group of U.S. and allied troops and contractors is providing real-time maintenance advice — usually speaking through interpreters — to Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.

    In a quick response, the U.S. team member told the Ukrainian to remove the gun’s breech at the rear of the howitzer and manually prime the firing pin so the gun could fire. He did it and it worked.

    The exchange is part of an expanding U.S. military help line aimed at providing repair advice to Ukrainian forces in the heat of battle. As the U.S. and other allies send more and increasingly complex and high-tech weapons to Ukraine, demands are spiking. And since no U.S. or other NATO nations will send troops into the country to provide hands-on assistance — due to worries about being drawn into a direct conflict with Russia — they’ve turned to virtual chatrooms.

    The U.S. soldier and other team members and leaders stationed at a base in Poland spoke last week to two reporters who were traveling with Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited the facility. Because of the sensitivity of the operation, the troops there spoke on condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the U.S. military. Reporters also agreed not to reveal the name or location of the base or take photos.

    Fixing a howitzer, the repair team said, has been a frequent request from Ukrainian troops on the front lines. The need for help with weapons as been growing. Just a few months ago, there were just a bit more than 50 members of what they call the remote maintenance team. That will surge to 150 in the coming weeks, and the number of encrypted chat lines has more than tripled — from about 11 last fall to 38 now.

    The team includes about 20 soldiers now, supplemented by civilians and contractors, but the military number may dip a bit, as more civilians come on board. And they expect it will continue to evolve as new sophisticated weapons are delivered to the Ukrainians, and new chatrooms set up to handle them.

    “A lot of the times we’ll get calls from right there on the firing line, so there’ll be outgoing or incoming fire at the same time you’re trying to help the forward maintainers troubleshoot the best they can,” said a U.S. soldier who is part of the maintenance team. Sometimes, he said, the chat has to wait a bit until troops can get to a safer location.

    A key problem, said one officer, is that Ukrainian troops are pushing the weapons to their limits — firing them at unprecedented rates and using them long after a U.S. service member would turn them in to be repaired or retired.

    Holding up his tablet, the U.S. soldier showed photos of the barrel of a howitzer, its interior ridges nearly worn completely away.

    “They’re using these systems in ways that we didn’t necessarily anticipate,” said the officer, pointing to the tablet. “We’re actually learning from them by seeing how much abuse these weapon systems can take, and where’s the breaking point.”

    The Ukrainian troops are often reluctant to send the weapons back out of the country for repairs. They’d rather do it themselves, and in nearly all cases — U.S. officials estimated 99% of the time — the Ukrainians do the repair and continue on.

    Many of the chats are regularly scheduled with depot workers in Ukraine — like the one they call “Coffee Cup Guy,” because his chat has a coffee cup emoji. Other times they involve troops on the battlefield whose gun just blew apart, or whose vehicle stalled.

    Sometimes video chats aren’t possible.

    “A lot of times if they’re on the front line, they won’t do a video because sometimes (cell service) is a little spotty,” said a U.S. maintainer. “They’ll take pictures and send it to us through the chats and we sit there and diagnose it.”

    There were times, he said, when they’ll get a picture of a broken howitzer, and the Ukrainian will say, “This Triple 7 just blew up — what do we do?”

    And, in what he said was a remarkable new skill, the Ukrainians can now put the split weapon back together. “They couldn’t do titanium welding before, they can do it now,” said the U.S. soldier, adding that “something that was two days ago blown up is now back in play.”

    Doling out advice over the chats means the U.S. experts have to diagnose the problem when something goes wrong, figure out how to fix it, then translate the steps into Ukrainian.

    As they look to the future, they are planning to get some commercial, off-the-shelf translation goggles. That way, when they talk to each other they can skip the interpreters and just see the translation as they speak, making conversations easier and faster.

    They also are hoping to build their diagnostic capabilities as the weapons systems get more complex, and expand the types and amount of spare parts they keep on hand. For example, they said the Patriot missile system the U.S. is sending to Ukraine will be a challenge, requiring more expertise in diagnosing and repairing problems.

    The expanse of weapons and equipment they’re handling and questions they’re fielding were even too complicated for a digital spreadsheet — forcing the team to go low-tech. One wall in their maintenance office is lined with an array of old-fashioned, color-coded Post-it notes, to help them track the weapons and maintenance needs.

    The team in Poland is part of an ever expanding logistical network that stretches across Europe. As more nations send their own versions of weapon systems, they are setting up teams to provide repair support in a variety of locations.

    The nations and the manufacturing companies quickly put together manuals and technical data that can be translated and sent to the Ukrainians. They then set up stocks of spare parts and get them to locations near Ukraine’s borders, where they can be sent to the battlefield.

