effort

BOSTON — A federal judge said Friday that she expects to temporarily block efforts by the Trump administration to end a program that offered temporary legal protections for more than 10,000 family members of citizens and green card holders.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said at a hearing that she planned to issue a temporary restraining order but did not say when it would be issued. This case is part of a broader effort by the administration to end temporary legal protection for numerous groups and comes just over a week since another judge ruled that hundreds of people from South Sudan may live and work in the United States legally.

“The government, having invited people to apply, is now laying traps between those people and getting the green card,” said Justin Cox, an attorney who works with Justice Action Center and argued the case for the plaintiffs. “That is incredibly inequitable.”

This case involved a program called Family Reunification Parole, or FRP, and affects people from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras. Most of them are set to lose their legal protections, which were put in place during the Biden administration, by Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security terminated protections late last year.

The case involves five plaintiffs, but lawyers are seeking to have any ruling cover everyone that is part of the program.

“Although in a temporary status, these parolees did not come temporarily; they came to get a jump-start on their new lives in the United States, typically bringing immediate family members with them,” plaintiffs wrote in their motion. “Since they arrived, FRP parolees have gotten employment authorization documents, jobs, and enrolled their kids in school.”

The government, in its brief and in court, argued that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has the authority to terminate any parole program and gave adequate notice by publishing the termination in the federal registry. It also argued that the program’s termination was necessary on national security grounds because the people had not been property vetted. It also said resources to maintain this program would be better used in other immigration programs.

“Parole can be terminated at any time,” Katie Rose Talley, a lawyer for the government told the court. “That is what is being done. There is nothing unlawful about that.”

Talwani conceded that the government can end the program but she took issue with the way it was done.

The government argued that just announcing in the federal registry it was ending the program was sufficient. But Talwani demanded the government show how it has alerted people through a written notice — a letter or email — that the program was ending.

“I understand why plaintiffs feel like they came here and made all these plans and were going to be here for a very long time,” Talwani said. “I have a group of people who are trying to follow the law. I am saying to you that, we as Americans, the United States needs to.”

Lower courts have largely supported keeping temporary protections for many groups. But in May, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants for now, pushing the total number of people who could be newly exposed to deportation to nearly 1 million.

The justices lifted a lower-court order that kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The decision came after the court allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in another case.

The court did not explain its reasoning in the brief order, as is typical on its emergency docket. Two justices publicly dissented.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.

Rep. Julia Brownley, a Democrat who has represented swaths of Ventura and Los Angeles counties for more than a decade, announced Thursday that she would not seek reelection.

“Serving our community and our country has been the honor of my lifetime. Every step of this journey has been shaped by the people I represent, by their resilience, their determination, and their belief that government can and should work for the common good,” Brownley said, touting her efforts to expand access to healthcare, support veterans, fight climate change and other policy priorities, as well as constituent services. “We … never lost sight of the simple truth that public service is about showing up for people when they need help the most.”

Brownley, 73, did not say why she was choosing not to seek reelection, but she joins more than 40 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have announced they are not to running for their seats again in November. Other Californians not seeking reelection are Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who is running for governor.

Brownley served on the Malibu-Santa Monica Unified School District board of education and in the state Assembly before successfully running for Congress in 2012. At the time, the district was nearly evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters. But in years since, the district has grown more liberal.

In 2024, when the 26th Congressional District included Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, Westlake Village and a portion of San Buenaventura, the congresswoman won reelection with 56.6% of the vote over GOP businessman Michael Koslow, who received 43.4% of the ballots cast. At the time, the voter registration in the district was 42.5% Democratic, 29.6% Republican and 20.4% independent.

The district grew more Democratic after the passage of Proposition 50, the redrawing of congressional maps California voters approved in November to counter President Trump’s efforts to boost the number of Republicans elected to Congress from GOP-led states. Simi Valley was excised from the district, while Hidden Hills, parts of Palmdale, Lancaster and nearby high-desert areas were added to the district.

For Republican candidates had already announced plans to challenge Brownley this year, including Koslow. On Thursday, Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for Brownley’s seat hours after the congresswoman announced she would not seek reelection.

WASHINGTON — In the whirlwind first year of President Trump’s second term, some of the most polarizing changes have taken place within the Department of Health and Human Services, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly rebuffed the medical establishment as he converts the ideas of his Make America Healthy Again movement into public policy.

