WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump launched Operation Warp Speed in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, an effort he has credited with saving tens of millions of lives. During a Cabinet meeting last week, he likened it to “one of the greatest achievements ever.”

Sitting at the table as a proud Trump spoke was Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who came under fire at a congressional hearing Thursday for his work to restrict access to vaccines, including the very COVID-19 shots still touted by his boss.

The three-hour hearing exposed an odd dichotomy: One of Trump’s most universal successes in his first term remains Operation Warp Speed, yet his handpicked health chief and a growing cadre of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters are distrustful of the very mRNA vaccine technology that the president has championed.

Highlighting that divide, much of the praise of Trump’s unprecedented effort to find a vaccine for COVID-19 came Thursday from Democrats.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., called Operation Warp Speed “a monumental achievement.” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told Kennedy he was a health hazard and said Trump, “who put forward Operation Warp Speed, which worked,” should fire him. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, said he doesn’t “usually agree with” Trump but cited the president’s remarks on the COVID-19 vaccine and said the scientific community is aligned behind him.

Republicans were also critical of Kennedy’s approach to vaccines.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician whose vote for Kennedy ensured his narrow confirmation, noted the overarching success of Operation Warp Speed at a time when thousands of people a day were dying from COVID-19, businesses were shuttered and much of everyday life had ground to a halt.

“Others said it couldn’t be done. We saved millions of lives globally. Trillions of dollars. We reopened the economy. An incredible accomplishment,” Cassidy said as he questioned Kennedy. “Do you agree with me that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”

When Kennedy answered, “Absolutely, Senator,” Cassidy pivoted sharply.

He pressed Kennedy on denouncing the vaccine in the past, working on lawsuits targeting pharmaceutical makers and filling vacancies on a powerful vaccine advisory committee with expert witnesses who testified against the drugmakers, suggesting they posed a conflict of interest.

“It just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me that the president deserves tremendous amount of credit for this,” Cassidy responded.

Hassan read from a June 2024 post on X in which Kennedy wrote that Trump “has a weakness for swamp creatures, especially corporate monopolies, their lobbyists, and their money” and called the vaccine operation among “the most devastating impact of President Trump’s weakness, but not the only one.”

“If you agree with President Trump that the vaccine saved millions of lives, why have you acted behind closed doors to overrule scientists and limit the freedom of parents to choose the COVID vaccine for their children?” Hassan asked.

Kennedy told Hassan she was “just making stuff up.”

Limiting vaccine access

Still, under Kennedy, U.S. regulators have limited the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for many Americans.

Last month, U.S. regulators approved updated COVID-19 shots but limited their use for many Americans — and removed one of the two vaccines available for young children. The new restrictions are a break from the previous U.S. policy, which recommended an annual COVID-19 shot for all Americans 6 months and up, sparking confusion and frustration from some Americans, including parents interested in vaccinating healthy children against the virus.

Many pharmacies are unwilling or legally barred from giving vaccines outside the uses endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration and other federal authorities.

Several administration officials came to Kennedy’s defense on vaccines. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said what Kennedy wants is “integrity and honesty” in the vaccine review process.

“Democrats are, as usual, being intellectually dishonest to try — and fail — to drive a wedge between President Trump and Secretary Kennedy,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said Thursday. “Instead of playing politics and trying to get stupid sound bites, Democrats should spend more time working with Secretary Kennedy and the rest of the Administration to Make America Healthy Again.”

The White House on Thursday did not directly address the criticism from Cassidy. Asked later about Kennedy’s testimony, Trump said he hadn’t watched but Kennedy “means very well” and he likes the fact that Kennedy is different.

But the Louisiana Republican was not the only one from his party chastising Kennedy over vaccines.

“If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, a staunch Trump ally, told Kennedy. “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work.”

Meanwhile, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis had a multitude of questions for Kennedy, including how he really feels about Operation Warp Speed, saying he’d accept Kennedy’s answers later in writing.

Trump’s changing messages

Asked in early August about Kennedy’s cancellation of the mRNA contracts, Trump said the effort was “now a long time ago and we’re on to other things,” but said he would continue to speak on it.

“Operation Warp Speed was, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, considered one of the most incredible things ever done in this country,” Trump said. “The efficiency, the way it was done, the distribution, everything about it was, has been amazing.”