    Just days before Milley visited the base, Ukrainians traveled to the Poland facility for parts. The visit gave U.S. soldiers a chance to meet someone from their chatrooms face-to-face and swap military patches.

    “In the next video chat we had he was wearing our patches in his video,” the U.S. soldier said.

    The hub for the growing logistical effort is at Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, the U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany.

    There, in cubicles filling an expansive room, the international coalition coordinates the campaign to locate and identify far-flung equipment, weapons and spare parts in other countries that are needed in Ukraine. They then plan out deliveries — by sea, air and ground routes — to border locations where everything is loaded onto trucks or trains and moved to the war zone.

    At least 17 nations have representatives in what’s called the International Donor Coordination Center. And as the amount and types of equipment grow, the center is working to better meld the donations from the U.S. and other nations.

    “As we send more additional advanced equipment, like Strykers, like Bradleys, like tanks, of course that sustainment activity will have to increase,” said Douglas Bush, assistant Army secretary for acquisition. “I think the challenge is recognized. I think the Army knows how to do it.”

    ____

    Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

    Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states.

    Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024.

    Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states.

    At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

    “It is an issue that many Americans and many Pennsylvanians are tired of seeing litigated and relitigated over and over,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Amanda Cappalletti, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that handles election legislation. “I think we’re all ready to move on, and we see from audit after audit that our elections are secure, they are fair and that people’s votes are being counted.”

    Multiple reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, as well as dozens of court rejections and repeated admonishments from officials in his own administration, have underscored that the 2020 presidential results were accurate. There was no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines that would have altered the result.

    The legislative appointments in Pennsylvania and Arizona highlight the divide between the two major parties over election law. Already this year, Democratic-controlled legislatures are moving to expand access to voting and heighten penalties for intimidating voters and election workers, while many Republican-led states are aiming to pass further restrictions, a trend that accelerated after Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Democratic governors and legislative victories last fall will blunt the influence of Republicans who took steps or pushed rhetoric seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

    But in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two lawmakers who dismiss the validity of that election — not to mention other elections since then — will have key positions of influence as the majority chairs of legislative committees that oversee election legislation.

    In Arizona, Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers takes over the Senate Elections Committee after being appointed by an ally, Senate President Warren Petersen. He was one of two lawmakers who signed subpoenas that led to Senate Republicans’ widely derided audit of the 2020 election.

    Rogers, who has gained a national following for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning elections, has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-filled social media posts.

    She now will be a main gatekeeper for election and voting bills in Arizona, where election changes are a top priority for some Republican lawmakers. Some want to eliminate voting by mail and early voting options that are used by more than 80% of the state’s voters.

    She has scheduled a committee meeting for Monday to consider bills that would ban unmonitored drop boxes, prohibit drive-through voting or ballot pickup and impose what voting-rights advocates say are additional burdens on early voting.

    In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Cris Dush takes over as chair of the Senate State Government Committee after pushing to block the state’s electoral votes from going to Biden in 2020. Dush also mounted an election investigation that he hoped would use the Arizona-style audit as a model.

    He was appointed by the Senate’s ranking Republican, President Pro Tem Kim Ward, whose office explained Dush’s appointment only by saying that seniority plays a role and that members have priority requests.

    In the first weeks of this year’s session, Dush has moved along measures to expand voter identification requirements and add a layer of post-election audits. Both are proposed constitutional amendments designed to bypass a governor’s veto by going to voters for approval.

    Dush said he also plans to develop legislation to require more security measures for drop boxes and ballots.

    “I’m going to make a promise to the people of Pennsylvania: The things that I’m doing here as chair of State Government, it’s going to be things that will be conducted in a fair, impartial manner,” Dush said in an interview. “You know, we’ve just got to make sure that we can ensure the integrity of the vote and people aren’t disenfranchised.”

    Arizona and Pennsylvania have newly elected Democratic governors who presumably would veto hard-line GOP bills opposed by Democrats.

    Still, Democrats, county election officials and voting-rights advocates in both states want changes to election laws that, with Dush and Rogers in place, may never see the light of day.

    Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said he anticipates the Legislature there will pass a lot of “bad elections bills.” He said moderate Republican lawmakers who might have voted down problematic measures under a Republican governor now might let them pass because they know Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs will likely veto them.

    “This is performative,” Gulotta said. “This isn’t substantive.”

    The question, he said, is whether Rogers and other Arizona lawmakers can cooperate on “small fixes” where there is consensus. That, he said, will take “real statesmanship.”

    Liz Avore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said the organization expects another busy period of lawmaking related to voting and elections ahead of the 2024 presidential vote, even as candidates who repeated Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election lost bids for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in key battleground states.

