President Trump Leaves Iran Ceasefire and Nuclear Proposal Pending After 2-Hour Situation Room Meeting  

By The Media Line Staff  

President Donald Trump concluded a two-hour Situation Room meeting without approving a proposed memorandum of understanding aimed at extending a ceasefire with Iran and launching new negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, leaving the status of a potential agreement unresolved.  

The White House has not announced a final agreement or endorsed draft following the meeting, despite President Trump having said earlier that he would make a “final determination” on the proposal. Any arrangement under discussion would still require approval from both the US president and Iran’s senior leadership.  

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Washington and Tehran had reached a memorandum of understanding designed to end the war, pending Trump’s authorization. The proposal calls for a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and the start of renewed talks focused on Iran’s nuclear activities.  

As discussions continued, administration officials said President Trump gathered advisers in the Situation Room to settle the conditions he considers essential for any deal. Among those priorities are the elimination of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.  

“Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  

While administration officials have indicated that an agreement may be within reach, several issues remain unsettled. Outstanding disputes reportedly include the release of Iranian funds and questions surrounding the handling and transfer of nuclear materials. 

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a moderate Massachusetts Democrat, secured enough delegate support Saturday to appear on the state’s primary ballot as he challenges incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in this year’s Senate race.

Yet even though Moulton cleared a key hurdle to continue his Senate bid, it was Markey who won the party’s endorsement after winning more than 50% of the delegation’s support.

“You have a choice, you have to decide what the future looks like and what you’re going to demand,” Markey said Saturday in front of more than 4,000 delegates.

Markey won nearly 73% of the delegates’ support, while Moulton won nearly 27% of the vote. Massachusetts Democratic Party rules require statewide candidates to get at least 15% of delegate support to appear on primary ballots.

In heavily Democratic Massachusetts, the Senate primary contest is one of the most closely watched in the country as Moulton, 47, has centered his campaign on changing the status quo and demanding a generational shift in leadership.

If reelected, Markey would be 80 before his third six-year term would begin. While Markey has touted his stamina and embrace of progressive policies, questions about age have continued to swirl around Democratic candidates as they fight to take back control of Congress.

In his nomination speech, Moulton argued that the Democratic Party needed more than “incremental change” and needed to start anew.

“It’s time for the generation that grew up with the internet, and will have to live for decades with AI, to lead our way through it,” Moulton said.

Moulton only addressed his opponent briefly during his nomination speech, giving a passing nod on not waiting another six years for generational change and later calling on Markey to participate in multiple debates before the September primary. Currently, the two candidates have agreed to participate in one debate later this summer.

Markey, instead, took a more critical approach by attacking Moulton’s previous comments about transgender kids and accepting corporate PAC money.

“Massachusetts deserves better than a senator who scapegoats trans kids,” Markey said to loud cheers.

In 2024, Moulton caught flak from some members of his party for saying he didn’t want his daughters playing in sports against transgender girls. Critics said Moulton echoed Trump’s talking points against allowing transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.

Moulton has since said his intent with that statement “was to point out that, as a party, we need to be willing to have difficult conversations.”

Moulton, who enlisted in the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and served four tours of duty in Iraq, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. He briefly launched a 2020 presidential campaign, but he dropped that bid after a few months.

Markey served as a Massachusetts congressman for nearly 40 years before winning the Senate seat in 2013. He fended off a challenge in 2020 from Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Senate primary by turning to his progressive allies to overcome a challenge from a younger rival from America’s most famous political family.

The Massachusetts primary is Sept. 1.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday branded the federal judge who blocked his renovation of the Kennedy Center as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump posted about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center. Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project but did not clarify whether he would continue to defend it in court. Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The White House did not immediately clarify his position or say whether he would keep serving as the center’s board chairman.

Trump suggested that Cooper’s wife, lawyer Amy Jeffress, was to blame in part for the ruling. The president noted that Jeffress, a partner at the Hecker Fink law firm, is a former federal prosecutor who served as a counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder during the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama. Cooper was nominated for the bench by Obama.

Trump also noted that Hecker Fink is representing former President Joe Biden in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts from the Democrat’s interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained in an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice president.

Trump said that the Kennedy Center, named for the late Democratic president and opened in 1971, was “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” and that the ”new Building would have been incomparable.”

