Republicans in Congress are “trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.”

President Joe Biden on Oct. 14, 2023, in remarks at the 2023 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.

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Are Republicans threatening to stop spending federal money to end one of the world’s most pressing public health epidemics? That’s what President Joe Biden said during a dinner hosted by an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

“In the United States Congress, extreme MAGA Republicans are trying to undo virtually every bit of progress we’ve made,” Biden said Oct. 14 at the Human Rights Campaign event. “They’re trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.”

Programs to treat HIV and fight its spread have enjoyed bipartisan funding support in recent years, experts said, so Biden’s portrayal signals a significant departure.

When we asked the White House what Biden was referring to, it pointed us to reports of budget recommendations from House Republicans that call for large cuts to the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, a Trump administration-era program designed to reduce new HIV infections in the U.S., as well as other programs.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a separate spending plan. The recommendations will be subject to negotiation as the House and Senate face a Nov. 17 deadline to pass another spending bill.

We found that although Republicans are recommending significant cuts to HIV prevention efforts across a number of public health agencies, the proposal keeps core funding intact. Meanwhile, political differences are eroding bipartisan support for global HIV-prevention funding.

Despite great strides in prevention and treatment since HIV was first reported in the U.S. in the 1980s, HIV remains at epidemic levels in the U.S. today, with approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV and around 30,000 to 35,000 new infections each year. Experts said cases are rising in the South and in rural areas, and new infection statistics show it is disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic populations.

What Are the Proposed Cuts?

The AIDS Budget and Appropriations Coalition, a group of more than 100 public health advocacy organizations that track changes in HIV-related federal spending, said a majority of the proposed cuts to domestic HIV funding stem from House Republicans’ effort to eliminate the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

The program started in 2019 with the goal of reducing new HIV infections in the U.S. by 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030. The program so far worked regionally, targeting areas that have the highest rates of HIV cases for funding.

In 2023, about $573 million was allocated for the program across various agencies, according to KFF’s funding tracker.

• $220 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• $165 million to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. (It was named for a 13-year-old diagnosed with HIV in 1984 and is overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration.)
• $5 million to the Indian Health Service.
• $26 million to the National Institutes of Health for research.
• $157.3 million to community health centers, which have treated around 200,000 HIV patients annually.

The program lags its goals as it approaches the 2025 benchmark. “It’s well designed, well planned, it has targets that makes sense,” said Jeffrey Sturchio, a lead researcher on a Center for Strategic and International Studies report.

Sturchio said the problem is not a fault of design, but funding, adding, “Congress has never fully funded the initiative.”

Sturchio pointed to a range of local and state “bureaucratic hurdles.” Jurisdictions that have pulled together sufficient resources have seen “tremendous progress,” he said, and overall indicators seem to be moving in the right direction.

But COVID-19 reduced HIV testing and may have diverted public health efforts, CDC administrators said. KFF Health News reported in April that stakeholders saw progress but worried that it won’t be enough to make the 2030 deadline.

Democrats appear to share this concern. The spending bill proposed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee maintained or slightly increased funding levels to all HIV-related programs. The committee requested more data about the program, describing its “lack of quantifiable data showing outcomes.”

The House has not yet passed the bill out of committee. We know of some proposed cuts from the bill, which the Republican-led House Appropriations Subcommittee released in July.

It outlines a $1.6 billion cut to the CDC, including a $220 million reduction in “HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis prevention” and a $238.5 million cut from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. The Ryan White program provides medical care and support services to low-income HIV patients and serves more than half of those diagnosed in the U.S.

The bill also proposes cutting funding to the Minority HIV/AIDS fund by more than half — from $60 million to $28 million. According to HIV.gov, the fund supports prevention and care projects targeting disparities that affect communities of color.

Additional details about how these cuts could affect programs are detailed in a committee report that has not been made public. PolitiFact and some advocacy organizations obtained copies of the report, but the House Appropriations Committee did not respond to questions about it. The report we saw recommended cutting all funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

And House Democrats, advocacy organizations, and KFF Health News have each reported that the Ryan White program and CDC cuts result from a plan to eliminate the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.