    Democratic and Republican-led states are often moving in opposite directions, but some bipartisan consensus has emerged around certain aspects of election law, such as restoring voting rights to felons and expanding early in-person voting, Avore said.

    Republican proposals, such as expanding voter identification requirements, are popular and have majority support, as do some Democratic proposals to broaden access, said Christopher Borick, a political science professor and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

    But to be successful with voters, Republicans need to mind the lessons from 2022. Denying the outcomes of fair elections, he said, “is a loser for the Republican Party. Straight up.”

    ___

    Cooper reported from Phoenix.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

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  • Trump opens 2024 run, says he’s ‘more committed’ than ever

    Trump opens 2024 run, says he’s ‘more committed’ than ever

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    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 White House bid with stops Saturday in New Hampshire and South Carolina, events in early-voting states marking the first campaign appearances since announcing his latest run more than two months ago.

    “Together we will complete the unfinished business of making America great again,” Trump said at an evening event in Columbia to introduce his South Carolina leadership team.

    Trump and his allies hope the events in states with enormous power in selecting the nominee will offer a show of force behind the former president after a sluggish start to his campaign that left many questioning his commitment to running again.

    “They said, ‘He’s not doing rallies, he’s not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost that step,’” Trump said at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting in Salem, his first event.

    But, he told the audience of party leaders, “I’m more angry now and I’m more committed now than I ever was.” In South Carolina, he further dismissed the speculation by saying that ”we have huge rallies planned, bigger than ever before.”

    While Trump has spent the months since he announced largely ensconced in his Florida club and at his nearby golf course, his aides insist they have been busy behind the scenes. His campaign opened a headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida, and has been hiring staff. And in recent weeks, backers have been reaching out to political operatives and elected officials to secure support for Trump at a critical point when other Republicans are preparing their own expected challenges.

    In New Hampshire, Trump promoted his campaign agenda, including immigration and crime, and said his policies would be the opposite of President Joe Biden’s. He cited the Democrats’ move to change the election calendar, costing New Hampshire its leadoff primary spot, and accused Biden, a fifth-place finisher in New Hampshire in 2020, of “disgracefully trashing this beloved political tradition.”

    “I hope you’re going to remember that during the general election,” Trump told party members. Trump himself twice won the primary, but lost the state each time to Democrats.

    Later in South Carolina, Trump said he planned to keep the state’s presidential primary as the “first in the South” and called it “a very important state.”

    In his speech, he hurtled from criticism of Biden and Democrats to disparaging comments about transgender people, mockery of people promoting the use of electric stoves and electric cars, and reminiscing about efforts while serving as president to increase oil production, strike trade deals and crack down on migration at the U.S-Mexico border.

    While Trump remains the only declared 2024 presidential candidate, potential challengers, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, are expected to get their campaigns underway in the coming months.

    After his South Carolina speech, Trump told The Associated Press in an interview that it would be “a great act of disloyalty” if DeSantis opposed him in the primary and took credit for the governor’s initial election.

    “If he runs, that’s fine. I’m way up in the polls,” Trump said. “He’s going to have to do what he wants to do, but he may run. I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over.”

    He said he hasn’t spoken to DeSantis in a long time.

    Gov. Henry McMaster, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation attended Trump’s event at the Statehouse.

    Trump’s team has struggled to line up support from South Carolina lawmakers, even some who eagerly backed him before. Some have said that more than a year out from primary balloting is too early to make endorsements or that they are waiting to see who else enters the race. Others have said it is time for the party to move past Trump to a new generation of leadership.

    South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith was among the legislative leaders awaiting Trump’s arrival, although he said he was there not to make a formal endorsement but to welcome the former president to the state in his role as speaker.

    Otherwise, dozens of supporters crammed into the ceremonial lobby between the state House and Senate, competing with reporters and camera crews for space among marble-topped tables and a life-sized bronze statue of former Vice President John C. Calhoun.

    Dave Wilson, president of conservative Christian nonprofit Palmetto Family, said some conservative voters may have concerns about Trump’s recent comments that Republicans who opposed abortion without exceptions had cost the party in the November elections.

    “It gives pause to some folks within the conservative ranks of the Republican Party as to whether or not we need the process to work itself out,” said Wilson, whose group hosted Pence for a speech in 2021.

    But Gerri McDaniel, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, rejected the idea that voters were ready to move on from the former president. “Some of the media keep saying he’s losing his support. No, he’s not,” she said. “It’s only going to be greater than it was before because there are so many people who are angry about what’s happening in Washington.”

