July 31 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled an executive business meeting for Tuesday to consider the nomination of Todd Blanche to be U.S. attorney general, according to the committee’s website.

Blanche’s nomination has been stalled after a standoff with fellow Republicans over a plan by President Donald Trump for $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could be used to pay people who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)

By Daniel Heuer and David Lawder

CAMP DAVID, Maryland, July 31 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday exposed a “to-do” list during President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting indicating he was contemplating U.S. purchases of $5 billion to $10 billion worth of Japanese yen, a Reuters photograph taken during the meeting held at Camp David shows.

Taken over Bessent’s shoulder during an on-the-record portion of the meeting, the Camp David notepad bears the underscored words “To Do” followed by “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”

The notepad shows no other words, and Bessent’s name card on the Camp David conference table is visible and positioned immediately above the notepad. The photograph was taken at 11:33 ET (1533 GMT).

A U.S. Treasury spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the contents of the notepad, or whether the Treasury had intervened to help prop up the yen’s value against the dollar on Friday.

Earlier on Friday morning, around two hours before the photo was taken, Reuters reported that the Treasury had notified a number of banks that it may intervene in the yen market on Friday, quoting a source familiar with the situation.

Japanese authorities had stepped in to prop up the yen earlier on Friday in Tokyo. That triggered a substantial strengthening of the Japanese currency during morning trading hours.

There appears to have been another sizeable strengthening of the yen against the dollar during the late afternoon on Friday. Data from LSEG shows the dollar dropped from about 158.9 yen at around 4:14 p.m. (2014 GMT) to about 157.6 yen just before 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) — a drop of about 0.8%.

The U.S. Treasury has not intervened to prop up the yen since 2011, when it joined other G7 countries in a coordinated action after a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan.

(Reporting by Daniel Heuer from Camp David; additional reporting by David Lawder in Chicago; editing by Dan Burns and Rosalba O’Brien)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that his $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is “dead” while also continuing to defend it, further complicating his administration’s negotiations with two Republican senators who are blocking his attorney general nominee in protest.

Trump told reporters at Camp David on Friday morning that administration officials had “agreed not to have a fund” that compensates his political allies, yet made clear that he disagrees with that decision.

The comments came hours after an early morning social media post in which Trump said people who had been prosecuted by the Justice Department — many of them for their involvement in the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — “are suffering still, many ruined, and I felt that they should be given compensation for what has been done to them.”

Trump’s reluctant declaration that the fund won’t be created came as Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, say they won’t support Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general until they see that promise in writing. They have been working for weeks with the White House and Blanche, who is now the acting attorney general, to produce a document to that effect, but both senators have said they aren’t satisfied so far.

“The President made it clear today that the so-called Anti Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis said after Trump’s initial social media post.

As negotiations continued late Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley rescheduled a committee vote for Blanche that had been postponed earlier in the week.

A spokesperson for the committee said Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess and putting the Tuesday vote on the calendar “gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee.”

Blanche said at a hearing two months ago that the anti-weaponization fund would not move forward after Republican senators revolted and held up an immigration funding bill.

But Tillis, who is retiring when his term ends in January, and Cornyn, who lost reelection this year after Trump endorsed his primary opponent, said they want to ensure that the White House doesn’t reverse course, especially as Trump continues to argue that a fund is needed.

The Justice Department has provided the senators with language that says Blanche’s May 18 order establishing the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is “rescinded and shall have no force or effect,” according to a document reviewed by The Associated Press.

Cornyn and Tillis have said they also want some clarifications on a separate piece of the settlement that would grant Trump and members of his family immunity from tax audits. Cornyn said this week that it was his understanding that the audits could extend to more than 100 different Trump organization subsidiaries into the future.

“Todd Blanche said it was limited to the parties to the litigation — and it was retrospective, not prospective,” Cornyn said. “And all we’re doing is asking them to put that in writing.”

The Judiciary Committee postponed the vote on Blanche’s nomination that had been scheduled for Thursday morning after Tillis and Cornyn said they needed more from the administration before they could provide the necessary votes.

