president biden

WASHINGTON — It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “The buck stops here.” Except with President Trump, it almost never does.

Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, President Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.

The problem-plagued revamp of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? That was marred by vandalism, the president insists, even though the office of a prosecutor he put in the job has said the damage was due to shoddy workmanship.

The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Pithy slogans aside, all modern presidents shift responsibility onto others to some degree, frequently blaming the White House occupant who preceded them or Congress — or both. But Trump has taken it to a new level, essentially embracing a de facto political strategy of being in charge of everything but responsible for nothing when things go badly.

“Taking responsibility being a characteristic of presidential leadership — or any kind of leadership — is absolutely true,” said Nicole Anslover, a history professor at Florida Atlantic University and author of “Harry S. Truman: The Coming of the Cold War.”

Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight in the run-up to November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.

The White House counters that Trump is working to correct long-festering challenges, not simply throwing up his hands and ignoring them.

The president is “rightfully addressing the failures of his predecessors while taking action to deliver big wins for the American people,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, pointing to a series of policies that she said Republicans can run on, including tax cuts, efforts to lower prescription drug prices, cracking down on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, increasing domestic energy production and a strong stock market.

A pattern dating to Trump’s first term

Truman famously kept a “the buck stops here” sign on his desk as president. That came from “pass the buck,” which, according to Truman’s presidential library, dates to frontier times, when poker players would pass a buckhorn handle knife to the person whose turn it was to deal the cards.

“The president, whoever he is, has to decide,” Truman said during his farewell address in 1953. “He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”

The understanding of the phrase has broadened over the years to include taking responsibility for the outcome of tough decisions. Trump used to espouse similar beliefs, saying back in 2013 that in running a business, “Whatever happens, you’re responsible. If it doesn’t happen, you’re responsible.”

Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere.

“The buck stops with everybody,” Trump said in 2019, during a lengthy government shutdown. In 2020, on the same day he declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for a lack of coronavirus testing.

Anslover said Truman took full responsibility for dropping atomic bombs on Japan even though he was not informed that the U.S. was developing such weapons until his predecessor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died.

President Kennedy saw his approval ratings rise after he acknowledged he was to blame for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. President Reagan said he was sorry for any involvement he may have had in the Iran-Contra scandal even while saying he wasn’t sure he was to blame. “The buck stops here with me,” he said then.

At his final news conference in early 2009, President George W. Bush listed a series of mistakes he had made, including failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. His successor, President Obama, said, “I screwed up,” after his nominee for health chief, Tom Daschle, withdrew because of unpaid back taxes.

Presidents before Trump “really usually take accountability,” Anslover said.

‘We inherited a total catastrophe,’ Trump says

The president acknowledged in a recent Punchbowl interview that voters are angry, but he said they are not mad at him but at congressional Republicans.

Trump believes his party can hold its congressional majorities after November, but he was clear that if Republicans lose, it won’t be his fault — echoing his comments before the 2018 midterms that he would not accept blame if his party lost control of the House, which it did.

Trump’s approval rating on the economy, once seen as among his strongest issues, has fallen throughout his time in office, from 40% in March 2025 to 32% in July, according to Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump’s economic policies have made economic conditions worse, according to Pew Research Center polling.

“The public certainly expects the president to be concerned about, and focused on, making life more affordable,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said.

Trump instead points to Biden, under whom inflation hit a four-decade peak of 9.1% in 2022 as the pandemic was still roiling the world economy, before declining to 2.7% by November 2024. Last month, pressured by the Iran war, it was 3.4%.

“When we took office, we inherited a total catastrophe,” Trump said at a recent rally, later adding, “I inherited those high prices, just so you understand.”

Andrew Bates, a Democratic strategist and former Biden White House spokesperson, noted that Trump no longer mentions his campaign promise to “immediately end inflation” on Day One.

“He may not remember having made those promises, but swing voters sure as hell do,” Bates said.

