WASHINGTON — The infighting and backstabbing that plagued President Donald Trump’s first term have returned as a threat to his second, with deepening fissures over trade, national security and questions of personal loyalty.

The latest turmoil threatens to engulf the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out top advisers and faces fresh controversy over sharing sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen outside of classified channels. A former Pentagon spokesperson who was ousted last week wrote in Politico that Trump should fire Hegseth for presiding over a “full-blown meltdown.”

The interpersonal drama is not — at least yet — a dominant plot line of Trump’s return to the White House. But its reemergence after a period of relative discipline in his ranks reflects a turbulent management style that has been suppressed or papered over, not reformed.

Trump’s national security team was recently rattled by an Oval Office visit from Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has been questioning his staff’s trustworthiness. The Republican president fired some of the officials, emboldening Loomer to continue scrutinizing people across the administration.

In an interview with independent journalist Tara Palmeri released on Monday, Loomer mocked the idea that the White House is “one big happy family.”

“The advisers don’t get along with each other,” she said. “The heads of agencies don’t get along with each other.”

Much of the tension is connected to Trump’s determination to use tariffs to rebalance the global economy, with officials often contradicting each other and occasionally turning to insults. Trump adviser Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur whose companies could suffer from higher costs brought on by import taxes, sharply criticized Peter Navarro, Trump’s top counselor on trade, as “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the idea of growing dissension within the administration, saying there are “far more examples of the president’s team working together enthusiastically and collaboratively to advance the administration’s goals.”

“The numbers and results of this administration speak for themselves,” she said. “The president and his team are getting work done.”

Trump has always had a high tolerance for chaos, shunning traditional policy deliberations to entertain divergent opinions and viewing unpredictability as a negotiating tool. He’s spent years fostering a competitive atmosphere among his staff members, who are often chosen for their devotion and penchant for aggression.

But now the increasing strife underscores the risks for more turmoil in the months ahead, as Trump presses forward with a dramatic overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, international trade, foreign policy and more.

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term before writing a tell-all book critical of the president’s inner circle, said the drama reflects the lack of a consistent ideology and the inexperience of many administration officials.

“The only thing they have in common is the belief that they should show personal fealty to Trump,” Bolton said. “That got them the job. That may in fact keep them in the job. But it shows how fundamentally unserious they are.”

The situation is a test for Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, who helped run Trump’s presidential campaign last year. She earned a reputation for imposing an unusual level of order on Trump’s chaotic orbit — though she carefully avoided trying to control Trump or his impulses — and he praised her as “the ice maiden.”

During Trump’s first term, he had four chiefs of staff — one of them serving in an acting capacity for more than a year. The second, former U.S. Marine Gen. John Kelly, became a sharp critic of the president after he left the job, describing him as a fascist during the 2024 election.

With his new administration, Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists, and he’s been reluctant to throw anyone overboard in response to negative coverage from the mainstream media, which he considers to be an enemy. Allies say the hesitance to make personnel changes in this term is meant to deny giving a win to critics, even if it means leaving troubled officials in place.

On Monday, the president brushed off reports that Hegseth participated in a second group chat to talk about pending airstrikes in Yemen last month. The first chat, which used the encrypted messaging application Signal, involved top administration officials as well as the editor of The Atlantic, who was accidentally included in the discussion.

The second, first reported by The New York Times on Sunday, included Hegseth’s wife, who does not have a government job, and his brother and his personal lawyer, both of whom work at the Pentagon.

“Same old stuff,” Trump said when reporters questioned him about it during the White House Easter egg roll. He said Hegseth is “doing a great job” and “it’s just fake news.”

Leavitt, in an appearance on Fox News Channel, defended Hegseth with a swipe at the people who work for him.

“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and against the monumental change that you are trying to implement,” she said. Leavitt’s comment was shared by an official Defense Department social media account.

However, some of those speaking out were among Hegseth’s top advisers.