Since entering office in February, the Health secretary has overseen a dramatic reshaping of the agencies he oversees, including eliminating thousands of jobs and freezing or canceling billions of dollars for scientific research. As part of his campaign against chronic disease, he has redrawn the government’s position on topics such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol. He also has repeatedly used his authority to promote discredited ideas about vaccines.

The department’s rapid transformation has garnered praise from MAHA supporters who say they long viewed Health and Human Services as corrupt and untrustworthy and have been waiting for such a disruption. And both Democrats and Republicans have applauded some of the agency’s actions, including efforts to encourage healthy eating and exercise, and deals to lower the prices of costly drugs.

But many of the drastic changes Kennedy has led at the department are raising grave concerns among doctors and public health experts.

“At least in the immediate or intermediate future, the United States is going to be hobbled and hollowed out in its scientific leadership,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who was removed from a National Institutes of Health advisory board this year with a letter that said he was no longer needed. “I think it will be extraordinarily difficult to reverse all the damage.”

Department spokesperson Andrew Nixon denied any threat to scientific expertise at the agency and lauded its work.

“In 2025, the Department confronted long-standing public health challenges with transparency, courage, and gold-standard science,” Nixon said in a statement. “HHS will carry this momentum into 2026 to strengthen accountability, put patients first, and protect public health.”

The overhaul comes alongside broader uncertainties in the nation’s health system, including Medicaid cuts passed by Congress this year and expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that are putting millions of Americans’ insurance coverage in jeopardy.

Here’s a closer look at Kennedy’s first year leading the nation’s health agency:

Kennedy’s vaccine views ripple across the department

After many years spent publicly assailing vaccines, Kennedy sought during his confirmation process to reassure senators he wouldn’t take a wrecking ball to vaccine science. But less than a year later, his Health Department has repeatedly pushed the limits of those commitments.

In May, Kennedy announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women — a move immediately questioned by public health experts who saw no new data to justify the change.

In June, Kennedy fired an entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee — later installing several of his own replacements, including multiple vaccine skeptics.

That group has made decisions that have shocked medical professionals, including declining to recommend COVID-19 shots for anyone, adding new restrictions on a combination shot against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella and reversing the long-standing recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B shot at birth.

Kennedy in November also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change. Although he left the old language on the agency website to keep a promise he made to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, he added a disclaimer saying it remained because of the agreement.

Public health researchers and advocates strongly refute the updated website and note that scientists have thoroughly explored the issue in rigorous research spanning decades, all pointing to the same conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism.

Kennedy has promised a wide-ranging effort to study environmental factors that potentially contribute to autism and in an Oval Office event with Trump in September promoted unproven — and in some cases discredited — ties among Tylenol, vaccines and the complex brain disorder.

Kennedy reconfigures department with massive staffing and research cuts

Within two months of taking office, Kennedy announced a sweeping restructuring of Health and Human Services that would shut down entire agencies, consolidate others into a new one focused on chronic disease and lay off about 10,000 employees on top of 10,000 others who had already taken buyouts.

Although parts of the effort are still tied up in court, thousands of the mass layoffs were allowed to stand. Those and voluntary departures significantly thinned out the sprawling $1.7-trillion department, which oversees food and hospital inspections, health insurance for roughly half of the country and vaccine recommendations.

Kennedy also has fired or forced out several leaders at the department, among them four directors at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief and a director of the CDC whom he had hired less than a month earlier.

On top of staffing reductions, he has overseen significant cuts to scientific research. That includes the NIH slashing billions of dollars in research projects and the termination of $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology.

Amid the cuts, Kennedy has proposed or funded some new research on topics related to his MAHA goals, including autism, Lyme disease and food additives.

MAHA gains momentum despite some stumbles

Kennedy started using the phrase “MAHA” on the campaign trail last year to describe his crusade against toxic exposures and childhood chronic disease, but 2025 was the year it became ingrained in the national lexicon.

In his tenure so far, the Health secretary has made it the centerpiece of his work, using the MAHA branding to wage war on ultra-processed foods, pressure companies to phase out artificial food dyes, criticize fluoride in drinking water and push to ban junk food from the program that subsidizes grocery store runs for low-income Americans.

The idea has even spread beyond Kennedy’s agency across the federal government.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has appeared with Kennedy to promote fitness with pull-up displays. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy teamed up with Kennedy in early December to announce $1 billion in funding for airports to install resources including playgrounds and nursing pods for mothers and babies. And Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced he is working toward unveiling a MAHA agenda with health-related goals for his own department.

MAHA has earned widespread popularity among the American public — even as it has endured some administration foibles. In May, for example, Health and Human Services faced scrutiny for releasing a MAHA report that contained several citations to studies that didn’t exist.

