WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden picked up the endorsement of North America’s Building Trades Unions at a Wednesday event where the president and his allies set out to dismantle Republican Donald Trump’s reputation as a successful real estate developer.

“Donald Trump is incapable of running anything,” said Sean McGarvey, the organization’s president. “God help us if he gets anywhere near the White House in the future.”

The event, held in a Washington hotel ballroom with a boisterous crowd of union members, was another salvo in the battle for votes from blue collar workers. Trump has tried to chip away at Democrats’ traditional advantage with organized labor, while Biden has been adding to his roster of endorsements and trying to fend off his predecessor’s comeback bid.

Biden said unions would help him make Trump a “loser again,” and he mocked Trump’s inability to pass infrastructure legislation when he was president, saying “he never built a damn thing.”

The Democratic president repeatedly torched his likely Republican opponent as a callous businessman who turned firing people into entertainment as part of his long-running reality show “The Apprentice.”

“He looks down on us. I’m not joking. Think about it,” Biden said. “Think about the guys you grew up with that you’d like to get in the corner and just give him a straight left. I’m not suggesting you hit the president. But we all know those guys growing up.”

Biden recently campaigned in his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he’s increasingly used economic arguments to portray Trump as out of touch with workers’ concerns.

In this election, Biden said, “it’s either Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values.”

The endorsement adds to Biden’s considerable union support. The United Auto Workers backed him in January, and the United Steelworkers Union followed suit in March.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Trump has also sought support from organized labor, including meeting with the Teamsters earlier this year.

“Usually a Republican wouldn’t get that endorsement,” Trump said. “But in my case it’s different because I’ve employed thousands of Teamsters and I thought we should come over and pay our respects.”

Trump’s popularity with white working class voters has been a challenge for Democrats who puzzle over his appeal.

McGarvey promised “an unprecedented field program in key battleground states” to help defeat Trump this year.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., of New Jersey, died Wednesday after a heart attack this month that left him hospitalized, officials said. He was 65.

In a statement, Gov. Phil Murphy called his fellow Democrat a “steadfast champion for the people of New Jersey.”

“With his signature bowtie, big heart, and tenacious spirit, Donald embodied the very best of public service,” Murphy said in a statement. “As a former union worker and toll collector, he deeply understood the struggles our working families face, and he fought valiantly to serve their needs, every single day.”

Payne had previously served as president of Newark City Council in New Jersey’s largest city, and on the Essex County Board of Commissioners.

Payne’s office had said his heart attack was connected to complications from diabetes. Payne’s father, Donald Milford Payne, held the congressional seat before him. When the elder Payne died in 2012, the younger ran successfully in a special election to succeed him.

He had won reelection six times since. The district covers parts of Newark and its heavily populated suburbs.

A New Jersey colleague, Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, called Payne a “truly great public servant” who liked to call him “Uncle Frank” and had fought to raise awareness for diabetes and colorectal cancer prevention and to replace lead pipes in Newark.

Payne’s survivors include his wife, Beatrice, and their three children, Murphy said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Arizona doctors could give their patients abortions in California under a proposal announced Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to circumvent a ban on nearly all abortions in that state.

It would apply only to doctors licensed in good standing in Arizona and their patients, and last only through the end of November. Arizona’s 1864 law banning nearly all abortions except if the mother’s life is in jeopardy takes effect June 8.

“Arizona Republicans continue to put women in danger—embracing a draconian law passed when Arizona was a territory, not even a state,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will not sit idly by.”

Besides Arizona, 14 other states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy. While abortion access in California has never been under serious threat, Newsom — widely seen as a potential presidential candidate beyond 2024 — has made defending that access a priority of his administration.

Newsom pushed for abortion access to be enshrined into the California Constitution. He approved $20 million of taxpayer money to help pay for women in other states to come to California for abortions. He signed dozens of laws aimed at making it harder for other states to investigate women for coming to California for abortions, including banning social media companies from complying with subpoenas or warrants.