Cooper said in his ruling that the center board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years. Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

The judge also found that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said. Cooper ordered that Trump’s name be removed within two weeks.

Trump on Saturday said it was the board, not him, that added the Trump name to the center. “They thought it would be good for this dying Institution,” he wrote.

Trump, in his post, also noted that Jeffress’ firm represented E. Jean Carroll, the longtime advice columnist whose claims against Trump won her a $5 million award in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation after a jury agreed that Trump sexually abused her in a New York department store dressing room in 1996. Another jury in 2024 awarded Carroll an additional $83 million for defamation. Both awards are under appeal.

Jeffress did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge in Florida said she will review a deal between the Justice Department and President Donald Trump to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, intensifying scrutiny of the heavily criticized agreement.

Trump filed the lawsuit against his own government over an alleged mishandling of his tax records that resulted in leaks to the media. The proposed agreement would create a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of political “weaponization.”

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered Trump’s lawyers on Friday to respond by June 12 to a motion filed by 35 retired federal judges alleging that the settlement “is a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the court” and to address the question of whether the case should be reopened over the contention the suit was the result of “deception” by Trump and the government.

Following the settlement, Trump moved to dismiss the lawsuit in a bid to prevent any judicial scrutiny of the deal.

Williams initially granted that dismissal on May 18, but her new order said the “court is empowered to investigate serious misconduct.”

It is unusual for a judge to order the government to respond to a motion after a case has been dismissed. If the judge reopens the case, she could order a hearing or take further action.

The retired judges said the settlement, which was never placed before the court, raises profound questions about Trump and the government’s actions “and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice.”

Separately, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from setting up the “Anti-Weaponization Fund”. Brinkema’s order will remain in effect at least until ​June 12.

The fund spurred a backlash, even from some lawmakers in Trump’s Republican Party, who expressed anger that some people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, could receive taxpayer-funded payouts. It was derided by some critics as a “slush fund.”

The settlement also would bar the IRS from pursuing any audits into past ​tax claims for Trump, his relatives ​and his companies for any tax returns filed before May 18 or for ‌any ⁠matters “that were raised or could have been raised.”

Legal experts described the arrangement as highly unusual both because of the nature of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and because funds of this scale typically are either created by an act of Congress or supervised by a court.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Nia Williams)

ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a judge to recuse herself in a fight over Georgia election records, arguing that she attended an event honoring Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Donald Trump, raising questions about the judge’s ability to be impartial.

A federal judge in 11th Judicial Circuit received a “private reprimand” after a court investigation found that the judge had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event and then initially lied to deny the allegations.

The court’s investigation did not publicly identify the judge or the court location within the 11th Circuit’s jurisdiction, which includes Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The Justice Department is relying on media reports that identify U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross in Atlanta as the judge in question.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the judge’s identity. A person who answered the phone in Ross’ chambers Friday said the judge was unavailable and referred questions about the allegations to the court’s media office which said, “Judge Ross has no comment right now.” The media office did not immediately respond Saturday to a second email seeking comment about the Justice Department motion seeking Ross’ recusal.

Federal judges are appointed for life but can be subject to disciplinary action, including censure, public or private reprimands and temporary withholding of cases. They can only be removed through impeachment by Congress.

Ross was nominated in January 2014 by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and she was confirmed by the Senate in November of that year. She had previously served as a state court judge in DeKalb County, which includes a small part of the city of Atlanta, since 2011. Prior to taking the bench, she had worked as a state and federal prosecutor, mostly in Atlanta, for more than a decade.

Ross is overseeing the election records case filed by the Justice Department against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The Justice Department has sued multiple states seeking statewide voter lists. Raffensperger has said that Georgia law prohibits the release of voters’ confidential personal information unless certain qualifications are met and that the federal government hadn’t met those conditions. He has said that he sent the public part of the voter roll to the Justice Department in December.

Ross has scheduled a hearing in the case for Wednesday, though the Justice Department has asked to delay that hearing because of its request for the judge to recuse herself.

In the disciplinary case against the unnamed federal judge, the Judicial Council of the 11th Circuit chose in a February order to impose a private reprimand that kept the judge’s name secret. The Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States on May 22 affirmed that order.