But to the extent that the initiative has included calls to action that aren’t based on science — such as urging distrust in vaccines or promoting raw milk, which is far more likely than pasteurized milk to lead to illness — critics say it can be dangerous.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

Trump is seeking to end protected status for South Sudan, claiming country no longer poses danger to those returning.

A federal judge has blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from stripping temporary protections from deportations for South Sudanese citizens living in the United States.

US District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston, Massachusetts, granted an emergency request on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group.

The order prevents the temporary protected status (TPS) for South Sudanese citizens from expiring on January 5 as the Trump administration has sought.

The lawsuit, led by the African ‍Communities Together, accuses the US Department of Homeland Security of acting unlawfully in its effort to strip South Sudanese citizens of TPS, a US immigration status granted to citizens of countries experiencing natural disasters, conflict or other extraordinary circumstances that could make return to their homelands dangerous.

The status was initially granted for South Sudan in 2011 when the country officially broke away from Sudan. It has been repeatedly renewed amid repeated bouts of fighting, widespread displacement and regional instability.

​The status allows eligible individuals to work and receive temporary protection from deportation.

The lawsuit further alleged that the Trump administration exposed South Sudan citizens to being deported to a country facing what is widely considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in a notice published on November ‌5, had argued the country no longer met the conditions for TPS.

“With the renewed peace in South Sudan, their demonstrated commitment to ensuring the safe reintegration of returning nationals, and improved diplomatic relations, now is the right time to conclude what was always intended to ‌be a temporary designation,” she said, appearing to refer to a tenuous 2018 peace agreement.

The statement contradicted the findings of a panel of United Nations experts, who wrote in a report to the UN Security Council in November that “while the contours of the conflict may be altered, the resulting human suffering has remained unchanged.”

“Ongoing conflict and aerial bombardments, coupled with flooding and the influx of returnees and refugees from the Sudan, have led to near-record levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine reported in some of the communities most affected by renewed fighting,” it added.

The Trump administration has increasingly targeted TPS as part of its crackdown on immigration and its mass deportation drive.

It has moved to similarly ‌end TPS for foreign nationals from countries including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti, ⁠Cuba and Nicaragua, prompting several court challenges.

It has also sought to deport individuals to countries in Africa, even if they have no ties there.

If history is a guide, Republicans stand a good chance of losing control of the House of Representatives in 2026. They have just a slim majority in the chamber, and the incumbent party usually gives up seats in midterm elections.

President Trump, whose loss of the House halfway through his first term led to two impeachments, is trying to keep history from repeating — and doing so in ways his opponents say are intended to manipulate next year’s election landscape.

He has rallied his party to remake congressional maps across the country to create more conservative-leaning House seats, an effort that could end up backfiring on him. He’s directed his administration to target Democratic politicians, activists and donors. And, Democrats worry, he’s flexing his muscles to intervene in the midterms like no administration ever has.

Democrats and other critics point to how Trump has sent the military into Democratic cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors. They note that he’s pushed the Department of Homeland Security to be so aggressive that at one point its agents handcuffed a Democratic U.S. senator. And some warn that a Republican-controlled Congress could fail to seat winning candidates if Democrats reclaim the House majority, recalling Trump’s efforts to stay in power even after voters rejected him in 2020, leading to the violent attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Regarding potential military deployments, Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told The Associated Press: “What he is going to do is send those troops there, and keep them there all the way through the next election, because guess what? If people are afraid of leaving their house, they’re probably not going to leave their house to go vote on Election Day. That’s how he stays in power.”

Military to the polls, or fearmongering?

Democrats sounded similar alarms just before November’s elections, and yet there were no significant incidents. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump antagonist who also warns about a federal crackdown on voting in 2026, predicted that masked immigration agents would show up at the polls in his state, where voters were considering a ballot measure to counter Trump’s redistricting push.

There were no such incidents in November, and the measure to redraw California’s congressional lines in response to Trump’s efforts elsewhere won in a landslide.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the concerns about the midterms come from Democratic politicians who are “fearmongering to score political points with the radical left flank of the Democrat party that they are courting ahead of their doomed-to-fail presidential campaigns.”

She described their concerns as “baseless conspiracy theories.”

Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, denied that Trump was planning to use the military to try to suppress votes.

“I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just wrongheaded,” she told Vanity Fair for an interview that was published earlier in December.

