Arizona Democrats oust embattled chair amid party turmoil
Robert Branscomb's removal late Wednesday was supported by two-thirds of the Democratic activists who make up the state committee.
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Toronto Star
23 minutes ago
- Toronto Star
A replica Oval Office near the White House just got a Trump makeover
WASHINGTON (AP) — A replica Oval Office on display near the White House now looks exactly like President Donald Trump's. But it is not the blingy version he is currently using. Visitors starting Thursday will experience the mock Oval Office as it was in the Republican president's first term, until it is redecorated again next year to incorporate the golden touches and other flourishes Trump brought to the workspace after he returned to power in January.
Winnipeg Free Press
23 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A replica Oval Office near the White House just got a Trump makeover
WASHINGTON (AP) — A replica Oval Office on display near the White House now looks exactly like President Donald Trump's. But it is not the blingy version he is currently using. Visitors starting Thursday will experience the mock Oval Office as it was in the Republican president's first term, until it is redecorated again next year to incorporate the golden touches and other flourishes Trump brought to the workspace after he returned to power in January. 'Just like the White House itself, our Oval Office is a living space, so it changes and evolves as the actual Oval Office changes,' Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, said Wednesday as he led The Associated Press on a tour of the space as it was being revamped. The mock-up is inside 'The People's House: A White House Experience,' an educational center the association opened last year one block west of the Executive Mansion. Few regular people ever see, let alone step inside, the real Oval Office, for security and other reasons. But the true-to-life model offers visitors a chance to see and experience it. It will be updated to match the decor of every sitting president. When the historical association opened the center last year, the replica Oval Office looked like Democrat Joe Biden's office because he was the president at the time. The association has to get copies made of every item in the real Oval Office and that process takes time, McLaurin said. He also preferred to wait until there was a 'critical mass' of items instead of doing a slow, piece-by-piece makeover. Trump decorated his first-term Oval Office with a beige-patterned rug from the Ronald Reagan era, gold-colored draperies from Bill Clinton's tenure and a lighter, floral wallpaper that replaced a striped wall covering installed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump kept these same designs for his second term. Trump also kept the Resolute Desk, which has been used by nearly every president since it was gifted to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 by Queen Victoria. It was built using wood from the British ship HMS Resolute. Trump hung a large portrait of George Washington above the fireplace, flanked by portraits of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. He also displayed portraits of Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin and had busts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill on tables on either side of the fireplace. The association is in the process of reproducing items in Trump's second-term office even as he continues to make changes by adding gilding, artwork and other objects. 'So probably in a year or a little more, we'll be able to make that transition when we have all of those items ready,' McLaurin said. The Biden items will be donated to his foundation for possible use in his future presidential library, and the same will be done in the future with the items reproduced for Trump's offices. The White House Historical Association was created in 1961 by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy to help preserve the museum quality of the interior of the White House and educate the public. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that receives no government funding. It raises money mostly through private donations and merchandise sales, including an annual Christmas ornament.
Winnipeg Free Press
23 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump's onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is well-known – and also documented in records
WASHINGTON (AP) — The revelation that Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump that his name was in the Jeffrey Epstein files has focused fresh attention on the president's relationship with the wealthy financier and the Justice Department's announcement this month that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the case. But at least some of the information in the briefing to Trump, which The Wall Street Journal said took place in May, should not have been a surprise. The president's association with Epstein is well-established and his name was included in records that his own Justice Department released back in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation. Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone's name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent friends in political and celebrity circles besides Trump. Trump's ties to Epstein It should have been no shock to Trump that his name would be found in records related to Epstein. The February document dump from the Justice Department included references to Trump in Epstein's phone book and his name was also mentioned in flight logs for Epstein's private plane. Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein's criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests. In January 2024, a court unsealed the final batch of a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. Records made public also include 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump's Atlantic City casino but didn't say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. Trump has also said that he once thought Epstein was a 'terrific guy,' but that they later had a falling out. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump said in 2019 when video footage unearthed by NBC News following Epstein's federal indictment showed the two chatting at a party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in 1992, when the now president was newly divorced. 'He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years.' The department's decision to not release additional files from the case The Justice Department stunned conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and elements of Trump's base this month when it released a two-page letter saying that a so-called Epstein 'client list' that Bondi had once intimated was on her desk did not exist and that officials did not plan to release any additional documents from its investigation despite an earlier commitment to provide transparency. Whether Bondi's briefing to Trump in May influenced that decision is unclear. The Justice Department did not comment directly on her meeting with Trump but Bondi and Blanche said in a joint statement that a review of the Epstein files showed that there was nothing warranting further investigation or prosecution. 'As part of our routine briefing,' the statement said, 'we made the President aware of our findings.'