But Trump himself has been inconsistent in his attitude toward vaccines.

He said in a social media post this week that the companies were responsible for the recent turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were not transparent about the science behind the shots. He has sometimes embraced discredited theories that vaccines could cause autism. Trump has also ferociously opposed vaccine mandates, threatening to withhold funding from schools with such policies.

The anti-vaccine movement within Trump’s party has been growing since the early days of the vaccine. Trump himself was booed at an event in December 2021 when he revealed that he had gotten the COVID-19 booster.

He tried, in vain, to rally his supporters back around Operation Warp Speed and remind them of what had been accomplished.

“Look, we did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We together, all of us — not me, we — we got a vaccine done, three vaccines done, and tremendous therapeutics,” Trump said. “This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now. Take credit for it. Take credit for it. … Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves.”

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Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Lauran Neergaard in Washington, and Jill Colvin and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

Seung Min Kim And Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will attend Sunday’s men’s final of the U.S. Open, returning to a tournament he once frequently attended for the first time in a decade.

The White House confirmed the visit Thursday night. Trump is expected to make a daytrip to New York and return to Washington after the match, which begins at 2 p.m. No. 1 seed and defending champion Jannik Sinner is playing Felix Auger-Aliassime on Friday. The other semifinal match features Novak Djokovic against Carlos Alcaraz.

For decades as a New York-area real estate mogul and, later, reality TV star, Trump was a fixture at the Grand Slam tournament, often sitting in the suite’s balcony during night-session matches. He frequently would be shown on arena’s video screens.

But Trump hasn’t attended since he was booed at a quarterfinals match in September 2015, months after launching his 2016 presidential campaign. In recent years, including between his terms as president, Trump primarily lives not in New York but at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

The Trump Organization once controlled a suite at the U.S. Open which was adjacent to the television broadcasting booth in Arthur Ashe Stadium, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term.

This weekend’s trip is yet another example of Trump building the bulk of his domestic presidential travel not around policy announcements or campaign-style rallies, but playing weekend golf at courses he owns and attending major sporting events. There, the roar of the crowd sometimes features as many people booing at the president as cheering him.

Trump has previously been to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500 in Florida, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Despite Trump’s past association with the tournament, having a sitting president attend is unusual. It hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton went to the 2000 tournament, though former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended the event’s opening night in 2023.

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will attend Sunday’s men’s final of the U.S. Open, returning to a tournament he once frequently attended for the first time in a decade.

The White House confirmed the visit Thursday night. Trump is expected to make a daytrip to New York and return to Washington after the match, which begins at 2 p.m. No. 1 seed and defending champion Jannik Sinner is playing Felix Auger-Aliassime on Friday. The other semifinal match features Novak Djokovic against Carlos Alcaraz.

For decades as a New York-area real estate mogul and, later, reality TV star, Trump was a fixture at the Grand Slam tournament, often sitting in the suite’s balcony during night-session matches. He frequently would be shown on arena’s video screens.

But Trump hasn’t attended since he was booed at a quarterfinals match in September 2015, months after launching his 2016 presidential campaign. In recent years, including between his terms as president, Trump primarily lives not in New York but at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

The Trump Organization once controlled a suite at the U.S. Open which was adjacent to the television broadcasting booth in Arthur Ashe Stadium, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term.

This weekend’s trip is yet another example of Trump building the bulk of his domestic presidential travel not around policy announcements or campaign-style rallies, but playing weekend golf at courses he owns and attending major sporting events. There, the roar of the crowd sometimes features as many people booing at the president as cheering him.

Trump has previously been to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500 in Florida, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Despite Trump’s past association with the tournament, having a sitting president attend is unusual. It hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton went to the 2000 tournament, though former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended the event’s opening night in 2023.

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON D.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he thinks Democrat Zohran Mamdani is likely to become New York City’s next mayor unless two of the three major candidates running against him drop out of the race. But the Republican didn’t say which two candidates he’d like to see quit.

Trump said “No” when he was asked by a reporter Thursday night if he’d urged or encouraged any of the candidates in the race to drop out, but went on to say he would like to see that happen.