John Ullyot, who served as a Pentagon spokesperson until he was asked to resign, wrote in Politico that “it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.” He added that “the president deserves better” and “many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly” if Hegseth is fired.

The disorder extends through the Pentagon’s senior ranks. Three officials — Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick — were recently pushed out, and they issued a statement saying people “have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”

Hegseth did not deny the reports about his use of Signal. But he added: “What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out.”

Trump’s tariff plans have also been a source of stress inside the administration, often leading to mixed messages and policy confusion. Navarro insisted there weren’t going to be any negotiations, contradicting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s insistence that import taxes were about strengthening the White House’s negotiating position.

The president partially retreated from his plans, but not before Navarro and Musk began openly feuding. Navarro said Musk was “protecting his own interests” by opposing tariffs, and he described Musk’s electric automaker Tesla as a “car assembler” that’s dependent on importing parts from overseas.

Musk, who advises Trump on ways to downsize the federal bureaucracy, responded by saying that Navarro was “truly a moron.”

Leavitt downplayed the dispute by saying “boys will be boys.”

“We will let their public sparring continue,” she told reporters. “And you guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history.”

Trump often appears more interested in fealty than veracity. During part of last year’s campaign, he traveled with Loomer, who has a history of making racist attacks on Trump’s opponents and once claimed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an inside job.

After Trump won, Loomer became frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to help vet administration personnel. She eventually secured an Oval Office meeting with the president, bringing research on national security officials whom she believed were disloyal.

After Trump fired some of them, Loomer has continued her work. Last week, she accused Bessent of inviting a “Trump hater” to work with him on financial literacy efforts.

“I am going to personally tell President Trump and personally show him these receipts,” Loomer wrote on social media, adding “shame on” Bessent.

Musk shared her post and chimed in with his support — “troubling,” he wrote.

WASHINGTON — Second lady Usha Vance plans a trip to Greenland, the self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark that President Donald Trump has suggested the United States should take control over.

Vance will leave on Thursday and return Saturday, according to her office. Vance and one of her three children will be part of a U.S. delegation set to “visit historical sites, learn about Greenlandic heritage, and attend the Avannaata Qimussersu, Greenland’s national dogsled race.”

The race features around 37 mushers and 444 dogs and offers what Vance’s office described as a “remarkable display of speed, skill, and teamwork. The statement said that Vance and the delegation “are excited to witness this monumental race and celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity.”

Media outlets in Greenland and Denmark reported that during her trip this week, Vance would be accompanied by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz. The White House and the National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump had mused during his first term about buying the world’s largest island, even as Copenhagen, a NATO ally, insisted it wasn’t for sale.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. will come to control Greenland while insisting he supports the idea for strategic national security reasons — not with an eye toward American expansionism.

“I think we will have it,” Trump said of Greenland shortly after beginning his second term on Jan. 20. The U.S. already has a military base on Greenland and the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., visited it in January.

During a recent Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump said “Denmark’s very far away” from Greenland, and questioned whether that country still had a right to claim the world’s largest island as part of its kingdom.

“A boat landed there 200 years ago or something. And they say they have rights to it,” Trump said. “I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually.”

All five parties in Greenland’s parliament issued a joint statement last week rejecting Trump’s remarks. Denmark has recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing.

Beyond his focus on Greenland, Trump has refused to rule out military intervention in Panama to retake that country’s canal, said that Canada should be America’s 51st state and suggested that U.S. interests could assume control of the war-torn Gaza Strip from Israel and redevelop it as a “Riviera”-like seaside resort.

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Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, and said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.

Rubio made the announcement in a post on X. It marked one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.

Rubio in the post thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.

President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all of the tens of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and development work abroad. Trump charged that much of foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.

Rubio’s social media post Monday said that review was now “officially ending,” with some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs eliminated.

Those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio wrote.

“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping … to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said. Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally-funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’ approval.