An investigation report attached to the order says the judge went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign. The judge acknowledged having gone to the event to visit with former colleagues in the district attorney’s office at a private mixer but said it was held in the same place but was separated from the prosecutor’s victory party. The investigative committee found that the mixer was part of the larger partisan event that was sponsored by the district attorney’s campaign or donors and that the judge should not have attended the event.

Ross previously worked in the Fulton County district attorney’s office and overlapped with Willis there before Willis was district attorney.

Willis began investigating Trump and others for possible interference in the 2020 election in Fulton County soon after becoming district attorney in January 2021. Among the things she looked at was a January 2021 phone call in which Trump urged Raffensperger to help “find” the votes needed to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.

Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That case was ultimately dismissed in November after an appeals court found an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with the outside lawyer she had hired to lead the prosecution.

“A judge who attended a party celebrating the election of a Democrat best known for prosecuting a Republican President for alleged election interference cannot then preside over a case concerning that President’s efforts to ensure election integrity,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in their filing Friday.

The Justice Department argued that any “objective reasonable observer” would see Ross’ presence at Willis’ election night party as an endorsement of her election and her actions in office.

“If Judge Ross is indeed the Subject Judge, that conduct gives rise to an appearance of bias, which requires Judge Ross to recuse herself from this election-related case,” the Justice Department filing says.

The Justice Department filing makes passing mention of the allegations of improper sexual activity with a police officer in the judge’s chambers and the subsequent false statements the judge made to deny those allegations, but says “those are not the subject of this Motion.”

Separately, the Atlanta Police Department has said it has opened an investigation to determine whether the “high-ranking law enforcement officer” found to have had sex with a federal judge in the judge’s chambers is a member of their department.

WESTFIELD, N.J. (AP) — When New Jersey voters gathered this week to talk with a state lawmaker about affordable housing and new data centers, there was something else on their mind, too. Where is their congressman, Republican Tom Kean Jr.?

“What’s the word?” Steve McCabe, an 80-year-old retired lawyer, asked Jon Bramnick, a GOP state senator.

Bramnick had no answer for Kean’s unexplained medical absence that has stretched over nearly three months. But he told the audience how Kean hated to miss votes when they served together in the Legislature, even if that meant driving through a snowstorm.

“I said, ‘Tom, we should really turn around,’” he recalled.

Now Kean has missed more than 100 votes in Congress, and he has not been spotted in Washington or in his district. It is a political mystery with potentially national consequences: Kean represents a district that is among Democrats’ top targets as they try to retake control of Congress.

Kean’s office insists he is still running for reelection. He is not facing any challengers in Tuesday’s primary while several Democrats are running for their party’s nomination.

Harrison Neely, Kean’s campaign consultant, said the congressman was dealing with a medical emergency. He promised that Kean would be transparent about the issue and would return to a full schedule “very soon.”

“This was an emergency, you don’t get to plan these,” Neely said. “There’s no good timing for this.”

To Bramnick, it seems like it must be something serious.

“For him not to be there, that’s a big deal,” he said.

Kean represents the 7th Congressional District, a mix of suburbs and small towns. It includes President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course.

Despite being redrawn after the most recent census in 2021 to become more favorable to Republicans, the district has seesawed between the parties in each of the last two midterm elections. Republican Leonard Lance lost to Democrat Tom Malinowski in 2018. Malinowski lost to Kean in 2022.

Kean’s last vote in the House was March 5. Since then his absence has drawn escalating attention.

“We’re expecting him back here soon,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., recently. “He’s going to be fully transparent.”

Kean comes from a storied political family. His father served as governor. An ancestor was New Jersey’s first leader after the United States declared independence.

The New Jersey Globe, a local political website, said it received a call from Kean this month. He did not explain his condition, only that “my doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery.”

McCabe, the voter who asked Bramnick about Kean, said he wanted an update after reading the news about the congressman’s absence.

“I hope he’s not sick,” he said.

Bruce Paterson, a 75-year-old retired engineer from Garwood, described himself as a “regular Democrat, not like the crazy Democrats they have today.” He attended the town hall with Bramnick and plans to support Kean in the general election.

“I hope he comes back,” he said. “I mean, will I vote for him? Probably only because we need a nice balance” in a state otherwise dominated by Democrats.

Another voter asked Bramnick if Kean steps down after Tuesday’s primary whether he would accept the Republican nomination for the 7th District. If that were to happen, party leaders in the district’s counties would hold a convention to choose a replacement.