DNC litigation director Dan Freeman said he hasn’t seen an indication that Trump will send immigration enforcement agents to polling places during the midterms, but is wary.

He said the DNC filed public records requests in an attempt to learn more about any such plans and is drafting legal pleadings it could file if Trump sends armed federal agents to the polls or otherwise intervenes in the elections.

“We’re not taking their word for it,” Freeman said in an interview.

States, not presidents, run elections

November’s off-year elections may not be the best indicator of what could lie ahead. They were scattered in a handful of states, and Trump showed only modest interest until late in the fall when his Department of Justice announced it was sending federal monitors to California and New Jersey to observe voting in a handful of counties. It was a bureaucratic step that had no impact on voting, even as it triggered alarm from Democrats.

Alexandra Chandler, the legal director of Defend Democracy, a group that has clashed with Trump over his role in elections, said she was heartened by the lack of drama during the 2025 voting.

“We have so many positive signs we can look to,” Chandler said, citing not only a quiet election but GOP senators’ resistance to Trump’s demands to eliminate the filibuster and the widespread resistance to Trump’s demand that television host Jimmy Kimmel lose his job because of his criticism of the president. “There are limits” on Trump’s power, she noted.

“We will have elections in 2026,” Chandler said. “People don’t have to worry about that.”

Under the Constitution, a president has limited tools to intervene in elections, which are run by the states. Congress can help set rules for federal elections, but states administer their own election operations and oversee the counting of ballots.

When Trump tried to singlehandedly revise election rules with a sweeping executive order shortly after returning to office, the courts stepped in and stopped him, citing the lack of a constitutional role for the president. Trump later promised another order, possibly targeting mail ballots and voting machines, but it has yet to materialize.

DOJ voter data request ‘should frighten everybody’

Still, there’s plenty of ways a president can cause problems, said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

Trump unsuccessfully pushed Georgia’s top election official to “find” him enough votes to be declared the winner there in 2020 and could try similar tactics in Republican-dominated states in November. Likewise, Hasen said, Trump could spread misinformation to undermine confidence in vote tallies, as he has done routinely ahead of elections.

It’s harder to do that in more lopsided contests, as many in 2025 turned into, Hasen noted.

“Concerns about Trump interfering in 2026 are real; they’re not frivolous,” Hasen said. “They’re also not likely, but these are things people need to be on guard for.”

One administration move that has alarmed election officials is a federal demand from his Department of Justice for detailed voter data from the states. The administration has sued the District of Columbia and at least 21 states, most of them controlled by Democrats, after they refused to turn over all the information the DOJ sought.

“What the DOJ is trying to do is something that should frighten everybody across the political spectrum,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “They’re trying to use the power of the executive to bully states into turning over highly sensitive data — date of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license, the Holy Trinity of identity theft — hand it over to the DOJ for who knows what use.”

‘Voter protection’ vs ‘election integrity’

Voting rights lawyers and election officials have been preparing for months for the midterms, trying to ensure there are ways to counter misinformation and ensure state election systems are easy to explain. Both major parties are expected to stand up significant campaigns around the mechanics of voting: Democrats mounting what they call a “voter protection” effort to monitor for problems while Republicans focus on what they call “election integrity.”

Freeman, the DNC litigation director who previously worked in the DOJ’s voting section, said his hiring this year was part of a larger effort by the DNC to beef up its in-house legal efforts ahead of the midterms. He said the committee has been filling gaps in voting rights law enforcement that the DOJ has typically covered, including informing states that they can’t illegally purge citizens from their voter rolls.

Tina Barton, co-chair of the Committee on Safe and Secure Elections, a coalition of law enforcement and election officials who advise jurisdictions on de-escalation and how to respond to emergencies at polling places, says interest in the group’s trainings has “exploded” in recent weeks.

“There’s a lot at stake, and that’s going to cause a lot of emotions,” Barton said.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Penn., Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to launch a “gap year” scheme to give school and college leavers a taste of the Army, Royal Navy and RAF, but without making a long-term commitment.

The paid 12-month course is aimed at under-25s and is part of efforts to help solve long-term recruitment and retention problems in the armed forces.

Applications open in spring 2026 to be part of the first cohort of 150 recruits, with ministers planning for the scheme to eventually grow to 1,000 young people a year.

The programme is paid but officials have yet to announce a salary.

The MoD says those who join the “gap year” programme will learn skills of leadership, teamwork and problem solving to set them up “for life” whether they pursue a career in the armed forces or not.

Officials hope the scheme will bring a broader range of people into the forces, and that some decide to stay to pursue a career in the military.