After the meeting was delayed, Trump said in a social media post that he might pull Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it after Cornyn and Tillis leave office next year. But the two sides continued to negotiate through Thursday afternoon, when Blanche, Cornyn and Tillis met on Capitol Hill.

On Friday, a person familiar with the negotiations said talks had been positive but the senators were still awaiting a new offer from the Justice Department. The person requested anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.

The two senators have repeatedly said the Justice Department seemed interested in reaching an agreement, but the White House wouldn’t budge even to aid the confirmation of Trump’s loyal former personal attorney, who has aggressively pursued the administration’s priorities as acting attorney general.

“I think as far as Blanche and the Department of Justice, we were pretty much on the same page,” Cornyn said Thursday. “But then when the president got wind of it, he wasn’t willing to go along with it.”

Tillis said Blanche “has been forthright, thoughtful and patient” but attributed the holdup to an “incompetent personal adviser” to the president, even as Trump himself continued to advocate for the fund.

Behind the scenes, Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn is being blamed as an obstacle to an agreement that would let Blanche move forward, according to three people who have direct knowledge of the discussions and requested anonymity to discuss them.

Saying the AP’s “sources are wrong,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said “anyone trying to assign blame to the President or his team has no earthly idea of what is going on and clearly is trying to deflect from the issue at hand — Todd Blanche will be an exceptional Attorney General and he should be confirmed immediately.”

Also on Friday, Trump’s attorneys notified a court it would appeal a judge’s scathing ruling that characterized the settlement of the president’s lawsuit against the IRS as an improper exercise in self-dealing. The judge in her order earlier this month referred one of Trump’s attorneys for potential disciplinary action and criticized Blanche’s involvement in the settlement, given his prior representation of Trump.

Blanche has said he disagrees “with the judge’s insinuations” about him.

Even as they are usually deferential to Trump, a number of Republican senators have expressed strong objections to the settlement.

“The criminals who assaulted police officers and defiled our nation’s Capitol are not ‘great American patriots’ who are ‘victims of government abuse,’” Tillis said, echoing Trump’s comments about the rioters who could potentially have received payouts. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who had been charged in the attack.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Thursday that the majority of Senate Republicans aren’t comfortable with the settlement fund.

“Blanche said it’s dead, and he testified that it’s not coming back,” Kennedy said. “But for whatever reason, somebody didn’t want to put it in writing.”

___

This story has been updated to correct the year of the Capitol riot. It was 2021, not 2001.

___

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Republican leader of the Indiana Senate announced Friday that he would give up his position after six GOP incumbents who opposed President Donald Trump on his congressional redistricting push in the state lost their primaries.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray drew the ire of Trump in December when he voted against the redistricting plan after saying for weeks that it didn’t have enough support to pass. The rejection came after intense lobbying from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, national conservative groups and others.

Bray, who has held his leadership position since 2018, said in a statement Friday that he would not seek reelection to the post when Senate Republicans choose their leaders in November. His current Senate term runs through 2028 and he will remain in office, albeit not as the Republican Senate leader.

Trump reacted to the news in a social media post by saying Bray had “foolishly led,” the state Senate, noting the May primary defeats of those who defied him on the redistricting plan.

Bray did not mention Trump or the redistricting fight in his statement announcing his position to step down from the leadership position. Bray said holding the job “has been among the most significant honors of my life, but it’s time for the Senate to choose another leader.”

By Sarah Kinosian, Gram Slattery and Matt Spetalnick

July 31 – An unofficial adviser to the Trump administration who has played a leading role in shaping U.S. Venezuela policy and multimillion-dollar deals to exploit the OPEC state’s vast oil resources has told Reuters he is no longer overseeing the portfolio.

In a role likened by current and former government officials and business sources in the U.S. and Venezuela to that of a viceroy, Miami-based businessman Mauricio Claver-Carone reported to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has spearheaded Venezuela policy. 

Though he held no formal government position, he emerged as one of the Trump administration’s most influential players on Venezuela since the January 3 U.S. raid that captured President Nicolas Maduro.

He said his departure was voluntary, though multiple sources familiar with the matter say he was forced out in recent weeks.

