Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — South Carolina voters will choose nominees for governor and other offices in a state primary on Tuesday, the latest test of President Donald Trump’s sway over Republican voters.

Seven Republicans and three Democrats have lined up to succeed Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited after 10 years in office. Regardless of party, his replacement will play a key role in the early stages of the 2028 presidential race, with the state expected to again hold critical first-in-the-South presidential primaries.

Trump’s recent endorsement of Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette to succeed McMaster could be decisive in a state he carried in three presidential campaigns with at least 55% of the vote. But a recent Republican gubernatorial primary in Iowa showed that Trump’s backing, while powerful, is not a guarantee of success. Trump’s pick in that race, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, narrowly lost to businessman Zach Lahn.

Nonetheless, Trump’s endorsement is still highly coveted. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a onetime staunch Trump ally who broke with the president in calling for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, still touts a past Trump endorsement on her current gubernatorial campaign website.

Other Republican candidates for governor include U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman and state Attorney General Alan Wilson, the son of Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson.

McMaster also has endorsed Evette.

The candidates for the Democratic nomination are state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, attorney Mullins McLeod and businessman and former Bill Clinton-era U.S. Department of Education chief of staff Billy Webster.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham faces five Republican primary challengers in his bid for a fifth term. He also has Trump’s endorsement.

Among the Democrats running is Annie Andrews, a physician who unsuccessfully challenged Mace for her U.S. House seat in 2022.

Graham had spent more than $29 million on his reelection bid as of May 20, far outpacing any of his Republican or Democratic challengers. He entered the final stretch of the primary campaign with about $4.2 million remaining in the bank, more than double the rest of the Republican field combined.

Mace’s campaign for governor leaves her 1st Congressional District seat open. Seven Democrats and 11 Republicans will appear on the primary ballots, although one Republican, former Gov. Mark Sanford, has dropped out of the race.

None of South Carolina’s seven congressional seats is expected to be particularly competitive in November, but those seats were at the center of a mid-decade redistricting effort backed by Trump to eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-held seat. The Republican-controlled state Senate rejected that effort, and candidates are running under the existing map.

Primary winners must receive a majority of the vote to avoid a June 23 runoff between the top two vote-getters.

Greenville, Horry, Charleston, Richland and Spartanburg counties are the most populous in the state and play significant roles in primaries for both parties, although large counties with significant Black populations, like Richland, Florence and Sumter, tend to have a bigger impact in Democratic contests.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general, comptroller, state school superintendent, agriculture commissioner and state House.

Any registered voter may participate in any party’s primary.

As of Friday, there were about 3.4 million registered voters in South Carolina. Voters in South Carolina do not register by party.

The 2018 and 2022 Republican primaries for governor each had about 368,000 votes cast. In the Democratic gubernatorial primaries, there were about 240,000 votes cast in 2018 and about 182,000 in 2022.

About 29% of the Democratic primary vote and about 17% of the Republican primary vote in the 2022 gubernatorial primaries was cast before primary day.

As of Friday, about 279,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, almost all of it from early in-person voting.

Nearly all of South Carolina’s 46 counties release all or almost all of their early in-person and mail voting results in the first vote update of the night, usually before releasing any results from in-person Election Day voting.

In the 2022 primary, the AP first reported results at 7:21 p.m. ET, or 21 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 1:14 a.m. ET, with 99.9% of total votes counted.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

In South Carolina, recounts are automatic if the margin between the winning and losing candidates is 1% of the total vote or less. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

As of Tuesday, there will be 14 days until the primary runoff elections on June 23 and 147 days until the Nov. 3 general election.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

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BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Florentino Pérez has earned four more years as Real Madrid’s president after winning club elections on Sunday.

“We are going to keep working so that Real Madrid keeps winning more titles,” he told his supporters at a late night victory party soon after Real Madrid’s club television channel reported Pérez had beaten challenger Enrique Riquelme.

The club is yet to make the vote count public.

Pérez’s victory will pave the way for him to bring back Portuguese coach José Mourinho for a second stint at Madrid. Mourinho, who coached Madrid from 2010-2013, was featured in promotional material for Pérez during the campaign.

Pérez said he was “proud that José Mourinho, one of the best coaches in the world, is set to return.”