The State Department in one of multiple lawsuits it is battling over its rapid shutdown of USAID had said earlier this month it was killing more than 90% of USAID programs. Rubio gave no explanation for why his number was lower, and no details of what programs were spared or how the State Department would run them.

The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump’s order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced U.S. national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances and building goodwill.

In the weeks after Trump’s order, one of his appointees and transition team members, Pete Marocco, and Musk pulled USAID staff around the world off the job through forced leaves and firings, shut down USAID payments overnight and terminated aid and development contracts by the thousands.

Contractors and staffers running efforts ranging from epidemic control to famine prevention to job and democracy training stopped work. Aid groups and other USAID partners laid off tens of thousands of their workers in the U.S. and abroad.

Lawsuits brought by some of the nonprofit groups and businesses that had partnered with USAID say the form-letter contract terminations purge eliminated even programs that Rubio had said he wanted to save, violated the contract terms and stiffed aid groups and businesses of billions of dollars.

The shutdown has left many USAID staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting U.S.-paid back payments and travel expenses back home.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has paused offensive cyberoperations against Russia by U.S. Cyber Command, rolling back some efforts to contend with a key adversary even as national security experts call for the U.S. to expand those capabilities.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, on Monday confirmed the pause.

Hegseth’s decision does not affect cyberoperations conducted by other agencies, including the CIA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But the Trump administration also has rolled back other efforts at the FBI and other agencies related to countering digital and cyber threats.

The Pentagon decision, which was first reported by The Record, comes as many national security and cybersecurity experts have urged greater investments in cyber defense and offense, particularly as China and Russia have sought to interfere with the nation’s economy, elections and security.

Republican lawmakers and national security experts have all called for a greater offensive posture. During his Senate confirmation hearing this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said America’s rivals have shown that they believe cyberespionage — retrieving sensitive information and disrupting American business and infrastructure — to be an essential weapon of the modern arsenal.

“I want us to have all of the tools necessary to go on offense against our adversaries in the cyber community,” Ratcliffe said.

Cyber Command oversees and coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity work and is known as America’s first line of defense in cyberspace. It also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.

Hegseth’s directive arrived before Friday’s dustup between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. It wasn’t clear if the pause was tied to any negotiating tactic by the Trump administration to push Moscow into a peace deal with Ukraine.

Trump has vowed to end the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and on Monday he slammed Zelenskyy for suggesting the end to the conflict was “far away.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Hegseth’s order.

Cyber warfare is cheaper than traditional military force, can be carried out covertly and doesn’t carry the same risk of escalation or retaliation, making it an increasingly popular tool for nations that want to contend with the U.S. but lack the traditional economic or military might, according to Snehal Antani, CEO of Horizon3.ai, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm founded by former national security officers.

Cyberespionage can allow adversaries to steal competitive secrets from American companies, obtain sensitive intelligence or disrupt supply chains or the systems that manage dams, water plants, traffic systems, private companies, governments and hospitals.

The internet has created new battlefields, too, as nations like Russia and China use disinformation and propaganda to undermine their opponents.

Artificial intelligence now makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone — be it a foreign nation like Russia, China or North Korea or criminal networks — to step up their cybergame at scale, Antani said. Fixing code, translating disinformation or identifying network vulnerabilities once required a human — now AI can do much of it faster.

“We are entering this era of cyber-enabled economic warfare that is at the nation-state level,” Antani said. “We’re in this really challenging era where offense is significantly better than defense, and it’s going to take a while for defense to catch up.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi also has disbanded an FBI task force focused on foreign influence campaigns, like those Russia used to target U.S. elections in the past. And more than a dozen people who worked on election security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were put on leave.

These actions are leaving the U.S. vulnerable despite years of evidence that Russia is committed to continuing and expanding its cyber efforts, according to Liana Keesing, campaigns manager for technology reform at Issue One, a nonprofit that has studied technology’s impact on democracy.

“Instead of confronting this threat, the Trump administration has actively taken steps to make it easier for the Kremlin to interfere in our electoral processes,” Keesing said.