“If they cut funding, it’s going to have a dramatic and draconian impact on the ability of all of the people who are working in these jurisdictions to improve public health,” said Sturchio, the researcher.

Although the cuts would be dramatic, experts said, they would not eliminate all domestic HIV funding.

“There is certainly a demonstration and a commitment to some of the core HIV programs, but there are millions of dollars of proposed cuts in other areas,” said Lindsey Dawson, associate director for HIV policy at KFF. “These cuts would have a meaningful impact on the ability of programs to provide lifesaving interventions for both HIV care and treatment, as well as prevention.”

The cuts would mean a 16% cut to the CDC’s division of STD prevention, a 9% cut to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, and a 53% cut to the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund from fiscal year 2023 to 2024.

These funding cuts are only proposals. They require a vote from the full appropriations committee and would have to pass the House and be negotiated with a Democratic-controlled Senate.

“We’ve heard for a long time that HIV is a bipartisan issue. But what some people forget, is that that bipartisanship was hard fought for over the first decade of the HIV epidemic,” said Dawson.

Other Challenges to HIV/AIDS Spending

The U.S. commitment to global HIV prevention, meanwhile, is also under scrutiny. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., challenged reauthorizing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR, without first making some changes. Started in 2003 by President George W. Bush, the program distributes funds in more than 50 countries for HIV testing, prevention, treatment, and medications. It also strengthens health care systems to fight AIDS.

Funding for the program has grown over the past 20 years, totaling more than $110 billion. The program reported 25 million lives saved by medical intervention.

Smith, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Global Health, has expressed concerns that money is being given to nongovernmental organizations that support abortion rights and access.

U.S. law prohibits the direct use of overseas funding to provide abortions or to lobby for access to abortions. This has been the case since 1973. However, organizations that receive U.S. funding can do so with their own non-U.S. funding.

An official from the State Department, which runs the program, confirmed to PolitiFact that PEPFAR is legally restricted from funding abortion or lobbying for abortion access; the official cited the training of staff and partners and the monitoring of procedures to ensure compliance.

Other anti-abortion groups have favored a“Mexico City Policy,’‘ which has required foreign nongovernmental organizations to certify that they would not perform or promote abortion with funds from any source to be eligible for U.S. government funding. Trump applied the policy to PEPFAR, but Biden rescinded it.

The failure to reauthorize PEPFAR would not eliminate the program, and Congress can continue to fund the program without reauthorization, but it could cause some provisions to lapse over the next few years.

The lack of a reauthorization would have significant symbolic impact, said Kellie Moss, KFF’s associate director of global health and HIV policy. “It could make the program more vulnerable during funding discussions without a clear signal of bipartisan support.”

Although reauthorization is being held up, funding has progressed. On Sept. 28, the House passed a State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which would fund PEPFAR for another year but implement a Mexico City-like policy provision on all global health funding. This bill would also extend the lapsing provisions for another year.

Our Ruling

Biden said that Republicans in Congress are “trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.”

A subcommittee of House Republicans has proposed cutting some HIV prevention programs anywhere from 53% to 9% in fiscal 2024, depending on the program.

A committee’s draft report cited by advocacy and policy groups shows these cuts stem from the elimination of the Trump-era Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, although the committee did not respond to questions about that.

Taken together, these cuts would not eliminate — or “wipe out” — all federal domestic HIV spending, but they do represent a significant cut.

Meanwhile, the House has not moved ahead to reauthorize PEPFAR, which supplies U.S. dollars for global HIV prevention, over Republican concerns about where organizations that receive the money stand on abortion access. But the House has passed one year of PEPFAR funding with some conditions about how it is distributed, which it can do without reauthorizing the program.

Biden’s statement is partially accurate in that significant funding cuts have been proposed by House Republicans, but he exaggerates by saying these efforts would “wipe out” federal funding.