Pérez has also said he wants to sign Liverpool center back Ibrahima Konaté and Inter Milan right back Denzel Dumfries, in addition to a pledge to bring in another major signing to be disclosed this week worth more than 150 million euros ($173 million).

The 79-year-old Pérez ran Madrid from 2000-2006 and from 2009 until now. Under his leadership, Madrid has won seven of its record 15 European Cups.

Madrid has also been the most valuable club in the world for the last five years, according to Forbes.

Pérez, who also runs an international construction company, hadn’t been challenged for Madrid’s presidency by a rival candidate in over 20 years. He ran unchallenged when elections were scheduled in 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025.

That said, Pérez has had a frustrating run of late. His Super League scheme to launch a rival competition to UEFA’s Champions League fell through, and Madrid has gone two seasons without winning a title despite recruiting star striker Kylian Mbappé.

Pérez has also been criticized for last year floating the idea of selling 10% of the club to private investors, a move that would break with 124 years of the member ownership model.

Riquelme congratulated Pérez and accepted the result. But he signaled that he will consider running again. Pérez’s term will run through 2030.

“For us, this is not the end, this is the beginning,” Riquelme said. “Real Madrid won’t spend another 20 years without holding elections.”

Riquelme, a renewable energy executive, launched his candidacy after an agitated Pérez announced elections last month during a news conference when he dared anyone to challenge him and denounced what he called a media campaign to topple him.

Despite being relatively unknown to the wider public, the 37-year-old Riquelme mounted a credible campaign after getting the backing of former Madrid players such as Raúl González, Fernando Hierro and Iker Casillas. He also promised to sign Manchester City star Erling Haaland. City and Haaland’s agent dismissed the chance of him moving to Madrid this summer.

There were 98,000 club members eligible to vote. The election was held at Madrid’s basketball pavilion because the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium is being used for an event by Pope Leo XIV during his weeklong visit to Spain.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Days after California’s primary, Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt are still waiting to see who makes the November runoff for Los Angeles mayor against incumbent Karen Bass.

The race was still too early to call on Sunday as the vote tally showed Raman moving into second place behind Bass for the first time since Tuesday, when voting ended and the count began. That puts Raman, a progressive city council member, ahead of Pratt, a former reality television personality from “The Hills.”

Raman had been running in third, but she has gained more votes than Pratt with every update provided by election officials in Los Angeles since Tuesday.

Vote counting in California is a notoriously slow process because state law practically mandates a drawn-out tally. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter and they are counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.

Los Angeles, like other counties in California, processes and counts mail ballots in roughly the order they are received, so the last ones returned are the last ones counted.

On Tuesday night after polls closed, Los Angeles released results from mail ballots that had been returned early and already processed as well as votes cast that day. Since then, the county has been processing and releasing results from mail ballots that arrived later.

Election data shows that large numbers of Democrats held onto their mail ballots and returned them in the race’s final days, which helps explain why Bass and Raman have been doing better than Pratt in the votes counted since primary day.

The mayor’s race is nonpartisan, so none of the candidates had party identification next to their names on the ballot. Raman and Bass are both Democrats, while Pratt is a Republican.

On election night, Bass held a 4.4 percentage point lead over Pratt, who in turn had an 8.1-point lead over Raman. Since then, Bass’ lead over Pratt has grown to nearly 8 points while Raman now leads Pratt by about 0.4 points, or 3,100 votes. The Associated Press estimates there are a little less than 150,000 ballots left to be counted.

The slow count has prompted claims of fraud, without providing evidence, from some Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who said his Department of Justice would investigate.

The president suggested that the state’s Democrats were somehow cheating so that two candidates he favors — Pratt and Republican Steve Hilton in the governor’s race — would be bumped from the top two slots and therefore be ineligible for the November general election. Democrat Xavier Becerra has advanced to the general election in the governor’s race but The AP has not yet called the second slot. Hilton leads Democrat Tom Steyer by 4.3 points in the race to advance to the general election as the second-place candidate, though his lead has been nearly cut in half since election night.

The general election in Los Angeles is likely to be a referendum on Bass’s leadership regardless of whether she faces Raman or Pratt. But the two would come at the campaign from very different directions.

