Politics

When heads of state visit the U.S., the top item on their itinerary is usually a White House visit. For Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban next month, it will be addressing a conference of conservative activists in Dallas.

Orban’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he’ll be joined by former President Donald Trump and right-wing icons such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is the most dramatic indication yet of how a leader criticized for pushing anti-democratic principles has become a hero to segments of the Republican Party.

Orban has curbed immigration and stymied those who envision a more middle-of-the-road European democracy for their country. He’s done so by seizing control of Hungary’s judiciary and media, leading many international analysts to label him as the face of a new wave of authoritarianism. He also is accused of enabling widespread corruption and nepotism, using state resources to enrich a tight circle of political allies.

The U.S. conservative movement’s embrace of Orban comes as it echoes Trump’s lies that he did not lose the 2020 presidential election, punishes Republicans who tried to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and embrace new voting restrictions. Many experts on Hungarian politics fear the GOP might aspire to Orban’s tactics.

“The Trumpist side of the Republican Party is coming for the rhetoric, but staying for the autocracy,” said Kim L. Schepple, a sociologist at Princeton University who has studied Orban. “I’m worried the attraction to Orban is only superficially the culture war stuff and more deeply about how to prevent power from ever rotating out of their hands.”

Conservatives dismiss that notion — or even the charge that Orban is an authoritarian.

“What we like about him is that he’s actually standing up for the freedom of his people against the tyranny of the EU,” said Matt Schlapp, head of CPAC, which meets in Dallas starting Aug. 4. “He’s captured the attention of a lot of people, including a lot of people in America who are worried about the decline of the family.”

CPAC’s gatherings are something of a cross between Davos and Woodstock for the conservative movement, a meeting place for activists and luminaries to strategize, inspire and network. Earlier this year, CPAC held its first meeting in Europe, choosing Hungary. While there, Schlapp invited Orban to speak at the Texas gathering. Last year, Fox News star Tucker Carlson broadcast his show from Budapest.

Orban served as prime minister of Hungary between 1998 and 2002, but it’s his record since taking office again in 2010 that has drawn controversy. A self-styled champion of what he describes as “illiberal democracy,” Orban has depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressives and the “LGBTQ lobby.”

While Orban’s party has backed technocratic initiatives that have captured the imagination of the U.S. right — Schlapp specifically cited a tax cut Hungarian women receive for every child as a way to counter a declining population — he’s best known for his aggressive stance on hot-button cultural issues.

Orban’s government erected a razor-wire fence along Hungary’s southern border in 2015 in response to an influx of refugees fleeing violence and poverty in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Carlson visited the border barrier, praising it as a model for the U.S.

Last year, Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party banned the depiction of homosexuality or sex reassignment in media targeting people under 18, a move critics said was an attack on LGBTQ people. Information on homosexuality also was forbidden in school sex education programs, or in films and advertisements accessible to minors.

Those policies have put him on a collision course with the European Union, which has sought to reign in some of his more antidemocratic tendencies. The bloc has launched numerous legal proceedings against Hungary for breaking EU rules, and is now withholding billions in recovery funds and credit over violations of rule-of-law standards and insufficient anti-corruption safeguards.

Those conflicts started early in Orban’s tenure. In 2011, the Fidesz party used the two-thirds constitutional majority it gained after a landslide election the previous year to unilaterally rewrite Hungary’s constitution. Soon after, it began undermining the country’s institutions and took steps to consolidate power.

Orban’s party implemented judicial reforms through constitutional amendment, enabling it to change the composition of the judiciary. It also passed a new law that created a nine-member council to oversee the media and appointed members to all those slots.

Reporters Without Borders declared Orban a “press freedom predator” last year. It said his Fidesz party had “seized de facto control of 80% of the country’s media through political-economic maneuvers and the purchase of news organizations by friendly oligarchs.”

The Associated Press and other international news organizations were barred from covering the CPAC conference in May, during which Orban called Hungary “the bastion of conservative Christian values in Europe.” He also urged conservatives in the U.S. to defeat “the dominance of progressive liberals in public life.”

The AP requested an interview with Orban when he visits Dallas next month, but was rebuffed. His communications office cited what it said was the prime minister’s “extremely busy” schedule.

Analysts note that Hungary lacks the traditional trappings of autocracies. There are no tanks in the streets and no political dissidents locked up in prisons. Fidesz has continued to win elections — albeit in seats that have been redrawn to make it extremely difficult for their legislators to be defeated. That’s similar to the political gerrymandering of congressional and state legislative districts in the U.S., a process that currently favors Republicans because they control more of the state legislatures that create those boundaries.

Still, experts say Orban’s near-total control of his country makes him a pioneer of a new approach to anti-democratic rule.

“I’ve never seen an autocrat consolidate authoritarian rule without spilling a drop of blood or locking someone up,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of the book “How Democracies Die.” He and other scholars said Orban qualifies as an authoritarian because of his use of government to control societal institutions.