Iran and the Reflecting Pool

The president has characterized the Iran war as “a little excursion” or “detour.” To play down how long it has lasted, he frequently notes that U.S. wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan dragged on for years, though the Iran conflict — which he initially said would be over in four or five weeks — is now in its sixth month with no clear end in sight.

Trump has sought to shift blame to the past on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, falsely suggesting that Biden and Obama spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” trying unsuccessfully to fix it.

But Trump’s main defense claim has been vandalism. And so far at least four cases alleging that, including the most prominent case against an Olympic canoeist, have been dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Anslover said that, after more than a decade in politics, Trump has proved he is not afraid to violate norms of presidential comportment. Lots of his core supporters do not seem bothered.

“For many Americans, it has either been a shift in how they view the presidency, or, like with so many things, they just feel empowered to say, ‘These are my priorities. My priority is not the facts,’” she said.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.

Come 2028, the Democratic presidential campaign promises to be a banger, with all sorts of intrigue and subplots layered within a wide-open fight for the nomination.

There’s the prospect of same-state rivals going at it. (California’s Gavin Newsom vs. Kamala Harris; Georgia’s Sen. Jon Ossoff vs. Sen. Raphael Warnock.)

There’s sure to be a generational divide, a split over how much time and energy Democrats should spend rehashing the Trump era, and, inevitably, a clash between standard-bearers of the left, the far left and the party’s increasingly small center-left.

All that remains in the offing, however, as none of the major prospects have formally declared their candidacies. Political tradition, and self-preservation, require waiting at least until after November’s midterm election to jump into the race.

In the meantime, Democrats have seemingly resolved at least one 2028 fight, a fracas marked by snarking, backbiting and plenty of acrimony — all the things that make our politics such a grand and glorious endeavor.

We speak of the contest to determine which state will hold the first vote of the 2028 nominating process. And the winner is … South Carolina!

This was a blow to Nevada, the runner-up in the calendar sweepstakes, and not a very sporting one at that. The state Democratic Party issued a huffy news release, insisting Nevada will be the candidates’ first true test of 2028 — emphasis added — reprising the argument over which state offers the best starting path to reclaim the White House and, thus, deserves the coveted lead voting slot.

(California, a perennially frustrated onlooker, is not set to vote until March 7, several weeks into the balloting, which is supposed to start Jan. 22.)

For decades, the political calendar was unchanged and, mostly, unchallenged.

Iowa went first, holding its quaint and quirky precinct caucuses — neighbors gathered in church halls, school libraries and the like as they worked through arcane rules involving “realignment” and “viability thresholds” — followed by New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

In 2024, President Biden shook things up.

He’d failed miserably in Iowa in his runs for president, so Biden had no problem slotting South Carolina first after the state resurrected his lifeless 2020 candidacy. (Iowa didn’t help itself by making a thorough mess of its 2020 caucuses, taking nearly a month to certify a winner.)

The change set off a free-for-all this time around, as a dozen states bid for the chance to vote first.

(The two major political parties set the rules for choosing their presidential nominees, independent of one another. Republicans are expected to stick to the traditional lineup, starting with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, followed by contests in Nevada and South Carolina.)

Last month, after nearly a year of consideration, the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted for six states to hold their contests in a window between late January and the end of February. They are, in order, South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia. The lineup will be presented to the full Democratic National Committee to be voted on and finalized later this month.

Doubtless, you — a normal person — have paid little or no attention to any of this. You’ve got more important things to do, like binge-watching “Widow’s Bay,” or not melting.

But party leaders and political insiders take the process extremely seriously. At stake: bragging rights, a modest economic boost and the chance for local analysts and office-holders to make frequent appearances as experts on the cable-TV chat shows.

The jostling grew particularly fierce between South Carolina and Nevada.