Pratt, a conservative, would mount a more aggressive challenge to liberal governance in the city dominated by Democrats. He has made reducing homelessness a key part of his campaign, and he’s sharply criticized Bass’s leadership during the January 2025 wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that destroyed his home and thousands of others. His candidacy had drawn outsized attention because of his celebrity, but it’s unclear if the buzz will translate into enough votes to make the runoff.

Raman, meanwhile, is taking on Bass from the left. She has promised to speed up housing construction, bring back entertainment industry jobs and improve services in a city known for dirty streets and buckled pavement. She was elected to the council with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America, though the group did not make a formal endorsement in the mayor’s race. Her last-minute candidacy was a surprise after she endorsed Bass for reelection earlier.

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Ohlemacher reported from Washington.

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President Donald Trump is dismissing the idea that launching the war with Iran this year betrayed his refrain of “No new wars” that he made repeatedly as he campaigned again for the White House.

It came hours before Israel and Iran traded fire in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war.

Also, Trump, a longtime New York Knicks fan, confirmed Friday that he would attend the first NBA Finals game in New York since 1999. As a result, the NYPD is warning fans that watch parties near Madison Square Garden are canceled and that anyone attending the game should plan to arrive at least two hours early as part of enhanced security measures.

Here’s the latest:

As the U.S. prepares for an extravagant celebration of its founding principles, fewer Americans see their country as exceptional, a new poll finds.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research highlights many Americans’ feelings of unease over the future of its representative government — particularly among young people. It presents a jarring contrast as communities around the country commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Only about one-quarter of Americans say the U.S. stands above all other countries in the world, the new poll found, while 44% say it’s one of the greatest countries in the world, along with some others. About 3 in 10 say there are better countries than the U.S., an increase from 19% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016.

▶ Read more

A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming UFC fight card on the White House South Lawn in a mixed martial arts show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the towering arch overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted before the construction.

The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight and that the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”

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Trump has issued a pardon to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office.

Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for trades made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000, representing the amount of the illegal gains, and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.

The Supreme Court in May rejected Buyer’s appeal without comment or noted dissent.

In granting “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon,” Trump cited Buyer’s career as a judge advocate general in the Army and in the House that was “distinguished and highly productive.” The pardon was dated Thursday and released by the White House late Friday.

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Police scuttled an NBA Finals watch party near Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks warned fans to get to Monday’s matchup at least two hours early as part of enhanced security measures with Trump attending the game.

Trump is a longtime Knicks fan who confirmed Friday that he would attend the first NBA Finals game in New York since 1999. He already has attended a number of major sporting events in his second term, including the 2025 Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and Ryder Cup.

Part of the fallout from Trump’s visit was the cancellation of a Game 3 watch party outside MSG. The New York Police Department said in a statement Sunday the decision was made in coordination with the Secret Service.

“There will be no watch parties outside of Madison Square Garden for Game 3 only,” the statement said. “This was done fully in coordination with the Secret Service because of the presidential visit. We expect watch parties at Madison Square Garden to resume for Game 4.”

Trump is dismissing the idea that launching the war with Iran this year betrayed his refrain of “No new wars” that he made repeatedly as he campaigned again for the White House.

Trump, in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he “didn’t guarantee” there would be no wars if he were back in office.

“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” Trump said.

It came just hours before Israel and Iran traded fire in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war. It was the first exchange of fire since an April 8 ceasefire was reached.

Trump also defended plans for a now-scrapped $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated allies of the Republican president and he repeated his baseless claims of mass fraud in California’s drawn-out vote count from Tuesday’s primary. He ended the interview abruptly when he became frustrated with pushback from NBC’s Kristen Welker.

▶ Read more

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo will face six Republican challengers in a state primary on Tuesday, while six Democrats will compete for the nomination to reclaim the seat in November. Other races on the ballot include primaries for U.S. House and a variety of state offices, as well as a mayoral election in Henderson, Nevada’s second largest city.

The winner of the governor’s mansion in the key swing state could play a pivotal role in the 2028 presidential campaign, assuming Nevada maintains its slot as the first-in-the-West nominating contest for both parties.

Lombardo was elected in 2022, when he was the only challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent governor. He edged Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak by 1.5 percentage points.