Peter Kreko, a Budapest-based analyst for the Center for European Policy Analysis, said Orban’s anti-democratic tendencies won’t be a big issue in his quest to forge an alliance with U.S. conservatives. His closeness to Russia and China will be much thornier, Kreko argued.

Kreko said Orban’s government is increasingly isolated diplomatically but has not even bothered to try to build ties to the Biden administration — instead hoping Trump or his allies will shortly return to power.

“This is his big hope for coming back to the international scene, since there are not so many allies that remain for him,” Kreko said of Orban. “It’s a remarkable success of Hungarian soft power that Orban has become so popular among American conservatives when his image has declined so much in Europe.”

Schlapp scoffed at the notion that Hungary was undemocratic, noting that Orban’s party continues to win elections and reminiscing fondly about his trip to Budapest. He recounted how his group got lost in some alleys in the ancient Hungarian capital.

“If we were in Chicago or Los Angeles, I’d have been scared to death,” he said.

But not in Hungary: “It’s orderly, it works, it’s practical, it’s clean.”

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Spike reported from Budapest, Hungary, and Riccardi from Denver.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor supported by Donald Trump, a former two-term lieutenant governor endorsed by dozens of lawmakers and a state representative pushing for decertification of the state’s 2020 presidential election results largely agreed on most issues in their first debate Sunday,

The debate between Trump-backed Tim Michels, Rebecca Kleefisch and state Rep. Tim Ramthun came just over two weeks before the Aug. 9 primary. A Marquette University Law School poll last month showed Michels and Kleefish in a tight race, with the winner advancing to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Takeaways from Sunday’s debate:

DECERTIFICATION OF 2020 ELECTION

Even though Michels is supported by Trump, who continues to push for decertification of his loss in Wisconsin, Michels said he would not pursue that as governor. Kleefisch also said she would not try to decertify President Joe Biden’s win, a move that attorneys and Republican legislative leaders have repeatedly said is unconstitutional and can’t be done.

“It’s not a priority,” Michels said of decertification. “My priorities are election integrity, crime reduction and education reform. … I have to focus on beating Tony Evers this fall and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Kleefisch said she thought the 2020 election was “rigged,” but would not try to decertify the results.

Ramthun, who has based his candidacy around decertification, was the only one who said he would try to do it.

“I’m surprised I’m the only one,” he said.

Biden’s win in the state has withstood by two partial recounts, numerous lawsuits, a nonpartisan audit, a review by a conservative law form and an investigation by a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice hired by Republicans. None of the candidates offered any new evidence Sunday of widespread fraud.

ABORTION

All of the candidates support an 1849 Wisconsin law banning abortion that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That law only provides an exception to protect the life of the mother.

Kleefisch, noting that she is the only woman in the race, said she did not support other exemptions, but also that “Miscarriage care and ectopic pregnancy treatment are not abortion.”

Ramthun said he would emphasize adoption as an option for women with unplanned pregnancies, while Michels said he would bolster counseling and other services to help those women.

INSIDER vs. OUTSIDER

Kleefisch, who served eight years as lieutenant governor under Scott Walker, touted her experience in his administration, mentioning the passage of the Act 10 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

She called herself an “effective and conservative reformer,” noting that she won statewide four times. That includes a 2011 recall election.

Michels, who along with his brothers co-owns the state’s largest construction company Michels Corp., touted his outsider experience and said he would “turn Madison upside down.”

“I’m sure there’s a lot of fraud and abuse and inefficiencies in government,” he said. “I’m going to find it, I know how to do it.”

He also took a subtle jab at Kleefisch, without mentioning her by name, in his closing statement.

“If you want to keep politics as usual, vote for the usual politicians,” he said.

AWKWARD MOMENTS

Michels was asked repeatedly if he supports giving incentives to an Obama-era program that prevents the deportation of thousands of people brought into the U.S., but did not give an answer. People in the program are often referred to as “dreamers.” The program is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and the moderators referred to it by its acronym DACA.

“Yes or no for DACA students as well, the incentives?” moderator Charles Benson asked Michels.

“What kind of students?” he replied.

“DACA,” moderator Shannon Sims said.

“DACA? DACA students?” Michels responded. “I want to look at the details on everything before I agree to anything.”

Ramthun was asked about his comment in March indicating that he wanted to punch Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the nose after Vos kicked Ramthun out of a meeting related to the 2020 election results. The question drew loud applause from the audience and Ramthun said his comments were misinterpreted.

Ramthun said Vos had acted like a bully and he said bullies should be punched in the nose.

“I didn’t say I wanted to punch him in the nose,” Ramthun said. “I said you have to push back and say no.”

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — When former President Donald Trump took the stage before a crowd of more than 5,000 young conservative activists in Tampa this weekend, he received the rock star’s welcome he’s grown accustomed to over the seven years in which he’s reshaped the Republican Party.