    The South Carolina event was in some ways off-brand for a onetime reality television star who typically favors big rallies and has tried to cultivate an outsider image. Rallies are expensive, and Trump added new financial challenges when he decided to begin his campaign in November — far earlier than many had urged. That leaves him subject to strict fundraising regulations and bars him from using his well-funded leadership political action committee to pay for such events, which can cost several million dollars.

    Trump’s campaign, in its early stages, has already drawn controversy, most particularly when he had dinner with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who had made a series of antisemitic comments. Trump also was widely mocked for selling a series of digital trading cards that pictured him as a superhero, a cowboy and an astronaut, among others.

    He is the subject of a series of criminal investigations, including one into the discovery of hundreds of documents with classified markings at his Florida club and whether he obstructed justice by refusing to return them, as well as state and federal examinations of his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.

    Still, early polling shows he’s a favorite to win his party’s nomination.

    “The gun is fired, and the campaign season has started,” said Stephen Stepanek, outgoing chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Trump announced that Stepanek will serve as senior adviser for his campaign in the state.

    ___

    Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and Colvin from New York. Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Concerns over prayer breakfast lead Congress to take it over

    Concerns over prayer breakfast lead Congress to take it over

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Prayer Breakfast, one of the most visible and long-standing events that brings religion and politics together in Washington, is splitting from the private religious group that had overseen it for decades, due to concerns the gathering had become too divisive.

    The organizer and host for this year’s breakfast, scheduled for Thursday, will be the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, headed by former Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

    Sen. Chris Coons, a regular participant and chairman of the Senate ethics committee, said the move was prompted in part by concerns in recent years that members of Congress did not know important details about the larger multiday gathering.

    Coons, D-Del., said that in the past, he and Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the committee’s vice chairman, had questions about who was invited and how money was being raised.

    The annual event “went on several days, had thousands of people attending, and a very large and somewhat complex organization,” Coons said in an interview. “Some questions had been raised about our ability as members of Congress to say that we knew exactly how it was being organized, who was being invited, how it was being funded. Many of us who’d been in leadership roles really couldn’t answer those questions.”

    That led to lawmakers deciding to take over organizing for the prayer breakfast itself.

    Pryor, president of the new foundation, said the COVID-19 shutdown gave members a chance to “reset” the breakfast and return it to its origins — a change he said had been discussed for years.

    “The whole reason the House and Senate wanted to do this was to return it to its roots, when House members and Senate members can come together and pray for the president, pray for his family and administration, pray for our government, the world,” Pryor said.

    Pryor said members of Congress, the president, vice president and other administration officials and their guests are invited to Thursday’s prayer breakfast, which will be held at the visitors’ center at the Capitol. He anticipated between 200 and 300 people would attend.

    Pryor said he hoped the smaller event will regain the intimacy that is similar to the weekly nondenominational prayer gatherings on Capitol Hill. Groups of senators and representatives have long held unofficial meetings for fellowship and to temporarily set aside political differences.

    The prayer breakfast addressed by the president has been the highlight of a multiday event for 70 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to attend, in February 1953, and every president since has spoken at the gathering.

    The larger event, put on by a private religious group called the International Foundation, has always been centered around “the person and principles of Jesus, with a focus on praying for leaders of our nation and from around the world,” the group’s spokesman, A. Larry Ross, said in an email.

    More than 1,400 people are registered for the two-day event, with one-third of those from outside the United States.

    President Joe Biden, who has spoken at the breakfast the past two years, is set to do so again. In 2021, he made remarks from the White House during a virtual breakfast the month after the building was attacked by supporters of former President Donald Trump intent on trying to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

    At last year’s address from the Capitol, Biden talked about the need for members of Congress to know one another more personally.

    “It’s hard to really dislike someone when you know what they’re going through is the same thing you’re going through,” he said.

    In recent years, questions about the International Foundation, its funding and attendees had led some to reconsider the involvement of Congress.

    Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., stopped coming in 2016 because the event “had become an entertainment and lobbying extravaganza rather than an opportunity for spiritual reflection,” a Kaine spokeswoman wrote in an emailed response to questions. Kaine will attend Thursday.

    The gathering came under heightened criticism in 2018 when Maria Butina, a Russian operative, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups with the aim of advancing Russian interests. According to court documents, she attended two breakfasts in hopes of setting up unofficial connections between Russian and U.S. officials.

    It took on political undertones with Trump shattering the custom of the address being a respite from partisan bickering. He used his 2020 speech to criticize his first impeachment and attack political opponents, including Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

    Earlier this month, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter signed by 30 groups to the White House and members of Congress asking them to boycott the event because of questions about the International Foundation.

    The organization’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, said the foundation’s basic concerns with the breakfast remain despite the split with the larger religious gathering.