His actions have endeared him to the Democratic Party’s core constituencies despite some of the state’s other problems — including homelessness, wildfire insurance and a pair of multibillion-dollar budget deficits.

In 2022, months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, California launched a publicly-funded website to promote the state’s abortion services, including information about financial help for travel expenses and letting teenagers in other states know that California does not require them to have their parents’ permission to get an abortion in the state.

It’s also become a chief talking point in Newsom’s role as a top surrogate of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Using money left over from his 2022 reelection campaign, Newsom started a political action committee he calls the “ Campaign for Democracy ” that has paid for billboards and TV ads in Republican-led states to criticize their leaders’ attempts to outlaw or restrict access to abortions. In February, he launched ads in multiple states to criticize proposals there that aimed to prohibit out-of-state travel for abortions.

When an Alabama lawmaker introduced a bill to make it a crime to help someone under 18 get an abortion without telling their parents or guardians, Newsom paid for an ad depicting a young woman trying to leave the state only to be stopped by a police officer who demands that she take a pregnancy test.

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Associated Press writer Adam Beam contributed to this report.

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Sophie Austin reported from Sacramento. Austin 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. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to four years in prison for leaking DEA intelligence to defense lawyers in a $100,000 bribery scheme that prosecutors said jeopardized drug cases and the lives of confidential informants.

John Costanzo Jr. was found guilty last year of bribery and honest-services wire fraud, joining a growing list of DEA agents convicted of federal crimes. Another former DEA supervisor, Manny Recio, is scheduled to be sentenced next month in the same case.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken, in handing down his sentence, noted that the 49-year-old Costanzo was “especially culpable” as a supervisor because he “knew what he was doing was wrong.”

Costanzo, addressing the judge before sentencing, expressed regret for his actions. “This is my cross to bear,” he said. “I will try to find a silver lining in all of this.”

Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence Costanzo to at least seven years behind bars, saying he abused the tradecraft he mastered as a narcotics investigator steeped in the world of money laundering. He worked in supervisory roles in Miami and later at DEA headquarters outside Washington, D.C.

“Costanzo acted purely out of greed,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. “He used his network, connections and skills to hold himself above the law and make money for leaking law enforcement secrets, undermining everything he purported to stand for.”

Much of the case turned on text messages and wiretapped phone calls between Costanzo and Recio, who remained close after Recio retired from DEA in 2018 and began working as a private investigator for Miami defense lawyers.

Prosecutors allege that attorneys David Macey and Luis Guerra bankrolled the bribery scheme and used the leaked information to approach new clients facing federal drug charges. Macey and Guerra have not been charged but prosecutors in January asked the court for permission to access normally privileged communications between Recio and the attorneys as part of what they described as an “ongoing” investigation.

The DEA did not respond to a request for comment. Costanzo’s sentencing came less than two weeks after a federal jury in Buffalo, New York, convicted another veteran DEA agent of obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in a sprawling corruption case.

Over the course of a year, Recio repeatedly asked Costanzo to query names in a confidential DEA database to keep abreast of federal investigations that would interest his new employers. The two also discussed the timing of high-profile arrests and the exact date in 2019 when prosecutors planned to bring charges against businessman Alex Saab, a top criminal target in Venezuela and suspected bag man for the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

In exchange, prosecutors said, Recio secretly funneled bribes to Costanzo, including plane tickets and a $50,000 down payment on a condo in suburban Coral Gables.

The conspiracy relied on middlemen, including Costanzo’s father, himself a retired and decorated DEA agent who prosecutors said lied to the FBI. Prosecutors said Costanzo and Recio also used sham invoices and a company listing its address as a UPS store to disguise the bribe payments while deleting hundreds of messages and calls to a burner phone.

In requesting a sentence of probation, Costanzo obtained letters of support from several former colleagues, including three current DEA agents and supervisors who described him as a dedicated public servant, generous friend and expert in illicit finance.