One night earlier, it was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who had the crowd on its feet as he headlined the day’s program at Turning Point USA’s annual Student Action Summit.

“To be honest, it’s like choosing between your favorite child,” said Leo Milik, 19, who lives in Barrington, Illinois, when asked whom he’d like to see as the party’s next nominee.

Milik, wearing a “Trump was Right” baseball cap, said both Republicans “have their pros, they have their cons.” For now, he said, he’s leaning toward Trump.

That sentiment reflects the soul searching underway inside the GOP as an invisible primary for the 2024 presidential nomination begins to take shape, dominated at least for the moment by Trump and DeSantis.

There’s little doubt that Trump is moving closer to announcing a third presidential campaign. But there’s genuine debate over whether he’s the party’s best candidate to take on President Joe Biden, who is otherwise seen as a vulnerable incumbent heading into the next campaign, weighed down by soaring inflation, sinking popularity and questions about his capacity to manage the U.S. into his 80s.

This summer’s hearings by the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection have only amplified the GOP’s anxiety about Trump. A pair of weekend editorials in the New York Post and Wall Street Journal — publications owned by the often Trump-friendly Rupert Murdoch — underscored the impact, castigating the former president for refusing to call off the mob of his supporters as they stormed the U.S. Capitol to halt the peaceful transfer of power.

“As a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again,” wrote the New York Post.

But inside the Tampa Convention Center, mentions of Jan. 6 elicited cheers as a who’s who of Trump’s “MAGA movement” took the stage in a room that had the feel of a Las Vegas nightclub.

Young attendees dressed in sparkly heels and candy-colored cowboy boots danced under laser lights to a DJ before the program began. Speakers were introduced with WWE-style videos, elaborate pyrotechnics and smoke displays. Throughout the venue, ring lights were placed strategically in front of logoed backdrops for flattering photo ops. Outside, a small group of neo-Nazis briefly waved swastika flags.

The top draw was Trump, who again teased his future plans.

“I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time … and now we may just have to do it again,” he said to thundering cheers and chants of “Take it back!”

During his speech, Trump appeared intent to address criticism from some corners of the party that he is too focused on relitigating the 2020 election, telling the crowd he wanted to talk about “some of the really big issues.” But he quickly returned to familiar grievances, labeling himself the most persecuted politician in the nation’s history as he inched ever closer to announcing a run.

“If I renounced my beliefs, if I agreed to stay silent, if I stayed home, if I announced that I was not going to run for office, the persecution of Donald Trump would immediately stop,” he said. “But that’s what they want me to do. And you know what? There’s no chance I do that.”

DeSantis, who often insists he is focused solely on reelection as governor, headlined Friday night’s program in an appearance that strongly suggested his ambitions extend beyond the state.

He welcomed the crowd to the “free state of Florida” and highlighted the anti-COVID mitigation policies that made him a conservative hero during the height of the pandemic. And he bragged about his efforts to bar discussions of race and sexual orientation in Florida classrooms, as well as his battles with Disney.

“We’ve accomplished an awful lot in the state of Florida. But we have only begun to fight,” he said. “Because we are on a mission to keep the state of Florida free and to save our great country.”

An unscientific straw poll of attendees at the event found that 78.7% would vote for Trump in a GOP primary, with DeSantis coming in second with 19%. No other potential candidate came in above 1 percent.

And many were indeed all in on a Trump 2024 run.

“I love the idea, I absolutely do,” said Ryan Malone, 33, who recently moved from New York to Florida. While he is a big fan of DeSantis, he argued that Trump is best positioned to turn the country around from what he sees as Biden’s litany of failures.

“I think that he would get more done,” he said. “Again, I love DeSantis, he’s my 1A, right? But I do think that if we’re going to get out of this miserable period that we’re in, Trump is the guy to get us out of this hole.”

Still, he worried about what might happen if the two were to run against each other in a GOP primary.

“I wouldn’t want to see there be bad blood between the person who’s, like, the true leader of our party and then the person who’s, you know, the second coming,” he said.

But his wife, Dr. Mariuxi Viteri Malone, 33, is eager for DeSantis to run. As an immigrant from Ecuador, she said she was offended by Trump’s rhetoric toward Hispanics.

“Be nice!” he said. “That’s all you need to do.”

Others were more strategic in their thinking.

Cameron Lilly, 29, said that he personally likes DeSantis better than Trump, but nonetheless thinks another Trump run makes sense for the party.

“I think Ron DeSantis right now is wasting the one more chance that Trump has,” said Lilly, who works for a defense contractor in Annapolis, Maryland. “I like DeSantis even a little bit more. But I think if we want to have consistent conservatives in the White House, one more Trump term, DeSantis as vice president, and then potentially one or two more terms. That’s the way to keep conservatives in the White House for more years.”

Steven Dykstra, 22, had another reason.