Bramnick repeatedly noted Kean is running for reelection and questioned whether his own candidacy would be a good fit in today’s Republican Party. While Bramnick has criticized Trump, including during Bramnick’s failed campaign for governor last year, Kean has embraced the president and features his endorsement prominently on social media accounts.

“I’m not considered the biggest fan of Donald Trump,” Bramnick said. “I don’t think that the Republican Party is interested in sending someone to Washington that may vote yes or no depending on how I feel about the issue.”

Some Democrats running in the primary have criticized Kean over the failure to tell constituents about what is going on.

“Tom Kean disappeared from the job,” said Michael Roth, a former Small Business Administration official.

Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy pilot also in the race, wished Kean a speedy recovery but criticized his record in Congress, including the battle over money for a new railway tunnel connecting New Jersey with New York City.

“He was nowhere to be found when funding got cut for the Gateway Tunnel, which is a critical infrastructure project in our district,” she said.

Candidates Tina Shah, an intensive care unit doctor, and Brian Varela, a marketing agency founder, have also been critical of Kean during debates.

Kean, who has a cash advantage at this point over his potential Democratic opponents, still has time before the November election to connect with voters, said Benjamin Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship.

“The issue is not going to be that he was out for a hundred plus votes in the spring,” he said. “The question is really, how effective is he going to get once he returns?”

WASHINGTON (AP) — David Johnston was a licensed attorney when he illegally entered the Capitol with a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than five years later, the South Carolina man is offering to help fellow “J6ers” apply for payouts from the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8 billion new fund for people claiming to be victims of a weaponized government.

He’ll do it for a 10% cut of any award, capped at $5,000 apiece.

“I think the narrative is changing” about how the history of that day is being told, Johnston said in a video he posted to social media. “I think good things are happening for us.”

Hundreds of Trump loyalists pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol, admitting under oath that they broke the law. Now pardoned by Trump, many hope to capitalize on their crimes by tapping into the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate the Republican president’s allies who believe they were politically prosecuted.

A bipartisan backlash to the fund and a legal roadblock have not dimmed the celebratory response from Jan. 6 rioters clamoring for a share of the taxpayer money. Some are staking claims even though the government has not established an application process and a judge has frozen the fund’s formation, at least temporarily.

The fund’s critics see it as another vehicle for Trump and his allies to whitewash the events of Jan. 6, retroactively justify the mob’s assault on a pillar of American democracy and reward some of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Jason Riddle, a military veteran from New Hampshire who was sentenced to 90 days behind bars after pleading guilty to riot charges, publicly rejected a pardon from Trump. Likewise, he said it would be “ridiculous” for him or any other Jan. 6 rioter to get government compensation.

“I’d love money, but I can’t accept that. That would bother me for the rest of my life,” he said. “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are or who we vote for. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

Plenty of other “J6ers” do not share Riddle’s reluctance.

A Florida man who posed for photos with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium argued on social media that he deserves to be compensated for the cost of his infamy. A rioter from New Jersey described by prosecutors as a Nazi sympathizer hailed the fund as “good news not just for J6ers but all victims of weaponization.” A Texas man who received a seven-year prison sentence for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk celebrated the fund as “payback” for “victims of Biden’s tyranny,” referring to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Oregon resident Pamela Hemphill, sentenced to 60 days in jail for her conviction, rejected a pardon from Trump but has drafted a written claim for compensation from the fund. Unlike scores of rioters who claim to be victims of a government weaponized by Democrats, Hemphill blames Trump for her legal troubles. Her claims letter says she is seeking $5 million in compensation.

“I wouldn’t have been through all of this if Trump hadn’t lied about the election being stolen,” she said during a telephone interview. “It’s a direct result of his lies that I was even there that day.”

It is an open question whether anyone convicted of a Capitol riot-related crime could be eligible for payments from a fund created to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has not ruled out that possibility. Blanche said there are no limits on who can apply, but he noted that the fund’s five commissioners — all yet to be named — will decide who deserves to be compensated and why, based on factors such as “what the person did, his sentence, how much time he was in jail.”

“That’s up to the commissioners,” Blanche told The Associated Press on Thursday when asked about his position on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants should be eligible for payments.