PARIS — JD Vance is stepping onto the world stage for the first time as U.S. vice president this week, using a high-profile artificial intelligence summit in France and a gathering of national security leaders in Germany to showcase Donald Trump’s more assertive approach to diplomacy.

The 40-year-old vice president, who was just 18 months into his tenure as a senator before joining Trump’s ticket, is expected, while in Paris, to push back on European efforts to tighten AI oversight while advocating for a more open, innovation-driven approach.

The AI summit has drawn world leaders, top tech executives, and policymakers to discuss artificial intelligence’s impact on global security, economics, and governance. High-profile attendees also include Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, signaling Beijing’s deep interest in shaping global AI standards. The event highlights a growing divide between the European Union and other players pushing for more regulations to make the fast-moving technology safer for the public, and the U.S., where the Trump administration has prioritized business-friendly policies and technological dominance.

Vance’s trip extends beyond Paris. Later this week, he will travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, where he has said he plans to push European allies to step up their commitments to NATO and Ukraine.

The summit will give some European leaders an introduction to Vance, who is making his first major overseas trip since taking office. He has signaled he will use the summit as a venue for candid discussions on AI policy and broader geopolitical issues.

“At the AI Summit, the main reason I’m going is actually to have some private conversations with the world leaders who are also going to be there,” Vance told Breitbart News. “I think there’s a lot that some of the leaders who are present at the AI summit could do to, frankly — bring the Russia-Ukraine conflict to a close, help us diplomatically there — and so we’re going to be focused on those meetings in France.”

Vance is expected to meet separately on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to a person familiar with planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet to be formally announced bilateral meetings.

Vance was joined by his wife Usha and their three children — Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel — for the trip to Europe. They were greeted in France on Monday morning by Manuel Valls, the minister for Overseas France, and the U.S. Embassy’s charge d’affaires, David McCawley.

On Tuesday, Vance will have a working lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron, with discussions on Ukraine and the Middle East on the agenda. Vance, like the U.S. president, has questioned U.S. spending on Ukraine and the broader approach to isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump promised to end the fighting within six months of taking office.

Vance also addressed what he views as a concerning trend in Europe regarding free speech, a topic he raised last year at the Munich Security Conference.

“Unfortunately, you’ve seen in Europe a really significant, and I think, frankly, an evil trend towards censorship,” he said. “And you hear a lot about America’s moral leadership. One of the things that America’s moral leadership is going to be about during President Trump’s term is free speech. We want people to be able to speak their minds, and we believe that free and open debate is actually a good thing. Unfortunately, a lot of our European friends have gone the wrong direction there.”

Vance is attending Munich again, where he may meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He plans to revisit themes he raised last year, including “to hit on” the need for NATO allies to take on a greater share of responsibility.

Leaders in Europe have been carefully watching Trump’s recent statements on threats to impose tariffs on the European Union, take control of Greenland and his suggestion that Palestinians clear out of Gaza once the fighting in the Israel-Hamas conflict ends — an idea that’s been flatly rejected by Arab allies.

The summit, which gathers major players such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, aims at fostering AI advances in sectors like health, education, environment and culture.

A global public-private partnership named “Current AI” will be launched to support large-scale initiatives that serve the general interest.

The Paris summit “is the first time we’ll have had such a broad international discussion in one place on the future of AI,” said Linda Griffin, vice president of public policy at Mozilla. “I see it as a norm-setting moment.”

Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, noted an opportunity to shape AI governance in a new direction by “moving away from this concentration of power amongst a handful of private actors and building this public interest AI instead.”

However, it remains unclear if the United States will support such initiatives.

“There’s a lot of complicated questions to resolve” around issues like the ability to control AI systems, Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis, founder of Google’s DeepMind research lab, said. “But also I think even more complicated are maybe the geopolitical questions about things like regulation.”