We rate this claim Half True.

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(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

At a law office in downtown Orlando, Worrell pointed to the reintroduction of the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office’s adult civil citation program, which was initially discontinued by appointed state attorney Andrew Bain before he announced Monday it will resume this month. The program offers alternatives to arrest for non-violent offenders, such as counseling or community service.

She further cited her office’s conviction rates, with what she said was a 70% felony conviction rate and 99% for homicide cases in the second quarter. On Monday, Bain reported strikingly similar numbers: convictions in 71% of felony trials and all of five homicide cases for his first 100 days.

“Not surprisingly, most of what he reported were the exact same things I was doing under my administration,” Worrell told reporters. A spokesperson for Bain did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Worrell’s press conference comes less than a month before her legal team is scheduled to present oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court in an attempt to be reinstated as state attorney. Lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Florida Senate is the proper venue for reinstatement, calling her suspension a “political question.”

The hearing is set for Dec. 6.

DeSantis appointed Bain, a former Orange County judge, after suspending Worrell on Aug. 9 for what he said was a dereliction of duty for not prosecuting certain crimes more aggressively. Cited in his suspension order were alleged policies to avoid pushing for mandatory minimum sentences along with prosecutors dropping cases involving illegal guns and drug trafficking.

Worrell on Monday said the governor to date has not offered “not one scintilla of evidence” supporting those claims, adding that cases involving minimum mandatory sentences were handled “with care and caution.” She also further questioned data reported by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office regarding her office’s handling of their drug trafficking cases. Sheriff Marcos Lopez said she refused to prosecute many cases, but Worrell insists cases had to be dropped because of mishandled investigations.

DeSantis, who critics say went after Worrell for exercising prosecutorial discretion, counts law enforcement leaders among his supporters in the lawsuit against him. Earlier this month, the Florida Sheriffs Association filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold Worrell’s suspension, which came after a months-long feud between her and local leaders.

“Law enforcement’s biggest contention with me was that I didn’t rubber stamp their decisions and that I did hold them accountable when they broke the law,” Worrell said. “That is why they wanted me out of office and that is why you see them laud and praise the governor’s state attorney [Bain], because they are all carrying out the governor’s agenda.”

On Monday, Bain said he plans on running for election against Worrell to keep his position as state attorney. Records show Worrell and Republican Seth Hyman have filed as candidates.

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  Former US Rep. John Mica speaks during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica, left, speaks as Genean McKinnon, right, listens during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  A display is pictured at right as dignitaries gather during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Former U.S. Rep. John Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica, right, mingles during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica and Genean McKinnon (top) speak during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica speaks during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica speaks during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica speaks during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

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  Former US Rep. John Mica, right, mingles during an event at the Winter Park Library on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Mica is presenting his congressional papers, along with those of former Sen. Paula Hawkins, to the library. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

WOODSIDE, Calif. (AP) — President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping opened their first face-to-face meeting in more than a year Wednesday with a solid handshake ahead of talks with far-reaching implications for a world grappling with economic cross currents, wars in the Middle East and Europe, tensions in Taiwan and more.

The two leaders, meeting at a bucolic country estate outside San Francisco, are looking to get communication back on track after a tumultuous year and to show the world that while they are global economic competitors, they’re not locked in a winner-take-all faceoff.

Biden arrived first and awaited Xi, who got out of a black car and took Biden’s hand in a warm, hand-over-hand clasp before the two leaders walked a red carpet through the estate’s grand entrance with a China flag on one side and a U.S. flag on the other. Five Marines stood in formation.

The two kicked off talks discussing how important and necessary the relationship is between the two nations, particularly as the world recovers from the global pandemic. Biden said the goal of the summit was for the leaders to “understand each other,” and Xi said they bear “heavy responsibilities” for the world.