Defence Secretary John Healey MP said: “This is a new era for Defence, and that means opening up new opportunities for young people to experience and learn from our Armed Forces.

“This gap year scheme will give Britain’s young people a taste of the incredible skills and training on offer across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF. It’s part of our determination to reconnect society with our forces, and drive a whole of society approach to our nation’s defence.

“As families come together at this time of year, and young people think about their futures, I want the outstanding opportunities on offer in our Armed Forces to be part of that conversation in homes across the UK.”

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said: “As ever with Labour, the reality does not match the spin. A scheme involving just 150 participants is barely a pilot, let alone the ‘whole of society’ response they claim to be delivering.

“Of course, the Australian scheme has its strengths but these tiny numbers do nothing for our war readiness, and expose the harsh reality that Labour is prioritising higher welfare spending over a proper increase in the defence budget. Meanwhile, their Defence Investment Plan is months behind schedule, and we still have no idea when, or how, they intend to reach 3% of GDP on defence.

“In contrast, the Conservatives are serious about defending our country, which is why we announced the Sovereign Defence Fund, to raise an additional £50bn for defence and strengthen our deterrence by giving our Armed Forces the modern capabilities they need.”

The “gap year” scheme was recommended by the UK Strategic Defence Review in June after being inspired by the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

The ADF gap year programme has been in operation for more than a decade, with applicants offered the chance “get a feel for military life while enjoying unique experiences you can’t find anywhere else”.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a March presidential memorandum to revoke the security clearance of prominent Washington attorney Mark Zaid, ruling that the order — which also targeted 14 other individuals — could not be applied to him.

The decision marked the administration’s second legal setback on Tuesday, after the Supreme Court declined to allow Trump to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area, capping a first year in office in which President Trump’s efforts to impose a sweeping agenda and pursue retribution against political adversaries have been repeatedly slowed by the courts.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington granted Zaid’s request for a preliminary injunction, after he sued the Trump administration in May over the revocation of his security clearance. Zaid’s request called it an act of “improper political retribution” that jeopardized his ability to continue representing clients in sensitive national security cases.

The March presidential memorandum singled out Zaid and 14 other individuals who the White House asserted were unsuitable to retain their clearances because it was “no longer in the national interest.” The list included targets of Trump’s fury from both the political and legal spheres, including former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former President Joe Biden and members of his family.

The action was part of a much broader retribution campaign that Trump has waged since returning to the White House, including directing specific Justice Department investigations against perceived adversaries and issuing sweeping executive orders targeting law firms over legal work he does not like.

In August, the Trump administration said it was revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials. Ordering the revocation of clearances has been a favored retributive tactic that Trump has wielded — or at least tried to — against high-profile political figures, lawyers and intelligence officials in his second term.

Zaid said in his lawsuit that he has represented clients across the political spectrum over nearly 35 years, including government officials, law enforcement and military officials and whistleblowers. In 2019, he represented an intelligence community whistleblower whose account of a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped set the stage for the first of two impeachment cases against Trump in his first term.

“This court joins the several others in this district that have enjoined the government from using the summary revocation of security clearances to penalize lawyers for representing people adverse to it,” Ali wrote in his order.

Ali emphasized that his order does not prevent the government from revoking or suspending Zaid’s clearance for reasons independent of the presidential memorandum and through normal agency processes. The preliminary injunction does not go into effect until January 13.

Zaid said in a statement, “This is not just a victory for me, it’s an indictment of the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate and silence the legal community, especially lawyers who represent people who dare to question or hold this government accountable.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — As the dawn rose on President Trump’s second term, one key figure from his first administration stood back, content to focus on his personal business interests and not retake a formal government role.

Now, nearly a year into Trump 2.0, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been drawn back into the foreign policy fold and is taking a greater role in delicate peace negotiations. Talks had initially been led almost solo by special envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate mogul who had no government experience before this year.

The shift reflects a sense among Trump’s inner circle that Kushner, who has diplomatic experience, complements Witkoff’s negotiating style and can bridge seemingly intractable differences to close a deal, according to several current and former administration officials who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.

That role was on display this weekend as Kushner and Witkoff took part in a blitz of diplomacy in Miami.

On Sunday, they concluded two days of talks with Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev in Miami on the latest proposals to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The talks with Dmitriev came after they met on Friday in Florida with the Ukrainian negotiating team, led by Rustem Umerov, as well as senior British, French and German national security officials. The Ukrainians and European officials stuck around Florida for more talks with U.S. government officials facilitated by Trump’s envoys.