    “For decades, FFRF has protested the appearance of the National Prayer Breakfast being a quasi-governmental gathering, which pressures the president and Congress to put on a display of piety that sends a message that the United States is a Christian nation,” she wrote.

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  • Classified docs probe pushes Biden think tank into spotlight

    Classified docs probe pushes Biden think tank into spotlight

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — As Joe Biden contemplated his next move in 2017 after decades in government, he considered a familiar path — creating a Washington-based think tank to focus on international affairs and diplomacy. It proved an easy sell and a lucrative one, too.

    Soft landings in the capital are common for officials with a resume like Biden’s, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was born, with a grand view of the Capitol.

    The former vice president brought with him trusted staff and boxes of files. Now, a small batch of those files is at the center of controversy because some were classified documents that Biden had no right to retain.

    The gloss of Ivy League academia and high-minded ambitions has been dulled by this month’s disclosure that the sensitive documents were found last fall in a locked closet as Biden lawyers were packing up his former office at the center. That discovery is posing a test for Biden just as he is contemplating a 2024 reelection campaign.

    It turns out politics have been part of the equation all along.

    In an early meeting at the center in February 2018, Biden told longtime foreign policy aides — many of them from the Obama-Biden administration — that he was keeping his options open for a potential presidential campaign in 2020 and that he would welcome them joining his team if he decided to run.

    Sure enough, after hosting a handful of forums at the center and speaking a few times on the University of Pennsylvania’s main campus, Biden announced his candidacy in April 2019. And after that he was rarely at the Capitol Hill center, which has continued to function quietly since its namesake leader moved on.

    Its relatively low profile is now history.

    Congressional Republicans are asking questions about the center’s budget and hiring practices and the FBI may want to search the premises for more documents, as it did Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Affiliated with the Philadelphia school, the Penn Biden Center says it was founded on the principle that “a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and interconnected world benefits all Americans.”

    According to Biden’s tax returns, the university paid him roughly $900,000 over about two years, starting just after he left office when Donald Trump and Mike Pence took over the White House. In addition to the center, Biden also held roles at the school where he would speak on campus.

    While the center’s staff continued to conduct research, serve as experts for the media and write columns on foreign policy after Biden’s departure, there is no new work listed on the center’s website for the past 10 or so months.

    Elliott Abrams, who has held foreign policy positions for presidents in the Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump administrations, said it has not developed as an influential think tank.

    “It started as a parking space for Biden people until he ran for president, and never really outgrew that start,” Abrams said.

    Plenty of current Biden allies at the White House cycled through the think tank, according to public records and the Penn Biden Center website.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the center’s managing director from May 2017 through June 2019. Michael Carpenter had the managing director’s role before he was named U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

    Other center employees included Steve Ricchetti, now a senior counselor to Biden. There are at least seven other Biden staffers who were at the center and are now involved in national security matters in the administration.

    Even Amy Gutmann, the university’s president at the time who helped launch the center, now works for him. She’s the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

    Biden himself has a long history with the Ivy League school; his late son Beau, daughter Ashley, and granddaughter Naomi are all graduates. Biden received an honorary degree from Penn in 2013 after he gave the commencement address.

    Biden frequently worked out of the center on Constitution Avenue as he quietly planned his presidential run, according to his aides, but he did not spend time there after he announced his candidacy. His lawyers had finally gotten around to clearing out the office when they came across the classified documents last November.

    Biden told reporters he was surprised to learn the documents were there. The records were immediately turned over to the Justice Department, but the discovery of records there and at Biden’s home has led to an investigation by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

    Trump, too, faces a special counsel inquiry related to classified documents. In his case, FBI agents executed a warrant that showed they were investigating possible crimes including the willful retention of national defense information and efforts to obstruct the federal probe. Biden voluntarily allowed the FBI search of his home.

    Former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of classified documents.

    Still, the existence of the documents at the Penn Biden Center has trained unwanted criticism on the think tank, particularly by House Republicans investigating the mishandling of classified materials. They have requested a list of all center employees, including dates of employment and salaries, visitor logs and documents and communications related to security.

    A conservative legal group led by former Trump advisers has complained to the IRS about the center’s hiring of Biden and his allies.

    The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has suggested that some of the tens of millions of dollars in foreign gifts to the university from patrons in China went to the Penn Biden Center.

    Donors from Ireland, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Japan and Brazil also contributed to the university in recent years, though the House has focused on donations from China.

    A statement from university said the school would address the committee’s questions in a timely way, but that it has never solicited gifts for the center. There were three unsolicited gifts from two donors that totaled $1,100.

    The budget for the center comes solely from university funds. The total academic operating budget for the university is roughly $4 billion. Penn Biden Center officials did not say how much of that goes to center operations.