“You have to define something and then stick to it. That’s something I’ve been hesitant to try to do, because it’s very fact-intensive,” Blanche said. ”Me sitting here and talking in hypotheticals is something that I don’t think is fair to the process.”

It is unclear whether Congress would block payments to Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Republicans who are angry about the settlement have said they want to place parameters on the fund as part of a Department of Homeland Security spending bill. They abruptly left town earlier this month after a tense meeting with Blanche and will return on Monday with the situation unresolved.

A federal judge in Virginia has frozen the fund’s establishment and temporarily blocked any processing or paying of claims. The judge issued that ruling Friday in one of at least three lawsuits challenging the fund.

Brendan Ballou, a former prosecutor who tried several Jan. 6 cases before leaving the Department of Justice last year, sued on behalf of two police officers who helped defend the Capitol from the mob. Ballou views the fund’s creation as part of a broader Trump campaign to undermine democratic institutions and rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

“And if the president is successful in that effort, if he’s able to get people to either forget or condone that day, he knows that he can get people to accept any attack on democracy,” Ballou said.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump issued mass pardons and ordered the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 cases. Trump also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden.

The self-described “J6 community” isn’t the only pro-Trump constituency angling for cuts of the money.

Meshawn Maddock, who was charged as being a fake elector for Trump in Michigan before a judge dismissed the case last year, said she and her husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, “absolutely” plan on making a claim. She believes the fund’s use of taxpayer money is justified because it “paid for the prosecution and investigation of the years that I was being hunted down.”

“I want vengeance and I want retribution,” Maddock said.

Trump’s campaign to recast Jan. 6 as a peaceful protest seems to have emboldened many convicted rioters.

Johnston’s eagerness to help other Capitol rioters with claims contrasts with his remorse at sentencing in 2022. He apologized for his “terrible lapse in judgment” before a judge sentenced him to three weeks in jail and three months of home detention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

“It was a dumb, dumb thing to do,” Johnston told the judge. “I am 100% responsible for what I did that day.”

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Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Mary Claire Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The end of California’s chaotic primary season for governor and Los Angeles mayor was approaching as leading candidates rushed to deliver their closing arguments days before voting concludes on Tuesday.

Former U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra has called for “hot competence summer” in his bid for governor, promoting his decades of public service as evidence he has what it takes to be California’s next governor.

Republican Steve Hilton pledged an end to a “bloated, nanny-state bureaucracy” during remarks outside the state Capitol on Wednesday.

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer told reporters this week in Berkeley, California, that he has made it his life’s work to advance progressive causes, a mission he’ll bring to Sacramento.

They are seeking to stand out in a field of roughly 60 names on a single gubernatorial ballot, regardless of party, under California’s top-two primary system. The two candidates who receive the most votes Tuesday will face off in the general election to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who can’t seek a third term.

The crowded race includes Democrats Becerra, Steyer, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose. Hilton, a former Fox News host backed by President Donald Trump, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are the most prominent Republicans in the race.

As of Friday afternoon, 13% of voters had cast their ballots. That included 13% of Democrats and 18% of Republicans, according to a tracker by Democratic strategist Paul Mitchell. The breakdown is unusual because Democrats in recent years have tended to vote early while many Republicans wait until Election Day.

Some Democrats have been waiting to cast their ballots to see if a candidate breaks away from the pack in the final days, or because they are unimpressed with the crowded field.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass is vying for reelection under a cloud of residents’ displeasure over the direction of the city, and has several stops planned Saturday to try and pull ahead of her competitors.

Those include Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican who gained a name on the reality TV show “The Hills,” and Nithya Raman, a progressive city councilmember. The race is officially nonpartisan.

The contenders have been traveling across the state that includes roughly 23 million registered voters as they seek an edge over rivals. Becerra, Hilton, Steyer and Bianco will all be in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. Fresno and Los Angeles have also been popular campaign stops.

Becerra has been highlighting the more than 35 years he’s spent in state and federal office.

“This is not a place for on-the-job training,” he said on a podcast hosted by political commentator Ana Navarro. “You better know what you’re doing.”

He’ll hit a text-banking event with Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta in San Francisco and rally with the Service Employees International Union in San Jose.

Hilton has been selling himself as someone who would bring a fresh set of eyes to state government, reduce regulations, and bring down housing and energy costs. He thinks it’ll be a unifying message, he told reporters this week in Sacramento.