During his tenure, Claver-Carone wielded heavy influence over decisions that could eventually be worth billions of dollars, from debt restructuring to oil deals.

Maduro was replaced by former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who has worked closely with Claver-Carone and proved more compliant to U.S. demands to open the country up to U.S. business.

Behind-the-scenes talks by Claver-Carone, who served briefly as Trump’s special envoy on Latin America early in his second term, were a large part of the Trump administration’s approach to post-Maduro Venezuela. The U.S. has taken a domineering role in determining the future of the country’s energy sector while refraining from pushing for substantial political reforms or democratic elections anytime soon.

Claver-Carone was key to U.S. firm Centerview Partners clinching a contract – worth more than $150 million with no competitive bidding process – to restructure Venezuela’s some $200 billion of debt. He also helped arrange talks between the Venezuelan government and opposition leaders scheduled for August 1 and weighed in on oil deals, including some cases in which companies were awarded potentially lucrative business, eight sources said.

“Just like in the first term and my service last year as Special Envoy, I was honored to provide advice and experience as a private citizen on Venezuela and to fill gaps early on … to ensure President Trump’s policy was successful. Over the last six months, there has now been an inter-agency team, led by Secretary Rubio, and a reestablished Embassy team, created to fully implement the President’s policy,” Claver-Carone said. 

“I’m retired on Venezuela.”

Asked for comment, the State Department said he was not being removed from any formal role.

“Mr. Claver-Carone is an expert with contacts throughout our region and is a private citizen who does not currently have an official role in the Trump Administration,” a spokesperson said. “Any insinuation that he is being forced out of any formal role is inaccurate.”   

While Claver-Carone’s supporters portrayed him as a deft operator capable of advancing the administration’s agenda in a geopolitically complex environment, some Trump allies had questioned if he was an appropriate figure to oversee a freewheeling push by U.S. companies to snap up Venezuelan assets as he was a nominally private citizen who controlled a private equity fund.     

Claver-Carone said neither he nor his fund has any financial stake in Venezuela. 

His heavy-handed involvement with business deals in Caracas has ruffled feathers within the State Department and among some investors, multiple sources told Reuters. 

Among those who had bristled at Claver-Carone’s influence was Trump supporter, former ambassador and previous special envoy to Venezuela Richard Grenell, who spoke to Trump about Claver-Carone’s influence in business dealings in Caracas in early July, according to several sources familiar with the matter. 

Grenell did not respond to requests for comment. An administration official denied that Claver-Carone had “ruffled feathers at the White House.”

Some Trump allies and those close to the situation privately argued Claver-Carone was too close to some Venezuelan political operators.     

One of those was Alejandro Betancourt, one of Venezuela’s best-known businessmen, who amassed a fortune through contracts linked to Venezuela’s oil and electrical sectors during late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s rule, while facing years of scrutiny and investigations related to corruption and money laundering in various jurisdictions, including the United States, which he has denied. 

Claver-Carone acknowledged that he and others in the U.S. government had used Betancourt as an intermediary with Rodriguez’s government, noting the businessman had been helpful because he understood the oil business in both countries and could bridge the gap between the parties. 

Neither Betancourt nor his attorney responded to requests for comment. The State Department did not directly address Claver-Carone’s relationship with the businessman.

Claver-Carone, a Cuban American from south Florida with a history of opposition to the Communist government in Havana and a longtime ally of Rubio, served as the president of the Inter-American Development Bank in the first Trump administration before being ousted over misconduct. 

In the first Trump administration he was one of the architects of U.S. policy towards Venezuela, including pushing for sanctions against the country in 2019, while also helping to craft a rollback of rapprochement with Cuba orchestrated by Trump’s  predecessor, Barack Obama. He served briefly as a Special Envoy for Latin America in Trump’s second administration before opening his own private equity fund. 

It remains to be seen how dramatic a change in how the U.S. handles business in Venezuela will be signaled by the shakeup.

While Claver-Carone was arguably the most preeminent figure on the Venezuela file other than Rubio himself, several U.S. officials do play a significant role and have shown no indication of moving aside in the near future.