“As much as I want DeSantis to be the president — he would make a great president — I want him to stay in Florida,” said Dykstra, who attends Pasco-Hernando State College. “If he were to run in 2024, he wouldn’t be our governor. He’s been a great governor. I think he should stay.”

Orlando sisters Sydney and Janae Kinne, who go by “The Patriot Sisters” online, said they were fans of both Trump and DeSantis, but don’t expect either to run in 2024.

“I would still vote for him. We’re still there. But I would like to see him in a different seat this year,” said Janae, 23, of Trump. “If he runs, I mean, we’re going to be on the street rooting for him anyways. But we’d like to see him start to raise up other people who have the same mentality.”

Sydney, 21, said she was looking for an alternative, but wasn’t sure who.

“That’s the question of the hour,” she said. “Right now what we need is someone that, yes, is strong, they’re strong-willed, but someone that’s a little more kind of rallying everyone together.”

But Zachary Roberson, 22, said that, if he ever had to choose between Trump and DeSantis, he’d pick the Florida governor.

“He seems like a more refined version of Trump. So I’m hoping he runs for president,” said Roberson, a student at Florida Gulf Coast University.

As for Trump, Roberson suggested: “You can run for governor here in Florida.”

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A man accused of attacking New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin during a recent campaign rally told investigators he’d been drinking that day and didn’t know who the congressman was, authorities said as the man was arrested on a federal assault charge Saturday.

David Jakubonis, 43, made an initial court appearance Saturday before a federal magistrate judge in Rochester, New York, on a single count of assaulting a member of Congress with a dangerous weapon. The charge carries a potential maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

He was ordered held until a bail hearing in federal court Wednesday. Prosecutors said he should remain detained as a flight risk and is dangerous, according to a court filing. Assistant federal public defender Steven Slawinski, representing Jakubonis, said in an email to The Associated Press that he planned to ask the judge to release Jakubonis from custody.

Jakubonis was arraigned Friday on a separate state charge of attempted assault in the second degree and was released by a local judge. That prompted criticism from Zeldin and other Republicans who held it up as an example of the need to reform New York’s bail laws, something Zeldin has called on Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to toughen.

A 2019 bail reform law in New York eliminated pretrial incarceration for people accused of most nonviolent offenses. The law gives judges the option to set bail in nearly all cases involving violent felonies, but it has exceptions for certain attempted felonies like attempted assault.

The federal criminal complaint filed Saturday alleged Jakubonis, an Iraq War veteran, told investigators he was drinking whiskey on Thursday before he went onstage as Zeldin addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the town of Perinton to ask the speaker if he was disrespecting veterans.

Jakubonis “did not know who the speaker was or that the speaker was a political person,” according to the complaint. The complaint added that when Jakubonis watched video of Thursday evening’s incident he told investigators he “must have checked out” and that what was depicted in the video was disgusting.

According to video of the attack, Jakubonis raised his arm toward Zeldin as he held a keychain with two sharp points. The congressman from Long Island then grabbed Jakubonis’ wrist and the two tussled to the ground as others jumped in to help. Zeldin, who also served in the military, suffered a minor scrape.

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NEW YORK (AP) — As he campaigns for a Manhattan congressional seat against fellow Democrats twice his age, 38-year-old Suraj Patel harnesses the frustration of his generation toward those who have held office for decades.

In his telling, Reps. Jerry Nadler, 75, and Carolyn Maloney, 76, are part of a crop of Democrats who rose to power in the 1990s only to fail on issues ranging from guns to climate change and abortion. The redistricting process that merged their congressional districts offers a chance for new leadership, Patel says.

“If we keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result: That’s not just the definition of insanity,” he said. “That’s also the definition of incumbency.”

More than 1,100 miles to the west in the presidential testing ground of Iowa, Republican Jeremiah Bronson was also considering whether someone other than 76-year-old Donald Trump might carry his party into the future. Bronson expressed growing interest in 55-year-old Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“He seems to be on the same page with conservatives around the country,” Bronson, 39, said as he dined on barbecued pork sandwiches with a half-dozen other Story County Republicans.

In a nation faltering along seemingly every conceivable divide, there’s a shared desire among Democrats and Republicans for a new generation of political leadership. The conversation is most pronounced when it comes to the White House as Trump considers another campaign and President Joe Biden confronts skepticism about his ability to mount a reelection bid in 2024 when he is 82.

“There’s just a sense of like, that rematch between these two old guys seems ridiculous to people,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who conducts almost weekly focus groups with voters across the country and political spectrum.

There are recurring calls for youth and change in U.S. politics.

Bill Clinton’s appeal for a new generation of leadership helped him rise from governor of Arkansas to the first baby boomer president in 1992. In 2008, Barack Obama’s relative youth was an asset in his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and during the general election against Arizona Sen. John McCain.

More recently, Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential bid gained traction with its focus on fresh leadership before being overtaken by Biden, viewed by many Democrats as the safer choice against Trump.