The Democratic field includes state Attorney General Aaron Ford and Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill.

With no presidential or U.S. Senate race on the ballot in Nevada this cycle, the gubernatorial contest has been the main driver of campaign ad spending in the state, including by dark-money groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts and are not required to disclose their donors.

Among the U.S. House races, the state’s lone Republican congressman, Mark Amodei of the 2nd District, is not seeking an eighth full term. The seat is not expected to be particularly competitive in November. Amodei won reelection in 2024 with 55% of the vote, while Donald Trump carried the district in the presidential race with about 56% of the vote. That raises the stakes in this year’s Republican primary among former state Sen. James Settelmeyer, financial adviser and small business owner David Flippo and 11 others, since the winner will be favored to claim the seat in November. Trump has endorsed Flippo.

The races for the seats held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford are expected to be more competitive. All three Democratic incumbents are seeking reelection, but only Horsford in the 4th District faces no primary opposition.

In the state Legislature, about half of Nevada’s 21 state Senate seats and all 42 state House seats are up for election this year. Democrats hold both chambers.

In Henderson, Mayor Michelle Romero seeks a second term in the nonpartisan office against four challengers, including former Henderson police Chief Hollie Chadwick. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff scheduled for the November general election.

Clark County, home to both Las Vegas and Henderson, is by far the state’s most populous county. It routinely contributes about 69% of the total vote in statewide contests. Washoe County, home to Reno, has the second-highest population and usually contributes about 18% of the statewide vote. They are the two key counties to watch in both Republican and Democratic statewide primaries.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls are scheduled to close at 7 p.m. PT, which is 10 p.m. ET, but state law requires polls to stay open until all voters in line by poll closing time have cast their ballots.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, state controller, state attorney general, state Senate and state Assembly, as well as a mayoral election in Henderson. “None of these candidates” appears as a ballot option for statewide constitutional offices, but not for Congress or state Legislature.

Only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. However, any eligible voter may register to vote or change party affiliation at the polls on Election Day or during early voting.

As of June 1, there were about 670,000 registered Democrats and about 659,000 registered Republicans. About 162,000 were registered with other parties, while 965,000 voters were not registered with any party.

About 157,000 Democratic primary votes and about 171,350 Republican primary votes were cast in Nevada’s 2024 primaries for U.S. Senate.

Mail ballots comprised about 65% of the vote in the 2024 state primary and about 57% in the 2022 state primary. In-person early voting comprised about 17% in the 2024 primary and about 22% in the 2022 primary.

As of Friday, about 246,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, about 42% from Democrats, about 42% from Republicans and the remainder from other voters.

Nevada’s 17 counties vary in how they release results from early in-person and mail voting. Most counties tend to release all or nearly all of their early in-person voting results in the first update of the night, while less than half tend to release mail voting results in the first update.

In both Clark and Washoe counties, the first vote update of the night tends to include all early in-person voting results and partial mail voting results, before any in-person Election Day results are released.

In the 2024 state primaries, the AP first reported results at 11:04 p.m. ET. This was more than an hour after the scheduled poll closing time, but the state doesn’t release any votes until it confirms that voting has concluded in every county. The last vote update of the night was at 11:55 p.m. ET in the Republican primary, with about 94% of total votes counted, and at 2:28 a.m. ET in the Democratic primary, with about 85% of total votes counted.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Recounts in Nevada are not automatic, but a candidate may request and pay for one regardless of the vote margin. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

As of Tuesday, there will be 147 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Graham Platner is set to take questions from voters Sunday at a town hall-style event in Maine as the Democrat moves to stabilize his Senate campaign after new reports about his past treatment of women.

The evening event in Portland is taking place two days before a Democratic primary that is still seen as Platner’s to win, but which could provide clues as to whether enthusiasm for his iconoclastic candidacy has softened.

The New York Times on Thursday reported an ex-girlfriend’s allegations that Platner repeatedly grabbed her by the shoulders during arguments and once twisted her arm behind her back and locked her in a room. Platner has repeatedly called those allegations of violence untrue.

Other Platner ex-girlfriends interviewed by the Times described positive experiences, while some said he was volatile and insulting. That story came days after news reports revealing that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women while married.