Witkoff and Kushner also squeezed in meetings on Friday with Turkish and Qatari officials to discuss the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza as they look to implement the second phase of Trump’s ceasefire plan.

Kushner and Witkoff employ contrasting styles

Witkoff, a longtime pal of Trump’s, is seen by some inside the administration as an oversize character who has traveled the world for diplomatic negotiations on his private jet and does not miss an opportunity to publicly praise the president for his foreign policy acumen, the officials say.

Kushner has his own complicated business interests in the Middle East and a sometimes transactional outlook to diplomacy that has distressed some officials in European capitals, a Western diplomat said.

Still, Kushner is seen as a more credible negotiator than Witkoff, who is viewed by many Ukrainian and European officials as overly deferential to Russian interests during the war that began with Moscow’s invasion in February 2022, the diplomat said.

“Kushner has a bit more of a track record from the first administration,” said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Georgia who now teaches diplomacy at Northwestern University. Kelly stressed, however, that the jury is still out on Kushner’s intervention.

Trump views Kushner as a “trusted family member and talented adviser” who has played a pivotal role in some of his biggest foreign policy successes, said White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.

Trump and Witkoff “often seek Mr. Kushner’s input given his experience with complex negotiations, and Mr. Kushner has been generous in lending his valuable expertise when asked,” Kelly added.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott called Kushner “a world-class negotiator.” Pigott noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is grateful for Kushner’s “willingness to serve our country and help President Trump solve some of the world’s most complex challenges.”

In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” in October, Kushner spoke about his unconventional approach to diplomacy.

“I was trained in foreign policy really in President Trump’s first term by seeing an outsider president come into Washington with a different school of foreign policy than had been brought in place for the 20 or 30 years prior,” he said.

But some Democrats and government oversight groups have expressed skepticism about Kushner’s role in shaping the administration policies in the Middle East while he manages billions of dollars in investments, including from Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s sovereign wealth funds through his firm, Affinity Partners.

Similarly, Witkoff has faced scrutiny for his and his family’s deep business ties to Gulf nations. Witkoff last year partnered with members of Trump’s family to launch a cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, which received a $2 billion investment from a United Arab Emirates-controlled wealth fund.

“What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world,” said Kushner, who is not drawing a salary from the White House for his advisory role.

White House counsel David Warrington said in a statement that Kushner’s efforts for Trump “are undertaken in full compliance with the law.”

“Given that Jared Kushner was a critical part of the efforts leading to the historic Abraham Accords and other diplomatic successes in the first Trump Administration, the President asked Mr. Kushner to be available as the President engages in similar efforts to bring peace to the world,” Warrington said in a statement, referring to Trump’s first-term effort that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. “Mr. Kushner has agreed to do so in his capacity as a private citizen.”

Kelly and other veterans of U.S. diplomatic encounters with the Russians over many years are also skeptical about Kushner’s ability to secure a Russia-Ukraine deal because Witkoff technically remains in the lead.

“I don’t see that the Witkoff approach is going to work,” Kelly said. “He doesn’t really read the Russians well. He misunderstands what they say and reports the misunderstandings back to Washington and the Europeans.”

“They seem to have this idea that the magic key is money: investment and development,” Kelly said. “But these guys don’t care about that, they are not real estate guys except in the sense that they want the land, period.”

Kushner was out of the spotlight until he wasn’t

For the first half of the year, Kushner stayed out of the spotlight, even as he pushed, unsuccessfully in some cases, to install some former associates — those with whom he worked on negotiating the Abraham Accords — into powerful roles in the new administration, according to the current and former administration officials.

Kushner had told Trump and others that while he would not be joining the second-term White House, he stood ready to offer his counsel if it was desired. That is a role he also played on a few occasions during the Biden years as the Democratic administration tried, without success, to expand the Abraham Accords.

Although Kushner remained an informal sounding board for Trump and top advisers, he resisted getting directly involved, even as the president expanded his peacemaking pursuits, until it became clear to him and others that the job might be too much for Witkoff to seal on his own, the officials said.

As Trump’s efforts to forge an agreement to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza faltered over the summer, Kushner came in, trading on his experience and contacts in negotiating the Abraham Accords to help Witkoff push Trump’s plan over the finish line.

Agreed to in late September after frantic talks surrounding the annual U.N. General Assembly, the 20-point plan is still a work in progress, but its implementation is being coordinated by Kushner and numerous members of his Abraham Accords team.