“I don’t think you can win unless you have one-on-one, and somehow he’s gotten a little bit of a lead,” Trump said of Mamdani. “I have no idea how that happened.”

The president, who spoke as he hosted a dinner at the White House with tech executives, went on and said, “I would like to see two people drop out and have it be one-on-one, and I think that’s a race that could be won.”

Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, has been the presumptive favorite in the election since soundly beating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary in June. But Cuomo is still on the ballot as an independent, as is incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. Joining those three Democrats in the field is Republican Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group.

Recently, intermediaries for Trump reached out to people close to Adams to talk about whether he would consider abandoning his reelection campaign to take a federal job, according to people familiar with those conversations who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the talks.

On a recent trip to Miami, Adams met with Steve Witkoff, a former real estate developer in New York who is now one of Trump’s main diplomatic envoys in Washington, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions.

Adams acknowledged meeting with “several political figures” on his Florida trip, which he said was to “deal with some personal issues.” But he has repeatedly insisted he won’t quit.

Adams reiterated his intention of staying in the race Thursday, adding that he wasn’t bothered by growing calls for him to end his campaign.

“No pressure, no diamonds,” Adams told reporters at an event touting an endorsement from some Muslim leaders. “Just because people yell at you and call your names, and just because a number of people ask you to step down or don’t do what you believe, you’re supposed to succumb to that? That’s not what I do.”

Adams’ campaign was deeply wounded when he was indicted on corruption charges last year, then developed a warm relationship with Trump that bothered many Democrats in one of the country’s most liberal cities. There was further backlash from Democrats after the Justice Department said it was dropping the case so that Adams could assist with Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At a news conference Thursday, Cuomo called on Adams to drop out.

“If Mamdani is the existential threat, if you believe that, then at a point you should defer to the strongest candidates,” Cuomo said.

Sliwa, meanwhile, has cast himself as the best candidate to take on Mamdani.

“The assumption here is that Eric Adams’ voters, if he does drop out, are all going to jump to Cuomo. That ain’t happening,” Sliwa said in an interview. “There’s a lot of anger toward Cuomo. They’ve been going back and forth like two scorpions in a brandy glass.”

Sliwa added that he also isn’t quitting, and said no one from the Trump administration had reached out yet to urge him to do so.

“I can assure you for 9,852th time in this campaign I’ve had to answer this: I’m not dropping out. I’m in it until November 4,” he said. “I don’t care if people drop out. I’d encourage them to stay in. Let the people decide. That’s what democracy is about, a vote.”

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Associated Press writer Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report from New York. Izaguirre reported from New York.

Michelle L. Price, Seung Min Kim And Anthony Izaguirre, The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — A former top elections official who made a name for himself defending Georgia’s 2020 presidential election tally against threats from supporters of President Donald Trump is now running to be the state’s elections chief.

Republican Gabriel Sterling, 54, filed paperwork Tuesday to run for secretary of state and announced his candidacy Thursday.

“Georgia elections are the safest in the nation and I will fight every day to keep it that way,” Sterling said in a statement.

Sterling was for six years the right-hand man of Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger until resigning recently. Trump famously asked Raffensperger in a telephone call to help “find” enough votes to overturn the Republican’s loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.

Sterling’s entry is the clearest sign yet that Raffensperger will be seeking another office in 2026, possibly governor.

Even before the January 2021 call, Sterling, who had overseen the implementation of a new voting system, had assumed a high profile.

He repeatedly debunked claims of fraud that Trump and his supporters blamed on Dominion Voting Systems machines. In what started as a routine news conference in December 2020 to provide an update on a recount requested by Trump, Sterling called on Trump to do more to end threats of violence against election workers. He cited the case of a contractor for Dominion who received death threats.

“What you don’t have the ability to do, and you need to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence,” Sterling said in remarks directed at Trump. “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

By then, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was looking into threats against Raffensperger and Sterling, and the homes of both men were under police guard. Both would later be escorted out of the Georgia Capitol by state troopers on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the U.S. Capitol siege, as about 100 protesters gathered outside, some armed with long guns.

Sterling joins a race where the issue of Georgia’s administration of the 2020 elections has hardly gone away.