French organizers are also looking for the summit to ignite major investment announcements in Europe, positioning the region as a viable contender in an industry increasingly shaped by a growing U.S.-China rivalry.

France plans to announce AI private investments worth a total of 109 billion euros ($113 billion) over the coming years, Macron said, presenting it as “the equivalent” of Trump’s Stargate AI data centers project.

On the eve of the AI Summit, Macron posted a series of ‘deepfake’ videos of himself on Instagram, using artificial intelligence to manipulate his voice and image in various parodies—an effort he said was meant to spark debate on AI’s potential and risks.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun expressed opposition Monday to any moves to restrict access to AI tools. The release of DeepSeek has prompted calls in the U.S. Congress to limit its use for security reasons.

“We oppose drawing ideological lines and oppose overstretching national security concepts and politicizing economic and trade issues,” Guo said.

He said that China advocates for open-source AI technology and promotes the accessibility of AI services to share the benefits of artificial intelligence with all countries.

Modi is co-hosting the summit with Macron in an effort to involve more global actors in AI development and prevent the sector from becoming a U.S.-China battle.

India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, stressed the need for equitable access to AI to avoid “perpetuating a digital divide that is already existing across the world.”

Macron will also travel on Wednesday with Modi to the southern French port city of Marseille to inaugurate an Indian Consulate there and visit the ITER nuclear research site.

France has become a key defense partner for India, with talks underway on New Delhi purchasing 26 Rafale fighter jets and three Scorpene submarines. Officials in India said that discussions are at the final phase and the deal could be inked in a few weeks.

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Kelvin Chan and Angela Charlton in Paris, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, and Aijaz Hussain in New Delhi, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — As Congress convenes amid a winter storm to certify President-elect Donald Trump ‘s election, the legacy of Jan. 6 hangs over the proceedings with an extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time, and is legitimately returning to power.

Lawmakers will gather noontime Monday under the tightest national security level possible. Layers of tall black fencing flank the U.S. Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago, when a defeated Trump sent his mob to “fight like hell” in what became the most gruesome attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years.

No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress are expected this time. Republicans from the highest levels of power who challenged the 2020 election results when Trump lost to President Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.

And Democrats frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accept the choice of the American voters. Even the threat of a massive snowstorm barreling down on the region wasn’t expected to interfere with Jan. 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.

“Whether we’re in a blizzard or not, we are going to be in that chamber making sure this is done,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who helped lead Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, said Sunday on Fox News.

The day’s return to a U.S. tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies that he lost four years ago, muses about staying beyond the Constitution’s two-term White House limit and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege.

What’s unclear is if Jan. 6, 2021 was the anomaly, the year Americans violently attacked their own government, or if this year’s expected calm becomes the outlier. The U.S. is struggling to cope with its political and cultural differences at a time when democracy worldwide is threatened. Trump calls Jan. 6, 2021 a “day of love.”

“We should not be lulled into complacency,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the cross-ideological nonprofit Protect Democracy.

He and others have warned that it is historically unprecedented for U.S. voters to do what they did in November, reelecting Trump after he publicly refused to step aside last time. Returning to power an emboldened leader who has demonstrated his unwillingness to give it up “is an unprecedentedly dangerous move for a free country to voluntarily take,” Bassin said.

Biden, speaking Sunday at events at the White House, called Jan. 6, 2021 “one of the toughest days in American history.”

“We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power,” Biden said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, “was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now.”

Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, will come together to affirm the choice of Americans.

With pomp and tradition, the day is expected to unfold as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.

Senators will walk across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.

Harris will preside over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certify her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.

She will stand at the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly rushed to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers fumbled to put on gas masks and flee, and shots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the chamber.

There are new procedural rules in place in the aftermath of what happened four years ago, when Republicans parroting Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent challenged the results their own states had certified.

Under changes to the Electoral Count Act, it now requires one-fifth of lawmakers, instead of just one in each chamber, to raise any objections to election results. With security as tight as it is for the Super Bowl or the Olympics, law enforcement is on high alert for intruders. No tourists will be allowed.