“We always bring Jared when we want to get that deal closed,” Trump told Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, shortly after the agreement. “We need that brain on occasion.”

As soon as the Gaza plan was finalized, Kushner said he was returning to his family and day job in Miami, where he heads a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. His involvement in high-stakes peacemaking was only temporary, Kushner said, joking that his wife, Ivanka, might change the locks if he did not get home soon.

“I’m gonna try to help set it up, and then I’m gonna hopefully go back to my normal life,” Kushner said in October.

But within weeks of shepherding the Gaza ceasefire, Trump turned again to his fixer-in-law to dive into the Russia-Ukraine negotiations. They had been deadlocked for months despite persistent efforts by the White House to lure both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky into an agreement.

Trump hinted then that he would continue to lean on Kushner when the stakes are highest, just as he has done.

Lee and Madhani write for the Associated Press.

DETROIT — In the frantic final firefight of the 1992 presidential campaign, this battered industrial city may have been ground zero.

In the last days before today’s vote, President Bush and Bill Clinton crossed paths over and over again through a narrow band of critical Rust Belt and Great Lakes states–from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Ohio and Wisconsin. But no state occupied more of their attention than Michigan.

Into this battlefield, the two major contenders have fired television and radio ads, mailings, surrogate speakers and repeated visits of their own–to the point where even veteran local observers have been overwhelmed. Their efforts–reinforced by Ross Perot’s national television barrage–have put the campaign on everyone’s lips.

“There’s a lot of strong feelings on it this year,” said LeAnn Kirrmann, a Republican activist from Grand Ledge, as she waited for Bush to arrive at a rally near here Sunday.

That appears to be the case across the nation, as voters render their verdict on this stormy, vituperative and often path-breaking campaign. Polls show the percentage of voters paying close attention to the campaign has soared this fall, and most experts expect a large turnout–a dramatic conclusion to a campaign that has regularly produced moments of high drama.

“It’s a mortal lock that turnout is going up,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.

After tightening significantly last week, national polls show Clinton again holding a comfortable lead over Bush, with Perot lagging behind. Few observers are entirely certain that a campaign that has been consistently unpredictable doesn’t hold one or two more surprises. But a Bush comeback at this stage would rank as the most dramatic reversal of fortune in the final hours of a presidential race.

In their final maneuvering, both Bush and Clinton targeted this state for contrasting reasons that underscore the length of the odds facing the President.

The widespread economic uneasiness in Michigan–symbolized by the continuing turmoil of General Motors Corp., which led to a management shake-up Monday–has always made the state an uphill climb for Bush despite its Republican leanings in recent presidential campaigns.

It remains a daunting challenge for the President now: The latest statewide tracking poll for a Detroit TV station, released Monday night, showed Clinton leading with 46%, Bush with 30% and Ross Perot at 16%.

Facing such numbers, Bush might have written off Michigan in a different year to spend his last campaign hours elsewhere. But the President has been forced to pound relentlessly at the state because there appears to be no way he can win the necessary 270 electoral votes without Michigan’s 18.

That reality defines Clinton’s stake in the state. Although Clinton–with his strong base on both coasts–can probably win today without carrying Michigan, he has invested so heavily here precisely because he knows Bush cannot.

“That’s Clinton’s great advantage,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine. “He can focus on trying to take just one link out of Bush’s chain.”

Clinton’s intense focus on Michigan represents the reversal of a traditional Republican tactic. Because the GOP base in the South and West left Democrats so little room to maneuver in past presidential campaigns, Republicans have typically been able to dictate the battlefield in the election’s final hours.

In past years, the Republicans devoted enormous resources to a single conservative-leaning state–usually Ohio–confident that if they won there, the Democrats could not reach an Electoral College majority.

This year, though, it is Clinton who has the lead and the flexibility to choose where to fight. He has selected Michigan as his version of Ohio.

“That is a pretty fair analogy,” said David Wilhelm, Clinton’s campaign manager. “Michigan is a linchpin to our Electoral College strategy; it is a state that if we win, it destroys almost any chance that Bush will be reelected.”

With the state playing such a central role in the strategies of both candidates, their efforts here have been enormous. “Some of us,” said Don Tucker, the Democratic chairman in populous Oakland County, “have started to think Clinton and Bush are running for President of Michigan.”

When Clinton arrived in Detroit on Monday for a lunchtime airport rally, it marked his third visit to the area in five days and his sixth trip to the state in two weeks.

On Sunday, Bush roused the faithful with a scathing attack on Clinton at a rally in Auburn Hills, just north of here–his third run at the state in eight days.