“It’s not ideological,” Hilton said. “It’s just simple, practical commonsense — $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half.”

Hilton will host a town hall in Silicon Valley on Saturday night, and he is making a social media pitch for Republican voters to rally around himself, not Bianco, to ensure they have a shot in the top two.

Hilton has been cautious not to emphasize Trump’s endorsement. If he advances to the November election, he will need to appeal to voters outside his party to win in the Democrat-dominated state that hasn’t had a Republican governor since 2011.

Steyer, a self-described “billionaire who wants to tax other billionaires,” said the race was a contest between three candidates: himself, Hilton and Becerra. Steyer has described Hilton as “a hard-right Republican who’s endorsed by Donald Trump.”

Steyer on Saturday focused several social media posts on Becerra, repeating an argument he recently told a crowd of supporters at a sports bar in Berkeley. Becerra, “to my surprise, is a corporate Democrat,” he said, referencing Becerra’s acceptance of campaign contributions from Chevron.

“And the third person’s me,” he said. “And I am running because Californians can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Steyer’s headed to a campaign rally Saturday in San Francisco to put a finer point on his message to voters.

Mahan, meanwhile, will mingle with voters in Los Angeles, Porter will give a speech in Orange County, and Bianco will lay out his vision at a church in San Jose.

Bass is pursuing her second term after a tumultuous first, which included devastating wildfires and a rebuilding process that critics say is too slow.

The mayor has focused her reelection on the progress that has been made, such a decrease in street homelessness, but she says there is more work to do.

Pratt, one of Bass’ opponents, lost his home in the wildfires, and is running a buzzy, social media driven campaign as a populist outsider with promises to rid the city of disorder and dysfunction.

Nithya Raman is campaigning on a more progressive platform, partly focused on affordability and infrastructure. Both Raman and Pratt have attacked Bass for her response to the wildfires, though their recent posts have been directed at each other.

A November runoff appears likely because there are more than a dozen names on the ballot.

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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea in Berkeley, California, contributed to this report.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Democrats say they want to vote in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate primary for the candidate who gives the party its best chance to flip a Republican-held seat in November.

Some just haven’t decided which of the two state lawmakers in the race fits the bill.

“I am having a lot of trouble,” said Mike Lazere, a 65-year-old Democrat who always votes on Election Day.

State Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls are seeking the nomination for the seat held by retiring Sen. Joni Ernst in the state where Republicans have an advantage but Democrats think they could have a chance.

It means the primary choice carries high stakes for Iowa’s Democratic voters, who haven’t had many recent examples of successful statewide candidates to help guide their decision. The last Democrat to win federal office statewide was President Barack Obama in 2012. All six members of the federal delegation are Republicans, and the GOP has had a statehouse trifecta for nearly a decade. Iowa’s most recent Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, was elected to his fifth term in 2008 and retired from office six years later.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson is running for the GOP nomination, and a Republican-aligned political group has already pledged $29 million to defend the seat.

Turek and Wahls say the differences between them are clear, but voters still weighing their options disagree.

“They both have strong legislative records. They both have compelling stories. I think they both share my values,” Lazere said Thursday outside of the Ames public library, where Story County Democrats had just held their monthly meeting.

“Since they’re so close, I just want the candidate who is more likely to have a chance,” he said. “It’s an uphill battle, probably, in Iowa still.”

At the Des Moines Farmers’ Market last weekend, where both candidates waded through the crowds, Sundie Ruppert shouted her support for Turek as he passed by her tent, saying he had her vote.

Ruppert called the race an “embarrassment of riches,” something that’s been rare as of late. She said the two stand for “virtually everything the same,” so for her, it’s a matter of who can win the crossover support to get over the finish line in November.

Turek, a four-time wheelchair basketball Paralympian born with spina bifida, says his story of overcoming adversity and his politics appeal to independent and moderate Republican voters. He represents a state House district that supported President Donald Trump.

Turek said he’s laser-focused on securing a livable wage, health care access and drinkable water, not the culture-war issues that he said Republicans use to distract voters from the core problems they are facing.

“I’m not gonna get dragged down the rabbit hole of worrying about these distraction issues,” Turek said in an interview.

“I think that if we are going to win again in a state like Iowa, it is going be a message of economic populism,” he said. “It is going to be that we as a Democratic Party stand for the workers and for the middle class. That’s the way forward.”