The dynamics have shifted since then, with some Democratic voters furious that Biden and leaders in Congress haven’t done more to protect abortion rights, respond more aggressively to a wave of mass shootings and address climate change.

A new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows 83% of U.S. adults say the country is on the wrong track. Only 36% approve of Biden’s leadership overall, while 62% disapprove. Polling from AP-NORC in recent months captured deepening pessimism among members of his own Democratic Party about Biden, the direction of the country and t he state of the economy. A January AP-NORC poll found just 28% of those surveyed and 48% of Democrats said they want Biden to run for reelection in 2024.

Julián Castro, a former Obama housing secretary and onetime presidential candidate, said there’s “no doubt” that members of his party are frustrated and that Democrats in Washington need to show a sense of urgency and produce results. In a telephone interview from the Texas Democratic Convention in Dallas, he said Democrats seemed energized.

“My immediate hope is that that angst and frustration is going to be channeled positively to turnout in November,” he said, referring to the midterm elections. “And then we’ll reckon with what’s beyond that when November happens.”

Biden has repeatedly insisted he will run for reelection. But should he decide to step aside, a host of younger Democrats could be in contention. They include Vice President Kamala Harris, who is 57. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 54, and Illinois Gov. J.B Pritzker, 57, have garnered attention for their responses to the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling and mass shootings.

Some Democrats seeking office this year have been clear about their desires that a new generation take its place in politics.

Last month, the Democratic candidate for governor in South Carolina, Joe Cunningham, proposed not only term limits but also age limits for officeholders, saying it was time to end America’s “geriatric oligarchy” of politicians who are staying “in office way past their prime.” To Cunningham, who recently turned 40, that includes the incumbent he hopes to oust in November, 75-year-old Republican Henry McMaster, who is the state’s oldest sitting governor.

But Cunningham also said the proposal was intended to apply to Biden.

For Republicans, the most pressing debate often seems to focus less explicitly on age and more on whether the party should move on from Trump. That’s particularly true in the wake of hearings by the House Jan. 6 committee that have drawn new attention to his desperate efforts to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.

The Jan. 6 hearings may be sending voters looking elsewhere.

An AP-NORC in June found that 48% of U.S. adults say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the siege of the U.S. Capitol. January’s AP-NORC poll showed that people were just as down on Trump running again in 2024 as they were Biden: Just 27% of U.S. adults wanted Trump to run again, including a slim majority – 56% — of Republicans. That poll also showed the former president’s popularity with the GOP dropped somewhat, with 71% of Republicans saying they had a favorable opinion of Trump compared with 78% in a September 2020 AP-NORC/USAFacts poll.

Longwell, the Republican strategist, said the hearings seem to be having an impact even among Republican voters who are not watching the sessions or persuaded by them because they are a reminder of the tumult that has surrounded Trump.

“One of the things I hear coming up over and over again in the groups is that Trump has a lot of baggage and that there’s all these other stars, Republican stars, and maybe it’s time Trump should be like an elder statesman,” she said.

A number of figures from Trump’s world and outside it are seen as potential challengers in 2024. Trump and his associates are especially focused on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who, at 43, is increasingly viewed as a younger heir to the former president’s brand of politics.

Other Republicans making increasingly overt moves toward a presidential run include Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, 45; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 50; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, 51; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 58; and former Vice President Mike Pence, 63.

Pat Brady, the former chair of the Illinois Republican Party who is not a Trump supporter, said he thinks the “fever has broken” when it comes to Trump’s standing with the GOP.

“I think the combination of him just spending all his time, every speech, relitigating 2020. Voters typically look forward. They don’t look backward,” he said.

Brady said part of the frustrations voters have with their political leaders is the age-related.

“When you look at the leadership, I’m old and those guys make me look young,” said 61-year-old Brady. “This is a vibrant youthful country, fundamentally, and we’ve got a bunch of old people running it.”

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Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Cambridge, Iowa, Hannah Fingerhut in Washington and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics

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By James Oliphant and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol plans to push its investigation further in the coming weeks, interviewing additional members of Donald Trump’s cabinet and his campaign, as well as U.S. Secret Service members, the committee’s vice chair said on Sunday.

“We’re not finished yet,” Representative Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives’ select committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

In eight hearings over six weeks featuring testimony from former White House officials and Trump associates, the panel painted the former president as responsible for the attack on the Capitol in a bid to stay in power following his 2020 election loss. The hearings have also outlined efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results.

The committee has yet to decide whether to make a criminal referral concerning Trump’s conduct to the U.S. Justice Department, Cheney said, “but that’s absolutely something we’re looking at.”

Cheney said testimony from Trump aides had opened doors to new evidence as others in the administration have come forward. The committee also continues to seek an interview with Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, over her role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and may subpoena her if necessary, Cheney said.

Cheney said the panel will look into the deletion of text messages by the Secret Service, adding that the agency had not shown the kind of cooperation that was expected.