More than 50% of the Democratic primary electorate in South Carolina is Black. In Nevada, Latinos are a substantial and increasingly powerful voting bloc. So, naturally, the competition between the two states assumed fraught racial overtones, which is unfortunate but not surprising, given Democrats’ penchant for picking at sore spots and turning on each other at the slightest provocation.

It was also rather pointless. The order of the presidential calendar is consequential, but far from determinative.

South Carolina was vital to Biden’s success. But so, too, was the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which sharply curtailed the Democratic nominating fight. Barack Obama’s 2008 victory in Iowa gave him a huge lift, but he lost to Hillary Clinton the following week in New Hampshire and had to fight another six months before winning the nomination.

Presidential campaigns have changed drastically in the 50 years since a little-known Jimmy Carter quietly burrowed into Iowa, spent months bunking in folks’ extra bedrooms, then burst to national fame by outperforming his more prominent rivals. Today, the race is a 24/7 affair, followed by voters in all 50 states.

While local concerns may come up here and there — the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, beach erosion in South Carolina’s Lowcountry — the same issues and controversies confront candidates and animate the contest regardless of whether a field of soybeans, a white church steeple or a Southern fish fry serves as the backdrop.

Obviously, the voting has to begin somewhere and the competition between states is well and good. But the trash-talking and, especially, antagonism over race and ethnicity is gratuitous and needlessly divisive. Candidates will show they have the stuff to win the nomination, or not, by building their best case and pitching it to voters.

No matter if it’s a Black church in Las Vegas or a Latino neighborhood in North Charleston. Any location will do.

WASHINGTON — The Dodgers are scheduled to visit the White House on July 23 to celebrate their latest World Series title.

“President Trump is excited to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers BACK to the White House to celebrate their World Series championship!,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to The Times.

The date falls on a scheduled off day in the middle of a nine-game East Coast road trip for the Dodgers. The team will play three games in Philadelphia against the Phillies July 20-22 before ending the trip with a three-game series against the New York Mets July 24 to 26.

The visit continues a tradition from the Dodgers’ two previous World Series championships. They were hosted by President Biden in 2021 and President Trump in April 2025.

After the Dodgers claimed their second consecutive World Series title with a dramatic Game 7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, a visit to the White House was planned, but it wasn’t until Thursday that a date was officially booked and confirmed.

Questions swirled around whether players would decline the visit this year after it did not happen during a scheduled visit to Washington in April.

Kiké Hernández said in 2018 he was unsure he would have gone had the Dodgers won the World Series the previous year. Mookie Betts said he was undecided and needed to talk it over with his family when last year’s visit was announced. After winning his first World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018, Betts skipped their trip to the White House the following year during Trump’s first term.

Both players, along with every returning member of the 2024 team who was with the team during its road trip, participated in the visit. The only notable absence was first baseman Freddie Freeman, who remained in Los Angeles to nurse an ankle injury.

Manager Dave Roberts, who indicated in comments to The Times in 2019 he might not go to the White House if Trump was president, also participated in last year’s ceremony.

Asked at the Dodgers’ fan festival in January about the possibility of returning to the White House, Roberts told The Times’ Bill Shaikin: “For me, I stand by: I’m a baseball manager. That’s my job.”

“I was raised — by a man who served our country for 30 years — to respect the highest office in our country,” Roberts said. “For me, it doesn’t matter who is in the office, I’m going to go to the White House. I’ve never tried to be political. … For me, I am going to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”

Clayton Kershaw, who retired after last season but was on Team USA for this year’s World Baseball Classic, told The Times in the spring that he was aware Dodgers fans are split over whether the team should visit the White House again this year, but he said he is looking forward to it.

“I went when President Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

Times deputy sports editor Ed Guzman contributed to this report.

MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by a conservative activist to obtain guardianship records in an effort to find ineligible voters in the presidential battleground state.

The case has been wending its way through the courts for years and stems from attempts by conservatives to overturn President Biden’s victory in Wisconsin over President Trump in 2020.