“For two large countries like China, United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” Xi said through a translator. “Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”

Biden noted that the two leaders have known each other for years but haven’t always agreed, and stressed how important their in-person meeting was Wednesday.

“It’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader-to-leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication,” Biden said.

Since they last met, already fraught ties have been further strained by the U.S. downing of a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the continental U.S. and by differences on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, China’s hacking of a Biden official’s emails and other incidents.

Biden is expected to let Xi know that he would like China to use its sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. The Biden administration also sees the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, as having considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas.

Ahead of the meeting, senior White House officials said Biden would walk away with better, more concrete outcomes compared with their last meeting, in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia on the sidelines of the Group of 20 leaders summit. There will be agreements from China to help stop the flow of chemicals used in the production of illicit fentanyl, and to revive communications between the militaries – increasingly important particularly as unsafe or unprofessional incidents between the two nations’ ships and aircraft have spiked.

Biden on Tuesday billed the meeting as a chance to get Washington and Beijing back “on a normal course corresponding” once again.

But White House National Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden was “not going to be afraid to confront where confrontation is needed on issues where we don’t see eye to eye.”

“We’re also not going to be afraid, nor should we be afraid, as a confident nation, to engage in diplomacy on ways which we can cooperate with China — on climate change, for instance, and clean energy technology,” Kirby said.

Biden will be focused on managing the countries’ increasingly fierce economic competition and keeping open lines of communication to prevent misunderstandings that could lead to direct conflict between the two powers.

While he’s expected to defend U.S. expansion of export controls on semiconductor chips, he also will assure Xi that the U.S. is not trying to wage economic war with Beijing amid continuing signs that China’s economy is struggling to recover from the disruptions of the pandemic.

Xi, meanwhile, is looking for assurances from Biden that the U.S. will not support Taiwan independence, start a new cold war or suppress China’s economic growth. He’s also keen to show the U.S. that China is still a good place to invest.

Even before their meeting, there were some signs of a thaw: The State Department on Tuesday announced that the U.S. and China — two of the world’s biggest polluters — had agreed to pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, through wind, solar and other renewables.

They are in California for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, but they met one-on-one at Filoli Estate, a country house and museum about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

The APEC summit events already have attracted considerable demonstrations and more were expected Wednesday, including protests against Xi and against multinational corporations focused on profits.

In the hours before the meeting, White House officials said Biden was coming into the talks bolstered by signs the U.S. economy is in a stronger position than China’s, and that the U.S. is building stronger stronger alliances throughout the Pacific.

The U.S. president, speaking at a campaign fundraiser on Tuesday evening, pointed to his upcoming meeting as an example of how “reestablished American leadership in the world is taking hold.” As for China, the president told donors, it has ”real problems.”

The International Monetary Fund recently cut growth forecasts for China, predicting economic growth of 5% this year and 4.2% in 2024, down slightly from previous forecasts. Last month, Beijing released economic data that showed prices falling due to slack demand from consumers and businesses.

Biden, meanwhile, has taken pride in proving wrong a large swath of economists who predicted that millions of layoffs and a recession might be needed to bring down inflation. The Labor Department said Tuesday that consumer prices rose at an annual pace of 3.2% annually, down from a June 2022 peak of 9.1%. Meanwhile, employers keep hiring and the unemployment rate has held below 4% for nearly two years.

Xi, after his meeting with Biden on Wednesday, will address American business executives at a $2,000-per-plate dinner that will be a rare opportunity for U.S. business leaders to hear directly from the Chinese leader as they seek clarification on Beijing’s expanding security rules that may choke foreign investment.

Foreign companies operating in China say tensions with Washington over technology, trade and other issues and uncertainty over Chinese policies are damaging the business environment and causing some to reassess their plans for investing in the giant market.

A senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters ahead of the meeting said one big reason why Xi decided to make the trip to the U.S. was to send the message to American CEOs that China was still a good place to invest. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Robert Moritz, global chairman for the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, said business leaders will be looking for signs of more cooperation and a firmer commitment to free trade between the world’s two largest economies following Wednesday’s meeting between Biden and Xi.

