2025

By Nathan Layne

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she had a great meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at his Florida resort and voiced optimism that they would find common ground despite their past clashes.

Bowser met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home for about 45 minutes on Monday, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said on Tuesday. The meeting was arranged at Bowser’s request, the spokesperson said.

The three-term Democratic mayor has had an adversarial relationship with Trump, a Republican who on the campaign trail threatened a federal takeover of Washington, a city he depicted as ineffectively managed and riddled with crime. 

Bowser said in a statement late on Monday that the two discussed their shared priorities for Trump’s second term, which begins with his inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20.

“President Trump and I both want Washington, DC to be the best, most beautiful city in the world and we want the capital city to reflect the strength of our nation,” Bowser said.

“We discussed areas for collaboration between local and federal government, especially around our federal workforce, underutilized federal buildings, parks and green spaces, and infrastructure,” she said.

Trump did not comment on the meeting, and a spokesperson for his transition team did not provide details. 

Bowser and Trump met in 2016 prior to his first inauguration, but their relationship was strained at times during his first term, flaring up in 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minnesota police officer who knelt on his neck.

At the height of the protests, Bowser declared a small but symbolic patch of land opposite the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and encouraged peaceful demonstrations while denouncing violence and looting.

When in May 2020 Trump threatened protesters who came near the White House with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” Bowser shot back with a comment calling Trump a “scared man” and accusing him of trying to divide the country.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump often derided Washington as poorly managed, taking aim at Bowser’s leadership. In a January 2024 speech in Las Vegas, he vowed to have the federal government grab control of Washington and “clean it up” so that it was “no longer a nightmare of murder and crime.”

While many U.S. cities saw a downturn in violent crime in 2023, Washington recorded 274 homicides, the highest level in more than two decades. Violent crime in the district has dropped sharply in 2024, however, with Metropolitan Police Department data showing there have been 190 homicides this year.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in West Palm Beach, Florida; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania court on Tuesday ruled 6-1 that the secretary of state has the authority to direct counties not to allow “unauthorized third party access” to voting machines or risk having those machines decertified and unable to be deployed for elections.

The Commonwealth Court said the Department of State does not have to reimburse counties when they decertify machines, a defeat for Fulton County in a dispute that arose after two Republican county commissioners permitted Wake Technology Services Inc. to examine and obtain data from Dominion voting machines in 2021.

That led the state elections agency to issue a directive against such third-party access based on concerns it could compromise security. Fulton’s machines were decertified as a result of the Wake TSI examination and the secretary of state was sued by the county as well as Republican county commissioners Randy Bunch and Stuart Ulsh.

Fulton had argued it had broad authority over the voting machines, while the secretary of state said that “would mean that every county board of elections can do whatever it wants” with electronic voting systems under their authority to inspect elections, “an absurd and unreasonable result,” wrote Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer for the majority.

She said a 1937 state election law gave county election boards broad power, but state lawmakers amended it “to give the secretary an important role in ensuring statewide consistency and safety” regarding electronic voting systems. The state and local power balance over elections and voting equipment, the majority said, helps “protect and provide for free and fair and secure elections.”

“There is no conflict between those provisions, and it is entirely possible — indeed necessary — for county boards of elections to fulfill their powers and duties while heeding the secretary’s report and directives,” Jubelirer wrote for the majority.

The Department of State issued a statement saying it was pleased with the decision and that the adminstration of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro “is committed to ensuring the free and secure administration of elections, and today’s decision recognizes that the secretary is empowered to keep voting systems secure from unauthorized third-parties seeking to undermine confidence in Pennsylvania’s elections.”

The Fulton County board, through chief clerk Stacey Shives, declined comment about the decision. Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday for Fulton County’s lawyers, Tom Carroll and Jim Stein.

The officials in Fulton, a 15,000 population county in rural central Pennsylvania, brought in Wake TSI and allowed another outside inspection as part of an effort to find the sort of election fraud that then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed existed after his 2020 reelection loss. Fulton heavily supported Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns. Ulsh is no longer an elected county commissioner.

Fulton replaced the voting machines, which were impounded by the court during the dispute over allowing others to access them.

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