    “It is important to reiterate that the Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” according to the statement from the Penn Biden Center.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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  • How classified documents became a schoolgirl’s show-and-tell

    How classified documents became a schoolgirl’s show-and-tell

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — On a winter’s day in 1984, a briefcase stuffed with classified government documents showed up in a building in Pittsburgh, borne by someone who most certainly wasn’t supposed to have them.

    That someone was 13-year-old Kristin Preble. She took the papers to school as a show-and-tell project for her eighth grade class. Her dad had found them in his Cleveland hotel room several years earlier and taken them home as a souvenir.

    As a different sort of show and tell unfolds in Washington over the mishandling of state secrets by the Trump and now Biden administrations, the schoolgirl episode from four decades ago stands as a reminder that other presidents, too, have let secure information spill.

    The Grade 8 escapade and one known as Debategate both involved the mishandling of classified documents that Democratic President Jimmy Carter used to prepare for a debate with Republican rival Ronald Reagan in Cleveland on Oct. 28, 1980. In the latter instance, the Reagan campaign obtained — some said stole — Carter’s briefing materials for the debate.

    In today’s docu-dramas, special counsels have been assigned to investigate Donald Trump’s post-presidential cache of classified documents, which he initially resisted turning over, and Joe Biden’s pre-presidential stashes, which he willingly gave up when they were discovered but did not disclose to the public for months.

    With classified material also found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home, there is now a palpable sense in the halls of power that as more officials or ex-officials scour their cabinets or closets, more such oops moments will emerge.

    On Thursday, the National Archives wrote to representatives of all ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents back to the Reagan administration to ask that their personal records be checked anew for any classified documents, according to two people familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to speak about document investigations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The Carter files fell into Kristin’s hands through a somewhat meandering route.

    Two days after the 1980 debate, businessman Alan Preble found the papers in his Cleveland hotel room, apparently left behind by Carter press secretary Jody Powell. Preble took them to his Franklin Park home, where they sat for more than three years as a faintly appreciated keepsake.

    “We had looked through them but didn’t think they were important,” Carol Preble, Kristin’s mother, said back then, apparently unimpressed by the classified markings. But for social studies class, Kristin “thought they’d be real interesting. I thought they’d be great, too.”

    Off the girl went to Ingomar Middle School on Jan. 19, 1984, with the zippered briefcase.

    Teacher Jim DeLisio’s eyes popped when he saw the warnings on the documents inside. Among them: “Classified, Confidential, Executive” and “Property of the United States Government.”

    “I truly didn’t want to look at it,” he said then. “I was just too … scared. I didn’t want to know.”

    Curiosity got the better of him. That night, he said, he and his wife and daughter pored over the documents, containing “everything you’d want to know from A to Z” on world and U.S. developments. One folder was marked “Iran.” Libya was also in the mix.

    Unable to reach Kristin’s family by phone, DeLisio the next day called the FBI, which swiftly retrieved the papers.

    A Justice Department official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity at the time said the bundle of documents was 4 inches (10 centimeters) thick.

    Despite steering the secrets back to their proper place, DeLisio was reprimanded by school officials for calling the authorities before reaching the Preble family or them. The discovery fed into a broader investigation by a Democratic-led congressional committee of the official Carter papers obtained by the winning Reagan campaign.

    The Reagan Justice Department declined calls by the committee to appoint a special counsel in that matter. A court case trying to force that appointment failed, and no criminal case was brought. Debategate faded, but not the concern over how classified documents are handled by those in power.

    As for Kristin, she earned a niche in history and a “B” on her school project.

    ___

    This story draws on one by Associated Press writer Marcia Dunn in January 1984 and on research by Rhonda Shaffner in New York.

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  • Dems vote to give states more time on new primary calendar

    Dems vote to give states more time on new primary calendar

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic National Committee panel voted Wednesday to give New Hampshire and Georgia more time to make changes that would allow both to be part of a revamped group of five states leading off the party’s presidential primary starting next year.

    But even as they voted 25-0 to extend the compliance deadline until June 3, members of the DNC rules committee complained about New Hampshire’s ongoing feud with the national party because the new calendar would cost it the chance to hold the nation’s first primary.

    The fight underscores how the effort to shake up the Democratic presidential primary could turn increasingly bitter, even at a time when the party will be counting on staying unified as it tries to hold the White House and Senate in 2024.

    The DNC rules committee voted last month to approve a plan championed by President Joe Biden that would strip Iowa’s caucus of its traditional post leading off the primary and replace it with South Carolina, which would open primary voting on Feb. 3. New Hampshire and Nevada would hold primaries together three days later, with Georgia’s primary coming Feb. 13 and Michigan’s two weeks later. Most of the rest of the country would subsequently vote on Super Tuesday in early March.