(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian, Gram Slattery and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Libby George, Alexandra Ulmer and Alistair Bell)

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) — President Donald Trump takes his Cabinet meeting to Camp David, using the setting to highlight his administration’s achievements.

He warns of a migrant crisis in Spain, claiming it could happen in the U.S. if Republicans lose the midterms.

Trump criticizes Spain’s government and blames Minnesota’s leadership for recent cyberattacks.

He also discusses issues like Iran, a Hamas deal, and a stalled “anti-weaponization fund”.

Camp David was established in 1942 during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency and has been used by every president since.

Roosevelt had enjoyed relaxing aboard a presidential yacht, but the military and the U.S. Secret Service began to worry about his safety on open water during World War II. As a result, Roosevelt asked the National Park Service to find sites within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the White House that he could use for rest.

He chose what is now known as Camp David. He gave it the original name of Shangri-La, from James Hilton’s novel “Lost Horizon.” President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David, after his grandson and father.

Trump spent more weekends at the retreat in his first term but has visited sparingly in his second, most recently in June for Father’s Day.

In 2019, during his first term, Trump announced on social media that he had canceled a secret weekend meeting at Camp David with Taliban and Afghanistan leaders — scheduled for just days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — after a bombing in the capital of Kabul killed a dozen people, including a U.S. soldier.

Presidents throughout history have turned to Camp David when they needed security and privacy for sensitive diplomatic talks with foreign leaders. Jimmy Carter took the leaders of Egypt and Israel there in 1978 for talks that produced the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement between the two countries.

Camp David is also where Carter huddled in 1979 with representatives of a cross-section of American society. He later delivered a nationally televised speech on energy policy that became known as the “malaise” speech — even though he never said the word.

The camp’s primary purpose is to provide presidents a place to rest, relax and recharge.

The 180-acre retreat, which is run by the Navy and guarded by Marines, has a cabin named Aspen that’s reserved for the president, plus about a dozen other cabins for guests. A main lodge has conference rooms, a dining room and an office for the president.

Guests can take advantage of a range of indoor and outdoor amenities, including a fitness center, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a heated swimming pool and tennis and basketball courts. A chapel offers religious services.

FILE – A sign for Camp David, the presidential retreat, is pictured near Thurmont, Md., Aug. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

DETROIT (AP) — The jokes practically wrote themselves as an eclectic group of progressive pastors, imams and a rabbi walked into a room, finding their seats around a table to talk about religion and politics.

Though there was no shortage of levity, a sense of urgency filled the Detroit meeting room as Abdul El-Sayed, a former gubernatorial candidate who is running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, began speaking about how his Muslim faith informs his progressive views.

The public health researcher asked the group of faith leaders ahead of Tuesday’s primary, “What does the inspiration of holding yourself accountable to something bigger than you mean for what you do for the people around you?”

El-Sayed added, “If you can’t eat food and I have something to do about it, I better do it.”

Progressive Democratic politicians have won major electoral victories across the country in recent months amid growing frustrations surrounding inequality, affordability and potential threats to job security posed by artificial intelligence. As the economy becomes a flashpoint for the November midterms, many of these candidates and voters who support them are citing religion as a justification for their positions.

“We’re in an era of historical inequality,” El-Sayed told The Associated Press. “Most faith traditions — certainly the Abrahamic faith traditions — put a lot more burden on the wealthy.”

The interfaith roundtable took place days after a high-profile rally for El-Sayed, who has made “Medicare for All” a fixture of his campaign and is running against the more moderate Rep. Haley Stevens. It featured speeches from progressive heavy hitters like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Though not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, El-Sayed is being endorsed by liberal allies, many of them members of the DSA, while being criticized by Republicans and centrist Democrats for being too far left to be electable in a swing state.

If elected in November, he would be the first Muslim senator in U.S. history.

Representatives for Stevens, who is identified in congressional profiles as a Protestant, did not respond to requests for comment.

Religious support for progressive economic and labor movements is not new, even if it has ebbed and flowed in the U.S. over the centuries. Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical was in many ways an ode to “Rerum novarum,” Pope Leo XIII’s seminal 1891 text on labor, wages and unions that helped shape Catholic social teaching.