“The extent to which there are no text messages from the relevant period of time, the extent to which we have not had the kind of cooperation that we really need to have, those are all the things the committee is going to be looking at in more detail in the coming weeks,” Cheney said in a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Earlier this month, the committee subpoenaed the Secret Service, seeking text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, as it investigated accusations by a watchdog that they had been erased.

The Secret Service had said that data from some phones had been lost during a system migration that was initiated prior to the watchdog’s request. It handed over some records to the panel on Wednesday and the committee said it wanted more data.

(Reporting by James Oliphant and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Daniel Wallis)

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — When a naked man in southwestern Florida recently raised a ruckus outside his house and threatened a deputy with a kitchen knife, the SWAT team swooped in and apprehended him.

Soon afterward, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno stood on the man’s driveway in combat gear for a news conference while the suspect went to the jailhouse that the sheriff likes to call the “Marceno Motel.”

“He’s an oxygen-stealer and a scumbag, and I’m glad he’s outta here,” Marceno told reporters. “I’m proud to say that in this county, if you present deadly physical force … we meet you with deadly force every time, and we win. It’s pretty clean, pretty quick.”

The Sunshine State has become internationally notorious for the oddball miscreants who populate its police blotters and local news reports — known collectively as Florida Man. There are murders and mayhem, like anyplace else, and then there are the only-in-Florida incidents like the man charged with assault with a deadly weapon for throwing an alligator through a Wendy’s drive-thru window in Palm Beach County in 2015.

But an equally eccentric cast of hard-boiled sheriffs make a career of going after these guys. Florida Man, meet Florida Sheriff.

All but one of Florida’s 67 counties have an elected sheriff, and they wield enormous influence in part because they’re often the only countywide elected official. They head agencies that typically patrol unincorporated portions of their county but also provide backup to city police departments and sometimes patrol small cities that lack their own force. Many, like Marceno, hold made-for-YouTube news conferences and use TikTok and other social media — frequently going just as viral as the perpetrators.

Take Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson, in Florida’s Panhandle.

During a recent news conference about a burglary, Johnson, elected in 2016, said a homeowner had fired shots but didn’t hit the suspect. Johnson encouraged that homeowner to take a gun safety course offered every other Saturday at the sheriff’s office so he could better take matters into his own hands.

“Learn to shoot a lot better,” Johnson said. “Save the taxpayers’ money.”

On the Atlantic Coast, near Cape Canaveral, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey makes a game of crime — literally. His weekly “ Wheel of Fugitive ” videos feature the sheriff spinning a wheel with photos of 10 of the county’s most wanted.

“Everybody watches it. Even the fugitives watch it” to see who becomes “fugitive of the week,” Ivey said.

The lucky winner of one recent episode was a 32-year-old white male accused of petit theft and failure to appear. The sheriff, first elected in 2012, looked into the camera as if speaking directly to the man and urged him to surrender: “Stop messing up and stop breaking the law. Get all of it behind you.”

The Twitter account of Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco — who has starred in A&E Network’s “Live PD” show — made a splash with local “Sad Criminal of the Day” posts. His agency also copyrighted the now-viral hashtag, #9pmroutine, a reminder to lock car doors and homes every night.

In January, the department cut off social media comments because the accounts fell victim to their success. With over 300,000 Facebook followers — more than double that of much larger Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in nearby Tampa — Nocco said people were too often reporting crimes online rather than calling 911.

Over in central Florida is, perhaps, the highest-profile enemy of Florida Man (and Florida Woman).

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who constantly targets gangs, drug dealers and prostitution rings in his folksy Southern drawl, has been a frequent hit on TV since he was first elected with no party affiliation in 2005. Judd says of school shooters: “We’re going to shoot you graveyard dead.”

He also has praised homeowners for firing on intruders, including one last December: “He gave him an early Christmas present. Only Santa Claus gets to come in your house,” Judd told a news conference.

Judd often refers to the Polk County Jail as the “Polk Pokey,” and last holiday season, his office sold their version of the popular Elf on the Shelf doll, dubbed Sheriff on a Shelf, and he personally autographed Sheriff Judd bobbleheads.

One of Judd’s latest targets was not exactly the crime of the century. But Judd had plenty to say about a woman accused of assaulting workers at a McDonald’s because her order was wrong.

“She’s a pretty lady. But she was McMad,” Judd said on May 20. “I don’t know if she was two fries short of a Happy Meal, but she created a McMess and acted like a McNut. … This is Polk County. We don’t put up with that McJunk.”

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Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.

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ALTO, Georgia (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker commiserated as north Georgia farmers bemoaned environmental regulations and rising costs of doing business. Minutes before, the former football star and political newcomer volleyed with journalists on issues ranging from gas prices to abortion.

In both audiences, Walker tried every way he could to steer the conversation back to Sen. Raphael Warnock and a Democratic administration whose popularity lags in this battleground state that President Joe Biden won by the narrowest of margins.