Costanzo’s attorney said his client’s only ambition was to follow in the footsteps of his father, John Costanzo Sr., a retired DEA agent who served for years in Italy and who is now battling pancreatic cancer.

“Not being present for his hero’s waning days and final months would break John forever,” defense lawyer Marc Mukasey argued in a pre-sentencing memo. “That is a punishment he does not deserve.”

Prosecutors, however, painted a less charitable view of the father-son relationship, pointing to the elder Costanzo’s role as a conduit for a $50,000 bribe payment that was used to purchase a Miami townhouse.

“Let this be a message to all public officials who are tempted to profit illegally from their service — there will be serious consequences,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.

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Mustian reported from Natchitoches, Louisiana, Goodman from Miami.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.

Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the U.S. last October. One of the officials said the U.S. is providing more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in February, and then in March the U.S. included a “significant” number of them in a $300 million aid package announced, one official said.

The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion.

Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.

Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others in recent days have been demanding that the U.S. send the weapons — not knowing they were already in Ukraine.

For months, the U.S. resisted sending Ukraine the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration sent the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (roughly 100 miles), in October instead.

Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now.

He told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. Grady declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be.”

Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. The administration is continuing to make clear that the weapons cannot be used to hit targets in Russia — only those inside Ukrainian territory, according to one of the U.S. officials.

“I think the time is right, and the boss (Biden) made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well considered decision, and we really wrung it out — but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change — into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.”

Ukrainian officials haven’t publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on the social platform X that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace.”

One of the U.S. officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv.

Russia got some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, said the official, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles.

The U.S. had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles were given to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kyiv leaders approved the public release. One official said the weapons were used early last week to strike the airfield in Dzhankoi, a city in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk.

Videos on social media last week showed the explosions at the military airfield, but officials at the time would not confirm it was the ATACMS.

Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval of a $95 billion foreign aid package for months, including funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing acute shortages of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as U.S. funding was delayed.

With the war now in its third year, Russia used the delay in U.S. weapons deliveries and its own edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

The mid-range missiles provided last year, and some of the long-range ones sent more recently, carry cluster munitions that open in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. Others sent recently have a single warhead.

One critical factor in the March decision to send the weapons was the U.S. Army’s ability to begin replacing the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to provide to Ukraine, the official said.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday on a resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia.

The resolution calls on all countries not to develop or deploy weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear arms, in space.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a council meeting on March 18 where she announced the resolution that “any placement of nuclear weapons into orbit around the Earth would be unprecedented, dangerous and unacceptable.”

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, retorted that Moscow’s initial impression was that the resolution is “yet another propaganda stunt by Washington” and is “very politicized” and “divorced from reality.”

The announcement of the resolution followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the United States.

The draft resolution says “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.”

It urges all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.

The draft “affirms” that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”

The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries including the United States and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

The draft resolution emphasizes “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”

It reiterates that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.

The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution urges the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”

At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”

He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”

“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican-led states are rushing to give broader immigration enforcement powers to local police and impose criminal penalties for those living in the country illegally as the issue of migrants crossing the U.S. border remains central to the 2024 elections.

The Oklahoma Legislature this week fast-tracked a bill to the governor that creates the new crime of “impermissible occupation,” which imposes penalties of as much as two years in prison for being in the state illegally.

Oklahoma is among several GOP-led states jockeying to push deeper into immigration enforcement as both Republicans and Democrats seize on the issue. That was illustrated in February when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visited the U.S.-Mexico border the same day and tussled from a distance over blame for the nation’s broken immigration system and how to fix it.

Here are some things to know about the latest efforts in various states to target immigration:

Lawmakers in Oklahoma followed the lead of Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill last year that would allow the state to arrest and deport people who enter the U.S. illegally. That law is currently on hold while the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers a challenge brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Opponents consider the law to be the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago, portions of which were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Oklahoma’s law would make it illegal to remain in the state without legal authorization, with a first offense a misdemeanor punishable by as much as a year in jail. Violators would be required to leave the state within 72 hours of being released from custody. A second and subsequent offense would be a felony punishable by as much as two years in prison.

Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, who carried the bill in the Senate, voiced frustration with the federal government and Congress for not taking more definitive steps to solve the immigration problem.

“The federal government has failed. The U.S. Congress, they have not done anything to impact it,” said Treat, an Oklahoma City Republican. “So what can we do? We can say you have to be here legally in Oklahoma.”

Outside the state Capitol, more than 100 people gathered Tuesday in opposition to the bill.

Sam Wargin Grimaldo, 36, an attorney from south Oklahoma City whose mother emigrated from Mexico in 1979, urged those who rallied to register to vote and become more politically engaged.

Grimaldo said many Latinos in Oklahoma are frightened about the new law.

“We feel attacked,” said Grimaldo, wearing a shirt that read, “Young, Latino and Proud.” “People are afraid to step out of their houses if legislation like this is proposed and then passed.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed a bill requiring law enforcement agencies to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people are in the the country illegally, and would broadly mandate cooperation in the process of identifying, detaining and deporting them. That bill takes effect July 1. Another proposal there would allow sentencing enhancements up to life in prison for someone in the country illegally who commits a violent crime.

In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill this month that mirrors part of the Texas law. Another approach at a Texas-style bill is advancing in Louisiana. Idaho lawmakers considered a similar measure but adjourned without passing it.

Georgia lawmakers passed a bill that seeks to force jailers to check immigration status, part of a continuing political response to the killing of a nursing student on the University of Georgia campus, allegedly by a Venezuelan man.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last month to increase prison and jail sentences for immigrants in the United States illegally if they are convicted of felonies or of driving without a license.

Like Texas’ new law, many of the bills are almost certain to face legal challenges because immigration is a federal, not a state, issue under the U.S. Constitution, said Kelli Stump, an immigration attorney in Oklahoma City and the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“The whole thing is a mess and the system is broken, but the Constitution says that states handle state issues and the feds handle federal issues,” Stump said. “This will ultimately end up at the Supreme Court if I’m a betting person.”

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Associated Press reporters Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, and Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

HOUSTON (AP) — A man accused of fatally shooting a 9-year-old girl when he was robbed at a Houston ATM in 2022 has been indicted for murder in her death.

Tuesday’s indictment against Tony Earls comes nearly two years after another grand jury had declined to indict him in the death of Arlene Alvarez.

“We have a duty to see that justice is done, and that meant asking a new grand jury to look at new evidence,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Wednesday in a statement. “We have done everything possible to figure out exactly what happened that day to ensure that we get justice.”

Court records did not list a current attorney for Earls, who was not in custody as of early Wednesday afternoon. Earls’ previous attorneys had said their client was not a “monster” but a family man who was devastated by Arlene’s death. They said Earls was not reckless in his actions and was only protecting his family.

Earls and his wife were at an ATM to withdraw money Feb. 14, 2022, when an unidentified robber pulled a gun on them and fled after taking $20, along with a check and their car keys, according to prosecutors.

Earls’ attorneys said after their client got out of his car, the robber fired and Earls fired back in self-defense. Investigators say Earls fired at a truck thinking the robbery suspect had possibly climbed into it.

But the vehicle was actually carrying Arlene and her family as they went to the ATM to make a deposit before heading to a late dinner at a pizzeria. The girl was shot in the head and later died at a hospital.

Earls was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, serious bodily injury. But a grand jury in July 2022 declined to indict him on that charge or several others, including manslaughter and murder. The man who robbed Earls has never been caught.

Ogg said that earlier this year she assigned a special prosecutor, Warren Diepraam, to re-examine the case. Diepraam said an FBI firearms expert was brought in to examine evidence in the case.

“The expert’s opinion is that Mr. Earls saw the robber run past the vehicle with Arlene Alvarez inside — the vehicle did not do anything to give Mr. Earls a justification to shoot into the passing vehicle,” Diepraam said in a statement. “Mr. Earls had a clear line of sight, and obviously Mr. Alvarez did not stop and say to the robber, ‘Get in’ or anything like that.”