Last Thursday, voters from around the state were able to ask Bush questions in a televised town meeting from Grand Rapids. The next night Clinton flew to the Detroit suburbs to hold his own televised town meeting.

When Clinton forces made their final buy of television time last week, they estimated they were placing enough commercials on the air so that each Michigan resident would see them 14 times through Election Day.

Bush, both sides figure, is on the air even more heavily–especially with a foreboding spot about Clinton’s record as governor that might be titled “Apocalypse Arkansas.” From both sides, acerbic radio advertisements blare incessantly.

As for Perot, local observers say his ad assault has been less visible than in some other states. But his promises to shake up Washington have won him a strong following.

At one point early last week, Republican polls showed Perot surging over 20% in this state. With most of Perot’s gains coming from Clinton, that tightened the Michigan race considerably.

But, as has happened throughout the country, Perot’s support has slipped here since he accused the White House last week of engineering dirty tricks that forced his withdrawal from the race in July. Initially, the voters deserting Perot disproportionately moved to Bush, but now Clinton is winning his share of those voters and consolidating his lead.

“The President is unlikely to close the gap in Michigan on Election Day,” said GOP pollster Steve Lombardo.

Even with Clinton’s lead in the polls, Democrats here remain edgy. Almost without exception, they are haunted by the memory of 1990, when then-Gov. James J. Blanchard led Republican John Engler by 10 percentage points in the final polls–and then was swept from office by a strong Republican effort to get out their vote, coupled with a poor turnout in Detroit.

Democrats are insistent that won’t happen again. Registration is up in Detroit, and Mayor Coleman A. Young has put his shoulder into the Clinton effort. One local official estimated this weekend that 65% of registered Detroit voters could come to the polls today, compared to just 54% four years ago.

Unions are pushing hard too: The UAW has been distributing to members copies of a Flint newspaper article reporting that Ross Perot owns a Mercedes-Benz and other foreign cars. In Michigan, that’s not much different than burning a flag.

Republican efforts to turn out the vote are just as intense. In Oakland County alone, GOP volunteers made more than 150,000 calls last weekend, said Jim Alexander, the county GOP chairman.

Local observers say religious conservatives and anti-abortion activists are mounting powerful drives; thousands of copies of the Christian Coalition’s voter guide on the presidential candidates were distributed at Bush’s rally in Auburn Hills on Sunday.

Beyond its impact on the Electoral College, voting in Michigan should help answer some of the key questions on which the results will pivot around the nation. Among them:

* Can Clinton reclaim the so-called Reagan Democrats–the blue-collar ethnics who deserted the party during the 1970s and 1980s over taxes, the economy and the perception that Democrats favored minorities?

Stressing such issues as welfare reform and his support for the death penalty, Clinton has aggressively courted voters in Macomb County, a Detroit suburb renowned as the breeding ground of Reagan Democrats.

Republicans have fired back with targeted mailers hitting Clinton on trust and taxes. And Perot could be a formidable competitor in Macomb County and similar neighborhoods for the votes of working-class residents disgusted with Bush and the gridlock in Washington.

* Can Bush hold suburban Republicans and independents who favor abortion rights? Four years ago, he carried the generally affluent Detroit suburb of Oakland County by 109,000 votes. But the hard-right line on social issues at the Republican Convention did not play well there, and Democrats are optimistic that Clinton’s centrist message will allow him to make significant inroads, not only in Oakland County but in similar places in New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

* Can Clinton get the high turnout he needs from blacks after a campaign so heavily focused on wooing white swing voters in the suburbs? The answer will affect the result not only here but in other industrial states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as Southern battlegrounds like Georgia and Louisiana.

* Will young voters show up today? One reason Clinton’s margin diminished in some national surveys last week is those polls included very few young people among their likely voters–and Clinton, the first baby boomer to top a national ticket, has been running very well with the young.

In 1988, just 36% of eligible voters age 18 to 24 actually turned out. Mike Dolan, field director for Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan national effort to register and turn out young voters, predicts as many as half of them may vote this year.

Such a spike in turnout would be a huge boost for Clinton; in this state, for example, he has courted students at rallies at both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

One cloud on the Democratic horizon is the possibility of rain today in Michigan and much of the Midwest. Conventional wisdom holds that rain could dampen turnout in Detroit and other urban centers and pinch Clinton’s vote.

But many on both sides believe that interest in this campaign is so high that even rain won’t cool it off. “With all of the attention to the race this year,” Alexander said, “I don’t know if even rain is going to matter.”