Here’s what to know:

A conservative activist brought the case

The case tested the line between protecting personal privacy rights and ensuring that ineligible people can’t vote.

Former travel executive Ron Heuer and a group he leads, the Wisconsin Voter Alliance, brought the lawsuit in 2022 alleging that the number of ineligible voters doesn’t match the count on Wisconsin’s voter registration list. The lawsuit doesn’t specify how many people could be affected.

In Wisconsin, a guardianship order is granted by a court giving a person certain legal rights over another who is determined to be unable to make decisions about their life. A court has the power to remove the right to vote from a person under a guardianship order if the person is determined to be unable to understand “the objective of the election process.”

Heuer asked the state Supreme Court to rule that counties must release records filed when a judge determines that someone isn’t competent to vote so that those names can be compared to the voter registration list.

Heuer’s attorney, Erick Kaardal, argued that privacy concerns could be balanced with the public’s right to access government records by redacting identifying or sensitive information on the forms.

But the attorney for Walworth County said those seeking access to the records wanted to cross-check ineligible voters against the names of those registered. They can’t do that, attorney Sam Hall said during oral arguments, without releasing the person’s name and address.

Hall praised the ruling, saying it “protects the privacy of vulnerable individuals while preserving their dignity.”

Kaardal did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, which advocates for public access to documents but did not take a position on this case, said the court’s decision was “narrowly tailored and should not have a huge impact.”

The council praised the court for clarifying the standard for deciding similar cases in the future, but that “it’s always disappointing when access to public information is curtailed.”

Signs supporting Judge Susan Crawford, and voting and election officials adorn the front yard of a home on South 16th Street on election day April 1, 2025, in Milwaukee.

(Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)

Liberal justices who control Wisconsin Supreme Court reject the case

In the 5-2 ruling on Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority along with conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn ruled that the records are not public as the conservative activist had claimed.

The court took the case after two lower state appeals courts issued divergent rulings. One appeals court, based in Madison, denied access to the records while another appeals court, based in Waukesha, said in 2023 that the records should be made public.

It ordered Walworth County to release them with birth dates and case numbers redacted.

The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court ruling that the records should be made public.

State law is clear that the records being sought are not public and “the Alliance has no right to the records,” Justice Janet Protasiewicz wrote for the majority.

Conservative justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented, saying the court adopted “an overbroad and unworkable definition of what records pertain to a finding of incompetency” to include the forms that indicate a person has been found ineligible to vote.

Those forms are not pertinent to the finding of incompetency and are therefore subject to the open records law, Ziegler and Bradley wrote.

The case was one of several targeting the 2020 election

The case was an attempt by those who questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential race to cast doubt on the integrity of elections in the presidential swing state. Heuer and the WVA filed lawsuits in 13 Wisconsin counties in 2022 seeking guardianship records.

Heuer and the WVA have pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in a failed attempt to overturn Biden’s win in Wisconsin. Heuer was hired as an investigator in the discredited 2020 election probe led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. The probe found no evidence of fraud or abuse that would have changed the election results.

The WVA also filed two unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to overturn Biden’s win in Wisconsin.

Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 after losing in 2020

Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and the recounts Trump requested. Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 by about 29,000 votes.

There are no pending lawsuits challenging the results of the 2024 election or calls to investigate the outcome.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump planned to mark his 80th birthday on Sunday with a celebration that once would have seemed unfathomable: a cage-fighting show on the storied South Lawn of the White House.

In the week ahead, some hard realities of the office have threatened to overshadow the ostentatious UFC mixed martial arts extravaganza, where combatants sealed inside a wire-mesh octagon try to punch, kick, chop and pummel each other into submission.

Trump has found himself boxed into an unpopular and costly war he helped start in Iran. An agreement to end the conflict could be close, but the crucial details are still to be negotiated. Meanwhile, about a mile from Trump’s birthday bash, crews pried the president’s name off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts facade after a judge ruled that renaming it to include Trump was not allowed.