This embrace of religion isn’t unique to the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. More moderate candidates like James Talarico, the seminarian running for the U.S. Senate in Texas, also highlight their faith. But as left-leaning Democrats and democratic socialists like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, score wins in local and national races, Republicans have repeatedly decried the party’s progressive wing as communists devoid of religion.

“Republicans and conservatives believe in natural rights that flow from a creator. I think communism rejects that. It espouses a very atheistic, centralized sort of secular view of society,” said Douglas Blair, a spokesperson for Heritage Action for America.

Megan Romer, a DSA national co-chair and ordained ruling elder within the Presbyterian Church (USA), conceded socialism is a troubling concept for some people of faith.

“People’s idea of it is, ‘Oh, that’s when you’re not allowed to have a religion, right?’ Which has been true in some socialist projects,” she said.

But experts say that narrative carries less weight among many younger Americans who have no memory of the Cold War and the anti-religious associations it begot.

Though there are more Democrats unaffiliated with religion than Republicans, many people of faith do not see progressive ideologies like socialism as contradictory to their beliefs. They cite Black religious activists who were outspoken critics of capitalism, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and W.E.B. Du Bois, as models for their thinking about the relationship between religion and politics.

The Rev. Andrew Wilkes, who co-pastors the Double Love Experience Church in New York City, became interested in democratic socialism more than a decade ago after presiding over a funeral for someone whose insurance wouldn’t cover a critical operation. “It was not God that sent him home but an unjustly organized healthcare system and economy,” he said.

“There’s an increasing recognition, I would say, connecting socialism to a sense of a moral compass,” Wilkes said, adding that religion can bring optimism and creativity in a time of pessimism. “There’s a level of world-building that faith can speak to.”

Romer, who joined the DSA in 2018 in part because of Sanders’ unsuccessful presidential run two years earlier, thinks there is a theological component to why Christianity in particular has thrived among conservatives.

“That flavor of Christianity is a very individualistic one. They talk a lot about your personal relationship with God,” she said. “My interpretation of Christianity is one that, I think the early Christians — they were not communists in the modern sense, but they lived in communal situations.”

This faith-driven economic focus is not limited to elections.

Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice is a nonprofit organization that works with congregations throughout Southern California to support workers’ rights. Earlier this month, it facilitated a visit to Live Oak United Church of Christ in Brea, California, to support efforts to unionize a local grocery store chain.

“We just feel very, very overworked,” Luis Cueva, a Mother’s Market employee, told members of the congregation after their Sunday service as he asked for support.

“Jesus was a socialist,” Cueva said after the meeting, citing his teachings about it being difficult for rich people to go to heaven. “It means a lot to know that the church is willing to help.”

About half of U.S. adults have a positive view of capitalism, according to a poll last year from Gallup, down from 61% in 2010. Democrats have driven part of the shift, but favorable views of capitalism have also declined among independents.

President Donald Trump and other Republicans have cast these attitudes and candidates as being fundamentally at odds with religion.

“These are hard core, godless communists,” Trump said recently during a speech to the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “All communists are godless. They don’t believe in God.”

Although there are myriad points of contention within the Democratic Party, such as support for Israel, El-Sayed considers economic issues a top issue for his campaign.

“I talk about taking money out of politics because it’s the reason life is not affordable,” he said. “People are realizing that politicians on both sides of the aisle really are being paid off by the same people.”

The son of Egyptian immigrants, El-Sayed is aware that his Islamic faith can be weaponized or misunderstood. But since having a religious experience in college that followed a rebellious childhood, he takes seriously the implications of his faith.

“If you put your morals on a mantel, they’re not morals. They’re just, you know, things that you can admire and then you give yourself the permission to step away from them when it’s convenient,” he said.

As the roundtable concluded, leaders from each faith took turns praying. Their heads lifted, but the Rev. Horace Sheffield chimed in with one last request on behalf of El-Sayed.