Despite the allegations, no major Democrats who had previously endorsed Platner have rescinded their support. Platner is running to oust Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.

Platner held a rally with California Rep. Ro Khanna in Bar Harbor on Friday, where he received a standing ovation and declared that Mainers “have my back.”

A combat veteran, Platner has repeatedly said that he struggled with alcohol and post traumatic stress disorder after his military service, but says he is a changed man.

The latest news has deepened some Democrats’ nervousness about Platner, who already faced scrutiny over online posts that were dismissive of sexual assault and a skull tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol. Platner has apologized for the posts and covered up the tattoo., saying he didn’t realize its significance when he got it.

Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate who spent the weekend in neighboring New Hampshire, said the “jury is still out” on whether Platner can beat Collins.

“Everybody is holding their breath whether this is the start of something or the end of something,” he said. “If it’s the end, that’s one thing. If it’s the beginning of something and we’re not done, that’s another thing.”

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Associated Press writer Steven Sloan contributed to this report from Warren, New Hampshire. Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK, June 7 (Reuters) – Reports about presumptive Senate nominee Graham Platner’s past have left some of his fellow Democrats feeling uneasy about him just days before the state’s primary.  

Multiple Democratic lawmakers on Sunday expressed reservations about their party’s likely choice in November’s race to represent Maine in the Senate, even as Platner holds a wide lead in polls ahead of Tuesday’s primary election.

Appearing on morning TV talk shows, congressional Democrats criticized him to varying degrees, though none of them called for him to end his campaign amid reports he exchanged sexual messages with women while he was already married and that past romantic partners described his behavior as “toxic.”

For Representative Tom Suozzi of New York, the reports from several news outlets last week cast a brighter spotlight on long-simmering concerns. “I’ve been unsettled about Graham Platner for a long time about the issues and the positions he takes on issues, not just the allegations about his personal conduct,” Suozzi said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said the reports about Platner are “disturbing” if they turn out to be true. But the election success of President Donald Trump, a Republican, shows that politicians can survive allegations of bad behavior toward women, Warner said on ABC’s “This Week” show. 

“I think President Trump set a new standard,” he said. “Whether that low standard is what we ought to proceed with, I think it’s going to be again in the hands of the voters.”

Platner’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He previously has apologized for the text messages, while calling reports about them and other past behavior politically motivated.

Representative Ro Khanna of California, who campaigned for Platner in Maine this week, said on Sunday that Democrats should admit his behavior was unacceptable and then shift the discussion to critical national issues. 

“We should focus on acknowledging it was misogynistic, acknowledging it was wrong, moving on with redemption,” Khanna told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program.

If Platner wins on Tuesday, he is expected to face longtime Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, in one of the country’s most closely watched political battles.

Republican lawmakers in TV appearances criticized Platner, who is scheduled to hold a town hall in Maine on Sunday evening.

Platner’s past is “very, very troubling,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, who also appeared on the CNN program. “We have to set a higher bar,” Fitzpatrick said. 

Republican Senator Dave McCormick, also of Pennsylvania, called Platner one of the Democrats’ “extreme” candidates.   

“Who would have thought you could be a misogynist, have allegations of violence against women … and have the mainstream of your party endorsing you?” he said on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing” show.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Sergio Non)

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Former Sen. Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women’s rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93.

Packwood’s death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. The release didn’t include additional details.

Packwood was a political scrapper who first refused to quit the chamber in which he had served for 27 years, saying he didn’t want to be remembered only for that controversy.

Before the #MeToo era, Packwood stood out as an example of private behavior undermining a man’s public image. He had been praised by Planned Parenthood and others.

The great-grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood established himself as a social moderate and fiscal conservative who often voted across party lines. He considered running for president in 1980.

Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was best known as the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights and was widely admired by women’s groups throughout the country until the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993.

More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances.

The allegations remained the target of an ethics probe that widened to include other alleged acts of official misconduct. He resigned in September 1995, then went to start a lucrative lobbying business in Washington.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who replaced Packwood in 1996, said while he should be praised for his record on abortion rights and tax reform, how he treated women overshadows it all.

“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years,” Wyden said in a statement.

As chairman and then ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Packwood was a master of cutting deals and forging compromises needed to pass tax legislation through Congress. He was most proud of the lead role he played in a sweeping tax reform of 1986 that lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions.