Regardless, the president will walk out of the White House and be surrounded by Cabinet leaders, top administration officials, Republican lawmakers and 4,000-plus spectators screaming themselves hoarse in a temporary arena under “The Claw,” a spaceship-like metal arch fitted with lighting, sound equipment and large screens. Thousands more will be watching on big screens from the nearby Ellipse.

“This event is a one-of-one event, incredible event. I love it,” said UFC chief Dana White, a close friend of Trump, during a Friday night hype session at the Lincoln Memorial where pairs of fighters shoved and scuffled for the cameras under the stoic gaze of Honest Abe’s marble likeness.

Trump has sought to tie Sunday’s event — which features seven fights running past midnight — to larger, months-long celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But it is much more geared toward feting himself, so much so that the Group of 7 summit for leaders of industrialized nations pushed back their get-together so that the president could attend his cage-match party and then fly straight to France for the meetings.

The weather, though, could put a damper on things. Strong thunderstorms and heavy lightning disrupted Friday’s Lincoln Memorial event, and the forecast for Sunday evening also looked threatening.

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about the weather,” White declared Friday, before conceding that he’d prefer to hold future UFC events inside arenas only.

A very different 80th birthday celebration

When Trump’s predecessor, President Biden, turned 80 in November 2022, he celebrated with a private family brunch at the White House, a reminder of just how much and how quickly things have changed.

Asked about the contrast, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said that the fight “will be one of the most entertaining nights in American history” and said that the timing was appropriate. “Having this spectacle take place at the people’s house on Flag Day during our nations’ semiquincentennial anniversary is a fitting tribute,” Schuster said in a statement, apparently including a punctuation error in referring to “nation’s.”

When he turned 80, Biden was the oldest president in U.S. history, and was months away from launching a reelection bid that he would ultimately abandon after a disastrous debate against Trump and mutiny among Democrats concerned that voters would perceive him as too old to handle a second term.

Trump has now supplanted Biden as the oldest person to be elected U.S. president. He’s constitutionally barred from running again, yet constantly toys with the notion publicly. That’s despite polls showing rising public skepticism about Trump’s mental and physical health — recalling concerns Biden faced as he turned 80.

A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of U.S. adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.

The White House countered with a lengthy statement from Trump’s former White House physician, Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, saying that Trump’s “stamina, focus, and strength are exceptional and on display every day. Claims to the contrary are pure fiction.” Jackson added that polling concerns were “being propagated by the same biased, liberal, Trump-hating press that completely ignored the absolute cognitive and physical disaster that was President Biden.”

Trump has nonetheless undergone four publicly announced physical examinations this term alone, with White House physician Dr. Sean Barbabella recently declaring him in “excellent health.”

‘Bread and circuses’ — Trump-style

The UFC event is an apt metaphor for Trump’s pugilistic political style. He has also long been a practitioner of political misdirection, purposely presenting people with something other than his presidency to focus on when things aren’t going well.

With the war in Iran grinding on despite weeks of assurances from Trump that its end is nigh, gas prices staying high, renewed concerns about inflation and plummeting job approval ratings for Trump — a White House birthday party unlike anything America has ever seen is definitely a diversion.

“This is all distraction,” said Mike Fontaine, a classics professor at Cornell University, who likened it to the gladiatorial games of Imperial Rome, when combatants brutalized each other for public entertainment meant to bolster rulers’ popularity and quell potential unrest.

“This is a classic strategy,” Fontaine said. “In ancient Rome, the phrase would be ‘bread and circuses.’”

Trump says the UFC is paying for the event, and though its full cost hasn’t been divulged, the National Park Service said in a court filing that $60-plus million and tens of thousands of hours of labor have gone into it, while seven government agencies have “allocated significant resources and manpower.”