But none of that is expected to be necessary.

Republicans, who met with Trump behind closed doors at the White House before Jan. 6, 2021 to craft a complex plan to challenge his election defeat, have accepted his win this time.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the House floor challenge in 2021, said people at the time were so astonished by the election’s outcome and there were “lots of claims and allegations.”

This time, he said, “I think the win was so decisive…. It stifled most of that.”

Democrats, who have raised symbolic objections in the past, including during the disputed 2000 election that Gore lost to George W. Bush and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, have no intention of objecting. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said the Democratic Party is not “infested” with election denialism.

“There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said on the first day of the new Congress, to applause from Democrats in the chamber.

“You see, one should love America when you win and when you lose. That’s the patriotic thing to do,” Jeffries said.

Last time, far-right militias helped lead the mob to break into the Capitol in a war-zone-like scene. Officers have described being crushed and pepper-sprayed and beaten with Trump flag poles, “ slipping in other people’s blood.”

Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Many others faced prison, probation, home confinement or other penalties.

Those Republicans who engineered the legal challenges to Trump’s defeat still stand by their actions, celebrated in Trump circles, despite the grave costs to their personal and professional livelihoods.

Several including disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and indicted-but-pardoned Michael Flynn met over the weekend at Trump’s private club Mar-a-Lago for a film screening about the 2020 election.

Trump was impeached by the House on the charge of inciting an insurrection that day, but acquitted by the Senate. At the time, GOP leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for the siege but said his culpability was for the courts to decide.

Federal prosecutors subsequently issued a four-count indictment of Trump for working to overturn the election, including for conspiracy to defraud the United States, but special counsel Jack Smith was forced to pare back the case once the Supreme Court ruled that a president has broad immunity for actions taken in office.

Smith last month withdrew the case after Trump won reelection, adhering to Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.

Biden, in one of his outgoing acts, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who had been the chair and vice chair of the congressional committee that conducted an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump has said those who worked on the Jan. 6 committee should be locked up.

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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump doesn’t think much of Joe Biden’s foreign policy record. The Republican president-elect frequently casts the outgoing Democratic president as a feckless leader who shredded American credibility around the world during his four-year term.

But a funny thing happened on Trump’s way back to the White House: The Biden and Trump national security teams have come to an understanding that they have no choice but to work together as conflicts in Gaza, Syria and Ukraine have left a significant swath of the world on a knife’s edge.

It’s not clear how much common ground those teams have found as they navigate crises that threaten to cause more global upheaval as Trump prepares to settle back into the White House on Jan. 20, 2025.

“There is a deep conviction on the part of the incoming national security team that we are dealing with … and on our part, directed from President Biden, that it is our job, on behalf of the American people, to make sure this is a smooth transition,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a weekend appearance at a forum in California. “And we are committed to discharging that duty as relentlessly and faithfully as we possibly can.”

To be certain, Trump and his allies haven’t let up on their criticism of Biden, putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Biden and Democrats for the series of crises around the globe.

The president-elect says Biden is responsible for the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, arguing that policies under his watch led to Hamas and Russia becoming emboldened. And shortly before Syria’s Bashar al-Assad’s government collapsed last week, Trump blamed Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama, for failing to enforce his own “red line” in 2013 after Assad deployed chemical weapons that killed hundreds of civilians, and laying the groundwork for Islamic militants to establish a beachhead in the country.

But amid the hectoring of Biden, Trump team officials acknowledge that the Biden White House has worked diligently to keep Trump’s circle apprised and help ensure there is a smooth handoff on national security matters.

“For our adversaries out there that think this is a time of opportunity that they can play one administration off the other, they’re wrong, and we are — we are hand in glove,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said in a Fox News interview last month. “We are one team with the United States in this transition.”