“We need to be talking about what people are concerned about, that my opponent seems to be voting with Joe Biden rather than the people of Georgia,” Walker said at a north Georgia produce market. “That’s what we need to be putting headlines about what Herschel Walker is saying … because the people of Georgia are hurting.”

With generationally high inflation and Biden’s low popularity, Republican candidates across the U.S. are spending this election year similarly trying to keep the focus on Democrats. But for Walker, the sweeping partisan jabs on display at multiple campaign stops this week offered a chance to steady an otherwise haphazard campaign.

Some Republicans quietly acknowledge that such deflection may be the only way Walker can win this midterm contest that will help determine control of a Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties.

“Look, it’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up,” said state Sen. Butch Miller, as he campaigned with Walker in north Georgia.

Walker, 60, cruised to the GOP nomination in May, mostly on his celebrity status as the star running back on the University of Georgia’s national championship football team in 1980 and his personal friendship with former President Donald Trump.

But along the way, Walker has faced new disclosures on past violent threats against his first wife. He’s exaggerated his academic and business records, and alternately denied ever making such statements. He acknowledged fathering multiple children he hadn’t publicly mentioned previously despite spending decades blasting absent fathers. And Walker recently was captured on video at a closed campaign event offering a nonsensical explanation of the climate crisis as China sending its “bad air” to the U.S. while stealing “our good air.”

Warnock’s campaign and allied Democratic campaign arms reacted with an advertising onslaught casting Walker as unqualified.

“Every one of Walker’s lies, scandals and bizarre statements proves that he isn’t ready to represent to represent the people of Georgia and can’t be trusted to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said Dan Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Georgia Democratic Party.

All of that played out as Warnock has raked in campaign cash — more than $17 million in the second quarter of 2020 and $70 million-plus for the cycle. That has allowed the senator to develop a personal brand that positions him well ahead of Biden among Georgia voters and mutes any Republican contention that 2020 was an aberration in the state.

Just a few cycles ago, any Republican nominee would have been a prohibitive favorite in a midterm Senate election here, regardless of economic conditions or who occupied the White House. Instead, decades of growth, concentrated in metro Atlanta, have yielded a politically, racially and ethnically diverse population more open to electing Democrats. Trump’s underperformance among college-educated whites accelerated the shift, as did Democrats’ organizing efforts.

That led to Biden outpolling Trump by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast — a record November turnout for Georgia. Warnock followed with a wider margin in a January special election runoff: 94,000 votes out of almost 4.5 million cast, a record runoff turnout.

Republicans have answered Walker’s stumbles with an influx of experienced aides for the first-time candidate and visits to the state by national Republican operatives. Walker aides said the coming weeks will be built around various policy themes, with targeted attacks on Warnock.

It’s not so much a campaign reset, the aides said, since mid- to late summer is nearly always when general election campaigns ratchet up. But it’s an effort clearly aimed at changing the narrative around the matchup. The opening salvo was agriculture. Public safety and crime come next. The economy will follow.

Walker himself talked this week of “listening sessions” built around policy topics. He showed some evidence of those sessions in turning most any topic back to Warnock, Biden and the economy.

“Terrible, terrible leadership,” he called it, adding that working-class Georgians “know it’s not right.”

He demonstrated an increasing familiarity with the details of Warnock’s record when he blasted the idea of suspending the federal gas tax, something the senator proposed. Walker called that “the hero effect … I cause the problem and then you call me to come put it out.”

Yet there were flashes of the tangents and falsehoods that have drawn negative attention already.

At a livestock auction outside Athens, Walker again denied he ever said he’d graduated from the University of Georgia, accusing his questioner of being a “Raphael Warnock guy.” Walker has made such claims on video; he never graduated. Later, Walker essentially committed to debate Warnock in October, only to have his campaign follow up with a series of conditions.

In a discussion about immigration, Walker offered bromides about the U.S. needing “legal immigration,” only to have Miller step in to talk about specific visa programs. In a roundtable on agriculture, Miller and Terry Rogers, a former state representative, again filled in many details.

When farmers complained about the Biden administration’s advocacy of electric farming vehicles, Walker didn’t just focus on cost but questioned the technology itself. “It’s only gonna run for a certain amount of time,” he said. “You gotta charge it for eight hours. You’ll never get any work done.”

Miller downplayed any cumulative damage to Walker’s prospects but said it’s critical for the Republican nominee to crystallize his case against Warnock and weave in his own biography more effectively.

“One of his strongest virtues is his relatability to people, and he’s getting out and doing that,” Miller said. As for broader attacks about inflation and the economy, Miller added, Walker has a convenient ally: “It’s all true.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden likely contracted a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly through the United States, and now has body aches and a sore throat since his positive test, according to an update from his doctor on Saturday.