Ruppert said she thinks general election voters are more likely to vote for Turek, even if they “have to hold their nose.”

“We’ve got to get the independents,” she said. “I do believe that Josh in a red district has better pull than Wahls.”

About 37 miles (60 kilometers) north in Ames on Thursday, Shellie Orngard said she’s heard that logic and doesn’t buy it.

Orngard said both are good people and strong candidates, but Wahls strikes her as “somebody with real character behind his convictions.”

“I think that whether you’re Democrat or Republican or independent, you appreciate authenticity and real values,” Orngard said. “I think Zach Wahls just seems to have the character that I feel he’s the person that I want to put my vote behind.”

Wahls says he’s the candidate willing to defy leadership in both parties, and he has criticized Turek for not rejecting Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer as caucus leader.

He says his anti-establishment message is winning back the working-class voters, especially common across eastern Iowa, who supported Obama before they pivoted to Trump.

“We’re not just talking about building a coalition that can win in November, we are already doing it,” he said. “These are voters who are not hardcore MAGA Trump Republicans. A lot of them are just really frustrated with both parties, they don’t trust Washington, they don’t trust the establishment.”

“And what we hear from people all the time is, ‘Even if we don’t agree on every issue, if you are willing to take them on, you’ve got my vote,’” Wahls said.

Iowa has shifted considerably since Obama’s win in 2012, voting for Trump in the last three presidential elections. Democrats lag Republicans by roughly 200,000 registered voters statewide.

Rob Sand, state auditor and candidate for governor, was the only Democrat to win statewide in 2022.

Nearly 30,000 Democrats have already cast their ballots as of Friday, according to data from the secretary of state’s office. Still, in Ellston on Wednesday, many of the two dozen southwest Iowa Democrats waiting to hear from Turek said they’d rely on a gut feeling.

“As far as I’m concerned, Ashley Hinson has got to be beat,” said Lynne Wallace, a 67-year-old from Mount Ayr. The staunch Democrat said she’d support either candidate in the general election, already eager to make calls and knock on doors, but added that she’s got “shaky faith” that either Democrat can pull it off.

Lois Rose, 77, and her 79-year-old husband, John, said at the Des Moines farmers’ market that they might not vote in the primary at all since they, so far, hadn’t been able to make up their minds on whether one candidate is stronger than the other.

She suggested the pair could also coordinate their votes, each casting a ballot for one of the two. John liked the idea.

“They’re both so qualified,” said Lois Rose of West Des Moines. “They’re both very genuine, hence the difficulty.”

By Bo Erickson

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump remains in excellent health, his physician said in a memo released by the White House on Friday, citing results from an examination this week that indicated the 79-year-old continues to experience “slight lower leg swelling” and “benign” hand bruising.

“President Trump remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function,” Dr. Sean Barbabella wrote in the Tuesday memo, released late in the evening on Friday, adding Trump is “fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.”

Trump’s Tuesday visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his third in 13 months, was closely watched as the White House in the past year had to detail several of the president’s health conditions after pictures revealed at times swollen ankles, bruised hands and a blotchy neck.

Shortly after the visit, Trump said “everything checked out perfectly.”

Barbabella’s memo cited Trump’s “slight lower leg swelling … with improvement from last year” and continued hand bruising, described as “common,” “benign” and “consistent with minor soft tissue irritation related to frequent handshaking in the setting of aspirin use for cardiovascular prevention.”

The memo did not address the reason for skin treatment in March on the president’s neck and did not indicate he underwent another magnetic resonance imaging exam, as he did in October.

Trump, who turns 80 in June and was the oldest person to assume the presidency, frequently casts himself as more energetic and fitter than Joe Biden, his Democratic predecessor, who left office last year at age 82 after facing questions about his fitness for the job.

Friday’s memo said the president’s overall cardiac function is normal and that “a comprehensive neurological examination demonstrated normal mental status,” including screenings for depression and anxiety.

“Preventive counseling was provided, including guidance on diet, recommendation to take a low-dose aspirin, increased physical activity, and continued weight loss,” the memo said.

Trump is 6 feet 3 inches tall (190 cm) and weighs 238 pounds (108 kg), the memo added.

(Reporting by Bo Erickson in Washington and Disha Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)