“I don’t think y’all were specific enough. So I’m gonna say it real simple,” he said. “Lord, let him win.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Richard Cowan and Steve Holland

CAMP DAVID, Maryland/WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a meeting on Tuesday to consider Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, after President Donald Trump said his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was dead despite his support for it.

Blanche’s nomination had been stalled by a clash with fellow Republicans, who withheld support while seeking written assurances that the Justice Department would not establish the fund, which critics said could benefit Trump’s allies.

“It is dead, but I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Friday, one day after threatening to withdraw the nomination until next year after two key opposing senators leave office. “I’d like to see them compensated for the pain.”

He urged Republican senators to confirm Blanche and warned that they “will never get anybody like him.” Trump also took aim at Senator John Cornyn for blocking the nomination, saying the Texas Republican supported Blanche until Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary challenger.

“I’d be upset also,” Trump said. “I fully understand it. He shouldn’t be that way. I shouldn’t be that way.” 

Critics have derided it as a slush fund that would reward Trump supporters with taxpayer money.

Blanche has previously told senators that the fund was dead, but has so far not agreed to put that in writing.

Earlier on Friday, Trump defended Blanche in a social media post, calling for his confirmation and referring to the fund in the present tense.

Tillis said Trump’s post indicated he thought it was operational.

“The president made it clear today that the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund is still alive, which is exactly why we are attempting to formally end it,” Tillis said in a post on X. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s statement that the fund was dead.

Tillis said he would keep working to break the impasse and blamed “an incompetent personal advisor” to Trump for standing in the way of a settlement.

Cornyn and Tillis, whose Senate terms end in early January, were closer to an agreement after meeting with Blanche late Thursday afternoon, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer who was named acting attorney general in April, has also met with Republican Senator John Curtis. 

Despite the standoff, Blanche may not need Senate confirmation to effectively serve out Trump’s term, given that acting officials can serve as long as their nomination is pending in the Senate and their nomination is not formally rejected or withdrawn.

The “anti-weaponization” fund was crafted as part of a legal settlement between ​Trump and the Justice Department to resolve his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over allegedly mishandling his tax records, but it was put on hold amid opposition from congressional Republicans. 

The fund could benefit Trump allies who have said they were unfairly targeted by the federal government for their involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020. 

Cornyn and Tillis also object to an IRS deal that would prevent tax audits of Trump and his associates.

Trump wrote that the fund “will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed.”

Tillis said those who attacked law enforcement should still be in prison and should not get a check from the federal government.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Steve Holland, Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Chizu Nomiyama, Andrea Ricci and Shri Navaratnam)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The last time Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma hosted the nation’s governors, it didn’t go so well.

The annual gathering of state leaders in Washington in February was overshadowed by a fight with President Donald Trump, who refused to allow two governors — both Democrats — to attend a White House meeting. As head of the National Governors Association, Stitt successfully pressed Trump to reverse course but got an earful in the process.

Trump, who carried each of Oklahoma’s 77 counties in 2024, blasted Stitt as a “RINO,” meaning Republican in name only, and criticized the term-limited governor’s performance in office.

Stitt is again hosting his colleagues this weekend, this time on his home turf in Oklahoma City as he turns over leadership of the National Governors Association to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat and one of the governors Trump had sought to exclude. In an interview, Stitt discussed the dust-up with Trump, warned against efforts to federalize elections, and expressed concern that a mammoth federal government has contributed to the country’s tense political climate.

Here are highlights of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: You’ve spent the past year working closely with governors from both parties. What have you learned?

STITT: We agree on much more than we disagree. I was never in politics until I ran for governor. I’m like everybody else. I’m watching Fox News. I’m in my camp, and the other guys are in the MSNBC camp, and we’re over here thinking the other people are bad. But when I get in these roles and I meet the governor of Maryland and the governor of New York and these other governors, I realize that, literally, we’re all Americans.

AP: You’ve talked a lot about states’ rights. Going into the midterms, are you confident that states will be able to conduct their elections without interference from Trump or the federal government?

STITT: You know, I do.