The variant, known as BA.5, is an offshoot of the omicron strain that emerged late last year, and it’s believed to be responsible for the vast majority of coronavirus cases in the country.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, wrote in his latest update on Biden’s condition that Biden’s earlier symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough, have become “less troublesome.” O’Connor’s earlier notes did not mention the sore throat or body aches.

Biden’s vital signs, such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, “remain entirely normal,” and his oxygen saturation levels are “excellent” with “no shortness of breath at all,” the doctor wrote.

O’Connor said the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect Biden’s treatment plan “in any way.”

Biden tested positive for the virus on Thursday morning. He has been isolating in the White House residence since then. Administration officials have emphasized that his symptoms are mild because he has received four vaccine doses, and he started taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid after becoming infected.

During a virtual meeting with economic advisers on Friday, Biden was hoarse but insisted, “I feel much better than I sound.”

In his previous update on Biden’s health, O’Connor said the president had an elevated temperature of 99.4 F on Thursday evening, but it returned to normal after taking Tylenol.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump ignored close allies who told him that his claims of widespread election fraud were untrue, and when the followers who believed his false accusations stormed the U.S. Capitol, he sat back and watched.

That was the narrative the U.S. House of Representatives’ select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack laid out in eight hearings over six weeks, which wrapped up with a study of the former president’s actions during the 187-minute assault on Congress by thousands of his supporters.

“President Trump sat at his dining table and watched the attack on television while his senior-most staff, closest advisors and family members begged him to do what is expected of any American president,” U.S. Representative Elaine Luria said. “President Trump refused to act because of his selfish desire to stay in power.”

Some 18 months after the deadly assault, the hearings replayed video of rioters smashing their way into the Capitol, screaming “Hang Mike Pence” as they hunted the vice president who Trump had called on to overturn his election defeat.

They featured hours of testimony, some live and some recorded, from close Trump allies including former Attorney General Bill Barr, who dismissed Trump’s fraud claims as “bullshit,” and former White House staff including one who recalled an enraged president hurling plates, leaving ketchup running down a wall.

The hearings were intended to lay out a case that the Republican Trump violated the law as he tried, for the first time in U.S. history, to stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.

It is not yet clear if the Justice Department will bring charges against Trump, but the hearings appear to have somewhat hurt his standing with Republican voters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Thursday found that 32% of Republicans say Trump should not run for president in 2024 — a possibility he continues to flirt with publicly — up from 26% who said that at the start of the hearings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland this week declined to say whether the Justice Department would charge Trump. But he did not rule it out.

“No person is above the law in this country. I can’t say it any more clearly than that,” Garland told reporters on Wednesday.

Trump and his allies — including some Republicans in Congress — deny he did anything wrong and dismiss the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans as politically motivated.

Congressional Republicans last year blocked a proposal by Democrats for a bipartisan commission on Jan. 6, similar to the one convened after the 9/11 attacks, leaving the power to pick members in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger joined the panel, which presented a scripted case without the verbal combat common in congressional hearings.

RIOT TRIALS CONTINUE

More than 850 people have been charged with joining in the riot, on a wide range of charges ranging from illegally entering restricted federal property to seditious conspiracy. More than 325 have pleaded guilty so far and the Justice Department has also scored multiple guilty verdicts in the cases of defendants who chose trial by jury.

In another high-profile case, prosecutors have charged Trump adviser Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer a subpoena from the committee. Closing arguments in that case are expected on Friday.

The leaders and more than a dozen members of the right-wing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their alleged role in organizing the attack, charges that carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

Still, critics have accused the Justice Department of not doing enough to investigate Trump or his inner circle for their efforts to overturn his election defeat.

But there are signs that the investigation appears to be broadening beyond the riot itself.

Under the leadership of the Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney in D.C. who was sworn in last fall, the department has started issuing grand jury subpoenas to electors in key battleground states, including some electors who signed bogus certificates certifying the election for Trump.

According to one May 5 subpoena seen by Reuters, prosecutors are seeking communications between electors and federal employees, “any member, employee or agent of Donald J. Trump.”

Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now with the non-profit group Protect Democracy, said she believes there is enough evidence to warrant a criminal probe into Trump’s conduct.

“If DOJ ultimately decides that it isn’t going to pursue charges against Trump, someone is going to have to explain to the public,” Parker said in an interview. “Too much has come out now.”

Kinzinger said the committee would urge changes to laws and policies intended to head off future attempts to overturn election results. A bipartisan Senate group this week introduced new legislation that would make clear that the vice president does not have the authority to throw out election results.

Such reforms were vital to guard against a repeat of the chaos and bloodshed of Jan. 6, Kinzinger said.

“The forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant, intolerant ideologies. The militias. The alienation and the disaffection. The weird fantasies and disinformation,” Kinzinger added. “They’re all still out there, ready to go. That’s the elephant in the room.”

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Doina Chiacu, Moira Warburton and Rose Horowitch; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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