While Trump rarely has a good word for the Democratic administration, there’s an appreciation in Trump world of how the Biden White House has gone about sharing critical national security information, according to a Trump transition official who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The coordination is precisely how lawmakers intended for incoming and outgoing administrations to conduct themselves during a handover when they bolstered federal support for transitions. It’s already the most substantive handoff process since 2009, aides to Biden and Trump acknowledged, surpassing Trump’s chaotic first takeover in 2017 and his wide refusal to cooperate with the incoming Biden team in 2021.

Trump’s pick to serve as special envoy to the Middle East, Florida real estate developer Steve Witkoff, consulted with Biden administration officials as he recently traveled to Mideast to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Sullivan, who was to travel to Israel on Wednesday for talks with Netanyahu, has in turn kept Waltz in the loop about the Biden administration’s efforts at getting a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza before Trump’s inauguration.

Biden administration officials say that the two national security teams have also closely coordinated on Ukraine and Syria, though they have provided scant detail on what that coordination has looked like.

“Let me put it this way: Nothing that we’re doing and nothing that we’re saying are coming as a surprise to the incoming team,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said. “They will decide for themselves what policies they might want to keep in place, what approaches they might want to continue and which ones they won’t.”

Trump made clear during his campaign that he would move to end the war in Ukraine quickly once he came to office. He called on Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this week to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine.

But the Biden White House has begun gently — and publicly — making the case for how continued support for Ukraine lines up with Trump’s priorities.

On Saturday, Sullivan pointed to comments made by Trump on social media to buttress the case that Biden’s push for continued support of Ukraine falls in line with the incoming president’s thinking.

Trump earlier that day had noted that Assad’s rule was collapsing because Russia “lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever.”

“Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success,” Trump said in the posting on Truth Social.

Sullivan underscored that Biden and Trump are in agreement that there should be no American boots on the ground in Syria and that the war in Ukraine was a major factor in Assad’s fall.

“I was a little bit struck by it — earlier in the post, he said part of the reason this is happening is because of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Sullivan said of Trump. “And I think he even referenced the sheer scale of the casualties that Russia has suffered in Ukraine, and for that reason, they’re not in a position to defend their client, Assad. And on that point, we’re in vigorous agreement.”

Two days later in Washington, Sullivan made the case that Trump should bolster the little-known U.S. International Development Finance Corporation that was created during the Republican’s first term.

The push for reauthorizing the foreign aid agency comes as Trump has promised to make massive cuts to the federal bureaucracy.

Trump signed into law the agency’s authority — tucked into a five-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration — to provide $60 billion in loans, loan guarantees and insurance to companies in developing nations.

Sullivan called the agency an effective tool for private-public partnerships, before allowing that “maybe I shouldn’t be the one” making the case “since I’m leaving, but I will give my advice anyway.”

“It was created as we’ve all noted, under the Trump administration,” Sullivan said in remarks at the agency’s annual conference. “It has been strengthened under the Biden administration. And as we look to DFC reauthorization next year, it has to remain a bipartisan priority.”

After Assad’s government fell, the Biden administration issued a warning to Iran not to speed up its nuclear program after one of its closest allies was toppled, declaring “that’ll never happen on our watch.” The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, hinted at coordination on the matter with the Trump team.

The official said there had been “good discussions” with the incoming administration on the matter and there was an expectation the same policy would carry over.

Biden has also approved a new national security memorandum that is meant to serve as a road map for the incoming Trump administration as it looks to counter growing cooperation between China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, the White House announced Wednesday.

Biden administration officials began developing the guidance this summer. It was shaped to be a document that could help the next administration build its approach from Day 1 on how it will go about dealing with the tightening relationships between the United States’ most prominent adversaries and competitors, according to two other senior administration officials.

One of those officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, sought to assure the incoming Trump team that the Biden White House effort “isn’t trying to box them in or tilt them toward one policy option or another.”

Instead, the official said, it’s about helping the next administration build “capacity” as it shapes its policies on some the most difficult foreign policies it will face.