First off, I don’t think that we should federalize the elections at all. I believe that is a state issue. The states should control their own elections. Should we make sure they’re done fairly and U.S. citizens are voting? 100%. I think there’s broad agreement with that. Oklahoma, literally, all of our absentee ballots have to be notarized. We have to know who they are. And then they have to be in by Election Day. So they’re all counted, and then when the polls close at 7, we drop all the absentee and early votes counted. Bam, you know what they are at 7:01.

It is weird that in a swing state, in a certain county, it takes them a month to count the votes. So rightly, you should be questioning some of these things. But Oklahoma does it the right way, and those are the things that I’m responsible for. But, yeah, I trust our election process.

AP: But if you were to look at those vote swings, do you trust governors of those states to look at that as opposed to Washington?

STITT: 100%. I don’t think we should federalize that. Because then you’ve got a pendulum swing. What about the next guy gets in office and the next guy and the next guy? The system that we have with 50 different states is the right system.

Now, the Save America Act, making sure that we know who’s voting, I think that’s a very legitimate thing to do.

AP: You pushed back against the president when he wanted to exclude two Democratic governors from a White House meeting. The president had some words for you as well at the time. As a Republican, how do you disagree with the president?

STITT: All I simply said was, “Hey, we can’t call this a National Governors Association meeting if you’re not going to have all the governors there.” And so, to President Donald Trump’s credit, he said, and I think he was getting bad information from staff at the time, but, yes, we talked, and all the governors were invited to the business meeting. He excluded a couple of governors from the dinner. But that’s all I basically said. I didn’t want to get on the bad side of the president. But we have a good working relationship.

I’m trying to do what’s best for Oklahoma. In that case, I was representing the National Governors Association.

AP: It sometimes seems that when Republicans push back against the president, it’s often when they’re leaving office. Should there be more open and frequent disagreement?

STITT: Well, I mean, sure. If there’s something that we fundamentally think is going to be bad for our country, we all should say something. Every citizen, regardless if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we should say, “Hey, that’s the wrong approach.”

AP: How do we bring down the temperature in politics?

STITT: I think one of the reasons the temperature’s so hard, so loud and divisive, is because of this one-size-fits-all, huge federal government.

Then we want whatever idea we have, then we want everybody to do it across the country. And that is not how our founders set it up. They thought that New York was different from Delaware, different from Virginia and South Carolina and Maryland.

And that’s OK, and that’s what I tell people. Hey, Minnesota’s elected Gov. Tim Walz. That’s OK. Why does that bother me in Oklahoma? Why do I care what Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s doing in New York City? It shouldn’t affect me.

But politics is becoming like, if Kamala Harris wins, she’s going to try to make Oklahoma like California. We don’t want to be like California. And so I think if we can bring that temperature down and say, “Hey, it’s OK that the states are different and they have different values and philosophies.”

AP: What do you see as the future of the Republican Party?

STITT: I hope we get back to the fiscal piece of our party. Like in 1994, when Newt Gingrich came in with the Contract with America, and President Bill Clinton was in office, we balanced a budget. Now, Congress won’t even vote on a budget — it’s continuing resolutions. And our Founding Fathers would just be like, “What is this? What do you mean they don’t ever vote on the budget? That’s all their job is.”

AP: Do you plan on running for anything again, maybe national office?

STITT: I’m just going to finish my job as governor and plan on going back to the private sector, and we’ll see what happens in the future.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Over the past several years, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution to create abortion rights, legalize marijuana and sports betting and expand Medicaid healthcare coverage for low-income adults.

None of those initiatives would have passed under a ballot measure getting decided by voters Tuesday.

Missouri’s proposed Amendment 4 would make it significantly harder to amend the constitution by requiring citizen initiatives to pass in all eight of the state’s diverse congressional districts instead of by a traditional, simple statewide majority. No other state has such a high standard — or has even asked voters to consider it.

“This is a first-of-its-kind,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a national group that backs progressive ballot initiatives like the ones Missouri’s Republican lawmakers are hoping to quelch.

“It would be nearly impossible for citizens to participate meaningfully in any sort of direct democracy,” said Hall, who believes other states could try to copy Missouri’s proposal.