    The Democrats’ proposed shakeup comes after Iowa’s 2020 caucus was marred by technical problems. Biden says the new proposed calendar better reflects his party’s deeply diverse electoral base, which relies heavily on African American voters.

    The president is also seeking to reward South Carolina, where nearly 27% of the population is Black, after a decisive win there revived his 2020 presidential campaign following losses it suffered in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

    Those changes are set to be formally approved for next year’s presidential race by the full DNC at its meeting next week in Philadelphia.

    Nevada and South Carolina have already agreed to comply with the new calendar’s requirements. In Michigan, moving the primary date requires an act of the Legislature. Democrats control both chambers in that state, but they would need Republican support to enact the change before the end of February 2024, so it’s not yet clear when the proposed changes might be approved.

    The greater sticking points have been New Hampshire and Georgia.

    New Hampshire state law mandates that it hold the nation’s first primary — a rule Iowa was able to circumvent only because it held a caucus. Top New Hampshire Democrats say they’ve handled that responsibility successfully for more than a century and have vowed to simply jump the other states and lead off primary voting again in 2024, regardless of the DNC’s new calendar.

    In Georgia, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sets his state’s primary date. He has indicated he’d only be willing to move it if the Republican National Committee pushes to change the date of its Georgia primary, which hasn’t happened.

    Wednesday’s vote gave Georgia and New Hampshire more time — but also saw committee members voice their frustrations with New Hampshire.

    “I really do believe it is irresponsible, the statements being made in New Hampshire,” said Lee Saunders, a rules committee member and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

    “I would just urge everybody to cool down a little bit,” Saunders said.

    Rules committee member Leah Daughtry said she was “similarly taken aback and quite frankly shocked” by New Hampshire’s objections to the new calendar. She also rejected that state’s assertions that it shouldn’t lose its place because of tradition stretching back more than a century.

    “Hanging their argument on this 100-year-old privilege is really, for me as an African American woman, really quite disturbing,” Daughtry said, noting that Black women didn’t have the right to vote about a century ago.

    Rules committee member JoAnne Dowdell from New Hampshire countered that “politics is part of our DNA.”

    “We believe it is possible to lift up diverse voices and keep New Hampshire at the start of the process,” Dowdell said.

    The Democrats’ 2024 primary calendar could be moot if Biden opts to run for reelection, as expected. In that case, Democrats will have little appetite for building out a robust primary schedule that could allow a major challenger from his own party to run against the president.

    The DNC rules committee also has already pledged to revisit the primary calendar after 2024. Still, any changes it makes for next year — even if there is ultimately no competitive primary — could help shape future decisions about which states go first, potentially triggering an important shift on where presidential candidates campaign hardest as future races begin.

    Rules committee co-chair Minyon Moore said its members remain committed to “the president’s vision.”

    “We want to make sure the states can have as much time as they need to work though this process,” Moore said.

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  • Slotkin preps Senate run after winning tough reelection bid

    Slotkin preps Senate run after winning tough reelection bid

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    LANSING, Mich.. (AP) — Just three months ago, Rep. Elissa Slotkin was one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Washington, fighting an expensive campaign for reelection in a Michigan district that Republicans were sure they could retake.

    That was all a distant memory recently as Slotkin sat beaming next to Sen. Debbie Stabenow at a Lansing luncheon commemorating Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Fresh off a surprisingly comfortable 5 percentage-point victory, Slotkin was eager to praise Stabenow, the dean of Michigan Democrats, whose Senate seat is suddenly open after the four-term senator announced her plans to retire.

    “She knows what it takes to win and she is not going to let her seat flip when she leaves,” Slotkin said of Stabenow in an interview. “She feels, I think, very connected to making sure her legacy is upheld by passing the torch to someone who can win it.”

    In what is quickly emerging as one of the most closely watched Senate races of the 2024 campaign, Slotkin is aggressively acting on Stabenow’s call for “the next generation of leadership.” The 46-year-old former CIA intelligence officer is taking steps to prepare for a Senate run, including forming a national campaign team, according to an aide close to the congresswoman who requested anonymity to discuss planning.

    In the interview, Slotkin nodded to the plans, saying she was putting her “ducks in a row” before an announcement.

    Slotkin would almost certainly face competition from fellow Democrats in one of the most politically competitive states in the U.S. The ultimate winner of next year’s primary will be crucial in the party’s effort to maintain the Senate, where Democrats hold a one-seat majority and are facing tough headwinds as they defend seats in Republican-leaning states from West Virginia to Montana and Ohio.