UFC also announced Friday that it was adding as an official partner for the event World Liberty Financial to create a $250,000 athlete bonus pool for Sunday night’s winners. The cryptocurrency company is co-owned by the Trump family, founded with the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and run by the diplomat’s son Zach. The arrangement further blurs lines between the Trump family’s financial interests and the events and construction projects the president has prioritized and used government resources to pull off, which many critics and political analysts have labeled corrupt.

Still, Fontaine said that when it comes to a personal flair for pageantry, Trump’s second-term tendency to lean into “hardcore masculinity and brute fighting” is marrying the UFC’s blood sport with Trump’s distinctive sense of humor and enduring sense of showmanship.

“President Trump has a once-in-a-generation talent for this stuff,” he said.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday that the Trump administration was scrapping plans to create a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the Republican president after widespread political backlash and setbacks in the courts.

“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said in response to questions at a House hearing on the Justice Department budget.

““Not moving forward, ever?” asked Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat.

The blunt declaration marked an extraordinary turnabout for a Trump Justice Department that just two weeks ago had pronounced the fund as essential to make up for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during President Biden’s Democratic administration. Since then, though, the idea has faced mounting pressure from Republicans who demanded reassurances that plans for the fund were off the table before they would move forward with legislation funding President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche said the Justice Department was not abandoning an element of a settlement with the IRS that gave Trump and his family immunity from tax audits.

The hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee was scheduled for discussion of the Justice Department’s budget, but lawmakers quickly focused their questioning on the creation of a fund that has provoked outrage over the mere possibility that violent pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be eligible for payouts.

Signs for the retreat surfaced Monday when a person familiar with the matter said the Republican president was now reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund established to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The Justice Department also said Monday it would comply with a Virginia court temporarily blocking the administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks.

Another judge in Florida raised the prospect of reopening the IRS lawsuit because of “grievous allegations” of improper dealing made against the administration by settlement critics.

The Trump administration has defended the fund as an appropriate measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized Justice Department during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, a claim the Biden administration strongly denied. Though some Trump supporters, including participants in the Capitol riot, have celebrated the announcement, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile, forcing Blanche to try to assuage a GOP constituency that generally operates in close alignment with the administration.

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.

At a Senate budget hearing last month, Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that those who carried out violence on Jan. 6 could be eligible for payouts and has repeatedly said in interviews that anyone who feels persecuted by the criminal justice system is free to apply. Payouts will be decided by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche.

But he has apparently struck a more conciliatory tone in private when confronted by Republican anger.

Blanche encountered a groundswell of opposition last month at a tense private meeting with GOP senators, with more than half raising concerns, including by shouting at the Justice Department’s top official, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent episode of his podcast.

“There were fireworks at an epic level — and I’ve got to say, it’s one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate,” Cruz said.

Behind closed doors, Blanche was “adamant” that no one who assaulted police at the Capitol would receive compensation, according to Cruz.

“He said not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no,’” the senator recalled.

Tucker and Richer write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday in an effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of the former president’s interview with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents.

Biden’s lawyers said in a lawsuit filed in Washington’s federal court that the Justice Department plans to release the files to Congress and a conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, after the department had previously argued that they were exempt from disclosure under the public records law.

Biden’s lawyers argued that the disclosure would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”

“Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” his attorneys wrote. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”

At issue in the case are audio recordings and transcripts of Biden’s interviews at his home in 2016 and 2017 with Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on his two memoirs. The files were scrutinized by special counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice president.

Hur’s yearlong investigation led to a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges against the then-81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.

Biden has separately fought the release of the audio of his interview with Hur. The House in 2024 voted to hold Biden Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over that audio after the White House exerted executive privilege, shielding it from Congress.

The transcripts of five hours of Biden interviews with federal prosecutors was released that same year. While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that he was at times fuzzy about dates and details and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.

Republicans have argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who was accused of refusing to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.

Richer writes for the Associated Press.