If convicted, Earls could be sentenced to up to life in prison.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday rejected Starbucks’ claims that an election won by a union at the coffee company’s flagship Seattle store was invalid because it was held via mail ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision that said the company, which is facing a nationwide union organizing campaign, must recognize and bargain with the store’s union, which represents nearly 100 workers.

Starbucks claimed that a labor board official who ordered the mail-ballot election in March 2022 used the wrong data to determine that an in-person election was unsafe because there was an upward trend in COVID cases in the Seattle area at the time. Workers at the store voted 38-27 to unionize.

The 9th Circuit on Wednesday disagreed, finding that the official correctly applied a test the board adopted in 2020 for determining when a mail-ballot election was appropriate because of the pandemic.

Starbucks and Workers United, the union organizing the company’s stores, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

During the pandemic, most union elections were held via mail ballot, and the labor board is still ordering elections by mail in some cases.

Business groups and Republican lawmakers have criticized the labor board for continuing to shun in-person elections even as the pandemic subsided. They claim mail-ballot elections lower voter participation and jeopardize workers’ rights to choose whether to be represented by a union.

In a 2020 decision involving hospital operator Aspirus, the labor board said that, among other factors, regional directors should look at the 14-day trend in local COVID cases in deciding how to administer a union election.

In Wednesday’s case, Starbucks claimed that meant looking at the average rate of new cases each day over a 14-day period, and not the number of cases reported 14 days apart as the regional director had done.

But the 9th Circuit in its decision noted that the labor board had not defined what a 14-day trend was or laid out a specific method for calculating it.

“Even if we credit Starbucks’s approach … our standard of review does not permit us to displace the NLRB’s choice between two fairly conflicting views,” Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the court.

Workers at more than 420 of Starbucks’ 9,000 U.S. stores have voted to unionize since 2021. The 9th Circuit case is one of several involving the organizing campaign to reach federal appeals courts.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Biden’s reelection campaign plans to continue using TikTok, a campaign official said on Wednesday, shortly after the U.S. president signed into law a bill that would ban the app if its Chinese owner fails to divest it.

The decision comes as many young and left-leaning voters, a significant part of the user base for the short-video app, are agitated over Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and protests have escalated across universities around the country.

“A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are — and that includes online. TikTok is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters,” said a Biden campaign official, who declined to be named.

The campaign will use “enhanced security measures” while using the app, the official said. Biden’s campaign staff are not employed by the government and do not deal with national security issues, so they are allowed to have the app on their phones, campaign officials had previously said.

The Biden campaign account on TikTok, @bidenhq, has posted close to 120 videos and has more than 306,000 followers, and routinely posts videos of Biden there, even as the White House says TikTok causes “legitimate national security concerns.”

TikTok is set to challenge the bill on First Amendment grounds and the company’s chief executive said on Wednesday he expects to win a legal challenge to block the legislation.

The four-year fight over TikTok is a major front in a battle over the internet and technology between Washington and Beijing.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who is not on the app, said earlier this week Biden was responsible if a ban were imposed, urging voters to take notice. When he was president in 2020, Trump tried to ban TikTok over national security concerns but was blocked by the courts.

Biden campaign aides do not expect the decision to hurt them with young voters and expect a lengthy legal fight to determine the app’s fate and to delay any potential ban.

“Reducing young people’s vote down to the use of a social media app is unserious, inaccurate and insulting: election after election, young people continue to show us they understand the stakes of this moment,” said Biden campaign spokesman Seth Schuster.

In March, the campaign said it has launched its largest voter outreach program, with the support of 15 youth organizations who have endorsed Biden.

The new law gives TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, nine months to sell the app or face a ban in the U.S. The president could grant a one-time 90-day extension, but even without it, the earliest a ban could start is January.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Kanishka Singh; Editing by David Ljunggren, Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)