    But Slotkin is gaining notice as someone who can help bring generational change to a party whose ranks on Capitol Hill are dominated by people several decades her senior. And the margin of her victory last year could offer reassurance that she’s prepared for another tough campaign.

    “Extremely hard-working. Great fundraiser. Has run in tough elections. I think she would be at the very top,” Michigan Democratic strategist Amy Chapman, who was Barack Obama’s state director in 2008, said in assessing Slotkin’s primary prospects. Chapman is neutral in the Senate primary.

    Slotkin’s potential Democratic rivals include Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Reps. Debbie Dingell and Haley Stevens, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. Only one Michigan Republican has held a seat in the Senate in the past 40 years, Spencer Abraham, from 1995 to 2001. He was defeated for reelection by Stabenow.

    Many of the possible contenders have their own unique background that could distinguish them in a primary.

    Gilchrist is the only Black party prospect in a state where the Detroit area accounts for half of the statewide vote. Benson won reelection by a wider margin in November than Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who sailed to a second term. McMorrow made a national name for herself last year with an impassioned floor speech about her opposition to restrictions on race- and gender-related topics in schools. Dingell, whose late husband, John, was the longest-serving House member ever, represents suburban Detroit.

    But for now, Slotkin appears to be the most aggressive in acting in light of Stabenow’s Jan. 5 retirement announcement, which surprised much of the Michigan Democratic establishment.

    Slotkin used her regular internal political meeting that day to begin discussing steps she would need to take to explore a bid, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity to discuss private planning. Since then, she has talked to state and local Michigan Democratic elected officials and has been in touch with donors inside and outside Michigan who have helped establish her as one of the U.S. House’s top campaign fundraisers.

    Slotkin raised $10 million for her 2022 campaign, second among targeted Democrats only to Rep. Katie Porter of California.

    Slotkin was elected in 2018 by narrowly beating two-term incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Bishop in a longtime Republican-leaning district. She also became Stabenow’s congresswoman, representing the senator’s home in Lansing.

    The 72-year-old Stabenow, who represented the Lansing area in the House for four years before running for the Senate, took the junior Democrat under her wing on the campaign trail, guiding her to influential activists and groups, Slotkin said. Their relationship has stayed strong since, according to Slotkin.

    “Sometimes she lets me borrow her little hideaway office near the House floor if I have votes until two in the morning,” Slotkin added.

    Stabenow has given no sign she plans to support any of the several prospects seeking to succeed her, except to nod to the list’s several relative newcomers. “I’m really enthused about the the opportunity for the next generation of leadership,” she said in an interview.

    After Slotkin narrowly won reelection in 2020, new congressional maps divided her home in Holly just northeast of Lansing from the state Capitol, her district’s population center and its Democratic voting base. In moving to Lansing to run in Michigan’s new 7th District, Slotkin was viewed by Republicans as vulnerable because she would be new to about a third of the district’s voters, many in rural GOP-leaning counties north of Lansing.

    Democrat Joe Biden also had barely won in the new configuration, giving hope to Republican House strategists who wagered Biden’s low job approval last year would help sink vulnerable House Democrats.

    Instead, Slotkin beat Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett in a race in which the two parties combined to spend more than $40 million, making it the third-most expensive House race in 2022.

    “She’s had millions and millions of dollars spent raising her positive name ID throughout the current iteration of her congressional district and the prior iteration,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic political strategist who is neutral in the primary. “That’s why you’ve got to call Slotkin the favorite.”

    Slotkin, however, is little known among Michigan’s Black voters, a liability considering nearly 78 percent of Detroit’s population is Black, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

    Though she has advertised on Detroit television during her campaigns, she has never represented Detroit nor its exurbs with large Black populations such as Flint.

    “I do believe she has her work cut out for her in the Black community in Detroit,” said Alexis Wiley, the former chief of staff to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. “I don’t think you can overstate the uphill battle there.”

    Slotkin entered Congress with nationally recognized freshmen such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who openly clashed with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She carved out a reputation in the House as quietly persevering, though vocal when necessary, said former Rep. Cindy Axne of Iowa, who entered Congress with Slotkin and calls her a friend.

    “There’s nobody better at strategy that I’m aware of than Elissa Slotkin,” Axne said.

    Last week, Slotkin traveled to Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan’s two largest cities and both outside her district, to attend events commemorating King’s birthday with Black leaders.

    It was what she called part of an effort to “talk to opinion leaders” and “see what they think,” though she stopped short of suggesting a deadline for an announcement.

    Ever the strategist, she noted “first movers are important in politics,” but that it’s also a “countervailing wind against preparation and methodical planning.”

    “I could make an announcement, but then I don’t have the team in place,” she said. “So, I want to do it right.”

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