Over his career, he was described as a blunt, independent, outspoken politician who was a maverick, boat-rocker, loose cannon, skilled partisan, and, above all, political survivor.

“I think they probably all ring true,” Packwood told The Associated Press in December 1992.

“I would like to think that I am nobody’s lackey. I try to reach conclusions independently and then I’m willing to fight for those conclusions; if necessary, having to fight against my party or my party’s president,” he said.

Packwood won his first Senate election at age 36, narrowly defeating Democratic Sen. Wayne L. Morse, an Oregon legend who had held the seat for 23 years. He quickly grabbed attention as a rising star in the GOP. By 1980, he was elected chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But he lost the seat when the White House backed a competitor after Packwood publicly accused President Ronald Reagan of alienating women, African Americans and Jews.

Just two weeks after Packwood’s reelection in 1992, The Washington Post printed allegations from former female employees and acquaintances that the senator had subjected them to uninvited sexual advances.

The Senate Ethics Committee also investigated allegations that Packwood solicited jobs from lobbyists for his ex-wife, used his staff to try to threaten the female accusers into keeping quiet and obstructed the investigation by altering his personal diaries.

The Senate held two days of extraordinary debate in 1993 over whether Packwood should have to comply with an ethics committee subpoena for his diaries, in which he reportedly made entries relevant to the investigation. The Senate voted 94-6 to enforce the subpoena.

Packwood took the case to federal courts and lost, ending when Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused Packwood’s request for the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede.

Packwood launched his lobbying business, Sunrise Research Corp., in 1997. By 1999, the firm was grossing $1.5 million a year. His business slowed in later years, but he told a City Club of Portland audience in 2010 that he was still spending about half his time in Washington lobbying for a number of clients.

It was interesting work, Packwood told the audience, according to The Oregonian, but “it is not as much fun as being in the Senate.”

As Congress became increasingly partisan following his departure, Packwood continued to advocate a centrist tact and called for Oregon to create nonpartisan elections in his 2010 City Club speech.

Packwood’s wife, Elaine Franklin, was his former chief of staff who became a political consultant in Portland. The couple had homes in the Portland area and Washington.

In a November 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood said he had gotten past the scandal that forced him out of office.

“People have told me it must have been tough on me, or it seems unfair,” he said. “But you cannot go through the rest of life and say look what happened. Pretty soon you become a bore to your friends.

“I told myself I was not old enough to retire,” Packwood said, “so I have got to get at life and not complain about it.”

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BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump is dismissing the idea that launching the war with Iran this year betrayed his refrain of “No new wars” that he made repeatedly as he campaigned again for the White House.

Trump, in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he “didn’t guarantee” there would be no wars if he were back in office.

“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” Trump said.

Trump also defended plans for a now-scrapped $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated allies of the Republican president and he repeated his baseless claims of mass fraud in California’s drawn-out vote count from Tuesday’s primary. He ended the interview abruptly when he became frustrated with pushback from NBC’s Kristen Welker.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly cast his Democratic opponents as warmongers and said he was a president who started “no new wars” and would bring an era of peace.

But Trump said in the NBC interview, taped Friday in Wisconsin, that as a candidate, “I didn’t promise anything.”

“I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months,” he said of the war with Iran, which began Feb. 28.

Trump said he was “doing the world a service” and “doing our country a service” because he had to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But elsewhere in the interview, Trump repeated a contradictory message where he said U.S. strikes last year “obliterated” Iranian nuclear sites.

He also defended his decision in his first term to withdraw from Democratic President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, an agreement he has heavily criticized, without negotiating the “better deal” he has promised to reach.

“It takes years to do these things,” Trump said.

California’s notoriously prolonged vote count has been a magnet for election conspiracy theories, and Trump since Tuesday’s election has claimed without evidence that Democrats are rigging the election. The Trump-appointed top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles said Friday that his office had opened “multiple election fraud investigations.”

Late-tallied Democratic-leaning mail ballots have eaten into the vote totals for Trump’s preferred candidates for governor and Los Angeles mayor. While Trump has often said that changes to vote totals as late ballots are counted are a sign of fraud, they are merely a reflection of a slow vote-counting process.