The Missouri proposal is the culmination of years of attempts by lawmakers in numerous states to raise the bar for citizen-initiated petitions to qualify for the ballot and win voter approval. Some elected officials contend lawmaking is best left to themselves — the people’s representatives — because citizen initiatives lack the vetting that comes from the multistep legislative process of public hearings, debates and revisions.

The effort to curtail citizen initiatives on state ballots comes as President Donald Trump pushes for greater restrictions on who can vote and how ballots are cast, asserting the integrity of elections is at stake.

Missouri’s measure “fits into the larger narrative and story around what the future of democracy looks like in the United States,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive ballot measures.

About one-third of U.S. states allow people to bypass their legislatures by gathering signatures to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Several others allow the process for proposed laws.

In most of those states, a simple majority of voters is all that’s needed to approve constitutional amendments. Colorado requires a 55% vote for most measures, and Florida a 60% vote.

Voters in recent years rejected ballot measures to raise the approval threshold for amendments in Arkansas, Ohio and South Dakota. Still, South Dakota lawmakers have placed a proposal for a 60% approval threshold on the November ballot. North Dakota voters will consider a similar measure, and Utah voters will decide on a 60% requirement for citizen-initiated tax increases.

Missouri’s proposal would apply only to citizen initiatives. Constitutional amendments proposed by the Legislature still would need only a statewide majority. No other state has a dual standard like that.

Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis, who sponsored Missouri’s measure, said he wants to ensure people in all parts of the state have their voices heard. He said activists funded by out-of-state interest groups have run up large majorities in St. Louis and Kansas City to pass controversial initiatives that failed throughout most of the rest of Missouri.

The abortion, marijuana, sports betting and Medicaid initiatives all were placed on the ballot by petitions between 2020 and 2024 after lawmakers declined to act. All passed with 53% or less of the statewide vote.

Requiring “50% in each of our congressional districts is not a difficult barrier for anything that has a consensus,” Lewis said. But “it is a difficult barrier for either a very conservative or a very liberal initiative petition,” he said.

“If you’re going to change the constitution, shouldn’t it be broadly accepted?” Lewis asked rhetorically.

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Critics say Missouri’s proposed amendment could undercut consensus, because an initiative backed by large margins in seven congressional districts still would fail if opposed by a slim margin in just one district.

“It is an astonishing level of unfairness, and it crushes our notion of one person, one vote and majority rule, which we learned about in school as kids,” said Scott Charton, a spokesperson for the Missouri Realtors campaign committees, which have backed previous initiatives.

Though Amendment 4 was referred to the ballot by Republican lawmakers, people at a recent Republican club meeting in Jefferson City were divided about whether to make it harder for citizens to amend the state constitution.

Rick Kolb said he supports the tougher standards.

“Our country was founded as a republic not a democracy,” he said. When initiatives appear on the ballot, “everybody votes on these things that they haven’t put any thought into it.”

But Jim Bryan said he opposes the amendment, fearing it could allow voters in St. Louis or Kansas City to thwart measures supported by the rest of the state.

“The popular vote is what I want,” he said.

Regardless of the outcome, Tuesday’s vote may not be the last on Missouri’s citizen initiatives.

The Respect Missouri Voters coalition submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures — currently being verified by election officials — to try to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot protecting the initiative process. It would reverse the Legislature’s amendment by requiring only a statewide majority to pass citizen initiatives. It also would bar the Legislature from increasing the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, shortening the time to do so or imposing other requirements that weaken initiative rights.

The measure also would make it harder for the Legislature to reverse or amend voter-approved initiatives by requiring an 80% vote in both the House and Senate instead of a simple majority. That comes after the Legislature last year repealed a paid sick leave law approved by voters and referred a new constitutional amendment to the November ballot to reverse voter-approved abortion rights.

Supporters insist their measure is nonpartisan, noting that Democratic lawmakers also tried to restrict citizen initiatives before Republicans gained control of the Capitol.

“Politicians in power want all the power in their hands,” said Benjamin Singer, co-founder of Respect Missouri Voters. “They don’t want citizens to have a check on their power.”