Republicans Kelvin King and state Rep. Tim Fleming are already in the race. King, a former U.S. Senate candidate, has been appealing to Trump supporters. He entered the race in July with a not-so-veiled attack on Sterling, saying that “government employees who attack political candidates or supporters — of either party — will be held accountable and terminated. We’ve seen unprofessional conduct, with press conferences aimed at attacking the president and concerned citizens.”

His wife, Janelle King, is a member of the State Elections Board that saw some key actions overturned by the state Supreme Court.

Fleming heads a committee studying Georgia’s election system. He cowrote a letter this week urging Raffensperger to set up a trial of hand-marked paper ballots, a key demand of Republican activists who have been agitating against Georgia’s machine-marked ballots since 2020. Raffensperger, so scorned that June’s state GOP convention purported to ban him from running for office again as a Republican, quickly responded that such a trial would be illegal.

The only Democrat running for secretary of state thus far is little-known Adrian Consonery Jr.

The key question for Sterling will be whether Trump supporters who blame Sterling and Raffensperger for Trump’s 2020 loss will dominate the primary or whether Sterling can attract other voters. Georgia doesn’t register voters by party, meaning independents or even people who normally vote as Democrats can participate in a Republican primary.

Sterling is a lifelong Republican who was a city council member in suburban Sandy Springs before Raffensperger hired him to oversee the rollout of the Dominion system before the 2020 election.

Jeff Amy, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced pointed bipartisan questioning during a contentious three-hour Senate hearing Thursday addressing his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

Mark Schiefelbein, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Friday to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, his latest effort to project an image of toughness for America’s military.

The Republican president can’t formally change the name without legislation, which his administration would request from Congress. In the meantime, Trump will authorize the Pentagon to use “secondary titles” so the department can go by its original name.

The plans were disclosed by a White House official, who requested anonymity ahead of the public announcement, and detailed in a White House fact sheet.

The Department of War was created in 1789, the same year that the U.S. Constitution took effect. It was renamed by law in 1947, two years after the end of World War II.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted “DEPARTMENT OF WAR” on social media after the executive order was initially reported by Fox News.

Trump and Hegseth have long talked about changing the name, and Hegseth even created a social media poll on the topic in March.

Since then, he has hinted that his title as defense secretary may not be permanent at multiple public events, including a speech at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Thursday. He told an auditorium full of soldiers that it “may be a slightly different title tomorrow.”

In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”

When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”

“I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that,” he added.

The move is just the latest in a long line of cultural changes Hegseth has made to the Pentagon since taking office at the beginning of the year.

Early in his tenure, Hegseth pushed hard to eliminate what he saw as the impacts of “woke culture” on the military by not only ridding the department of diversity programs but scrubbing libraries and websites of material deemed to be divisive.

The result was the removal and review of hundreds of books in the military academies, which ended up including titles on the Holocaust and a Maya Angelou memoir. It also resulted in the removal off thousands of websites honoring contributions by women and minority groups.

“I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this — that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters in March.

Hegseth has also presided over the removal of all transgender troops from the military following an executive order from Trump through a process that some have described as “dehumanizing” or “open cruelty.”

Konstantin Toropin And Chris Megerian, The Associated Press

The Trump administration sued the city of Boston and its leaders Thursday in its latest attempt to invalidate policies seen as interfering with immigration enforcement.

The suit alleges that Boston’s sanctuary city policies are illegal under federal law and the city’s refusal to cooperate with immigration authorities has resulted in the release of dangerous criminals who should be deported.

“The City of Boston and its Mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America — they explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will.”

The administration has filed a series of similar lawsuits against other cities, including Los Angeles, New York City, Denver and Rochester, New York. It sued four New Jersey cities in May.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who was named as a plaintiff in the latest lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a letter to Bondi last month, she called Boston the safest major city in America and defended its law prohibiting local police from engaging with immigration enforcement absent a criminal warrant as a valid exercise of local authority.

“On behalf of the people of Boston, and in solidarity with the cities and communities targeted by this federal administration for our refusal to bow down to unconstitutional threats and unlawful coercion, we affirm our support for each other and for our democracy,” she wrote. “Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom, and a home for everyone.”

There is no strict definition for sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describes places that limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks help from state and local authorities to identify immigrants wanted for deportation and hold them for federal officers.

Holly Ramer, The Associated Press