Trump in the interview kept claiming that it was a sign of “cheating” and “a rigged election,” and grew increasingly frustrated as Welker pressed him for evidence to support that.

“All I have to do is look. All I have to do is look,” Trump said.

“But that’s not evidence,” Welker responded.

“And I listen. And I listen to people. And let’s see what happens,” Trump replied.

Trump defended plans that his Department of Justice said it has now abandoned to create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of a settlement to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the department was scrapping the plan. That announcement came after the plan was paused by a judge and after both Democrats and some Republicans said they were concerned about the fund’s lack of oversight and the possibility of payouts being made to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Trump told NBC he thought the fund was “a great idea” and that he would be “disappointed” if it were not approved.

When asked if he thought people who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 should get a payout, Trump said, “I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it.” He then began making unfounded and false claims about the riot and those who stormed the Capitol. Trump granted a sweeping pardon on his first day back in office in January 2025 to the more than 1,500 people prosecuted over Jan. 6.

The NBC interview was conducted in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, before Trump was set to speak at a roundtable event with farmers. The interview was repeatedly interrupted as waves of heavy rain fell on the metal roof of the barn where the taping took place, making it difficult at times to hear.

At the end, Welker pressed Trump on the settlement fund and his claims about the California election. Trump raised his voice and began calling Welker and the media “crooked,” attacking her credibility and complaining about what he called “the fake, dirty press.”

As Welker tried to switch subjects, Trump continued on and there was cross talk between the two. Trump ended the interview, saying said, “Let’s call it quits.” He took off his microphone, telling Welker, “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.” He said he had given the interview enough time, stood up and walked away.

Welker said during the broadcast that she spoke to Trump on Saturday and he agreed the rain had caused complications and said he would do another interview in the future.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Sunday that Iran has launched missiles at it in the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, complicating mediation efforts for a deal to end the war.

Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the launch of missiles and multiple explosions were heard in northern Israel. Israel’s military said it was working on intercepting the missiles but “the defense is not hermetic,” adding that sirens sounded in several areas of the country.

Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel on Sunday struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down. Israel called it retaliation for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah firing at northern Israel earlier in the day.

Israel’s attack on Beirut came a few days after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to a ceasefire in U.S.-hosted talks, though Hezbollah rejected the deal. The strike on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Iran had warned that an attack on Beirut would renew full-scale war across the Mideast, even as Pakistan tries to restart talks between Tehran and Washington. Iran wants a deal to include ending the war in Lebanon.

Israel’s strikes and ground invasion in Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, and the militant group’s resistance to disarming, have complicated an overall deal to end the war in the Middle East. Iran says any deal must include an end to fighting in Lebanon.

The White House did not comment on Israel’s strike in Beirut. Israel on Monday had announced it would strike the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, but urgent talks via Washington halted that on the condition that Hezbollah stop targeting Israeli border towns.

Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for firing at Israel earlier Sunday.

Hezbollah wants the direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to end and instead supports Iran’s stance that an overall ceasefire deal between Tehran and Washington include the situation in Lebanon.

Mediation efforts on that larger deal continued Sunday as Pakistan’s interior minister visited Iran to talk with officials and Egypt said its foreign minister and his Qatari counterpart discussed “proposed elements” of a potential agreement, with no details.

U.S. President Donald Trump did not comment on the war Sunday, but in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired after a Friday taping he said he would like to see a “more surgical attack on Hezbollah.” He also said he was “not demanding” that Lebanon be part of an overall ceasefire deal in the Iran war.

Meanwhile, Iran continued to assert its grip on the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. continued its blockade of Iranian ports, with shipments of oil, natural gas and fertilizer affected and the global economy in pain.

Pakistan’s interior minister was in Tehran on Sunday. Mohsin Naqvi was delivering a message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei from Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. There were no details on the message’s contents.

Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was named the Islamic Republic’s ruler after his father was killed on Feb. 28, the first day of the war.

Naqvi met with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni late Saturday and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday, according to official Iranian media.

Pakistani authorities have said Islamabad, with support from regional countries including Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, is working to help bridge differences between the United States and Iran.

In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Bader Abdelatty and Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani discussed “proposed elements” of a potential agreement between the U.S. and Iran, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, without details.

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