“What we are looking for is a de-escalation and a bringing of the temperature down,” Mortiz said during a CEO summit in conjunction with APEC.

“Discussion isn’t good enough, it’s the execution on getting things done” that will matter, Moritz said.

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Long and Tang reported from San Francisco. Associated Press journalist Sagar Meghani in Washington and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With less than two months until the end of the year, the Biden administration is running out of time to win the reauthorization of a spy program it says is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks.

The tool, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, will expire at the end of December unless the White House and Congress can cut a deal and resolve an unusually vexing debate that has yielded unlikely alliances at the intersection of privacy and national security.

Without the program, administration officials warn, the government won’t be able to collect crucial intelligence overseas. But civil liberties advocates from across the political spectrum say the law as it stands now infringes on the privacy of ordinary Americans, and insist that changes are needed before the program is reauthorized.

“Just imagine if some foreign terrorist organization overseas shifts its intentions and directs an operative here who’d been contingency planning to carry out an attack in our own backyard — and imagine if we’re not able to disrupt the threat because the FBI’s 702 authorities have been so watered down,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers Wednesday on the House Homeland Security Committee.

The law, enacted in 2008, permits the U.S. intelligence community to collect without a warrant the communications of foreigners overseas suspected of posing a national security threat. Importantly, the government also captures the communications of American citizens and others in the U.S. when they’re in contact with those targeted foreigners.

In making the case for the law’s renewal, the Biden administration over the last year has cited numerous instances in which intelligence derived from Section 702 has helped thwart an attack, including an assassination plot on U.S. soil, or contributed to a successful operation, such as the strike last year that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

National security officials have also said 59% of articles in the president’s daily brief contain Section 702 information, and point to the need for the program at a time when Israel’s war with Hamas has led to elevated concerns about attacks inside the U.S.

But while both sides of the debate are in broad agreement that the program is valuable, they differ in key ways on how it should be structured, creating a stalemate as the deadline approaches and as Congress is consumed by a busy year-end agenda, including working to prevent a government shutdown and disputes over border security and war spending.

The White House has already dismissed as unworkable the one known legislative proposal that’s been advanced, though additional bills are expected to be introduced.

Another complicating factor for the administration to navigate: the coalition of lawmakers skeptical of government surveillance includes both privacy-minded liberal Democrats and Republicans deeply supportive of former President Donald Trump who still regard the intelligence community with suspicion over the investigation of ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Despite the clear challenges in reaching a compromise, the last-minute scramble between the White House and Congress has come to be expected each time the government’s surveillance powers are up for renewal. This particular program was last renewed in January 2018 following a splintered vote in Congress and signed into law by Trump, who in a statement praised the tool’s value for having “saved lives” but also cheered a new requirement that was meant to protect privacy.

“A lot of these in the past have gone up to the brink. There is a history here of this brinksmanship when you have these statutory sunsets,” said Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s law school and a senior Justice Department official at the time the law was created.

This year, a key point of contention is the insistence by some in Congress, over the strong objection of the White House, that federal agencies be required to get a warrant before they can access the communications of people in the U.S.

That’s been a priority for civil liberties advocates in light of revelations over the past year about improper searches of the intelligence database by FBI analysts for information related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and the racial justice protests of 2020, as well as about state and federal political figures.

The Biden administration has said compliance errors by the FBI are exceedingly rare given the massive number of overall database queries and that the bureau has made important reforms to minimize the prospect for civil liberties intrusions.

A senior administration official has said that a warrant requirement included in a legislative proposal announced last week would cross a “red line” for the White House given that it would limit officials’ ability to detect, and act on, potentially vital intelligence in real time.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said such a mandate would not only be operationally unworkable but also legally unnecessary because it would force officials to get a warrant to examine intelligence that was already lawfully collected.

Wray, in prepared remarks to the House homeland panel, said a warrant requirement would amount to a “de facto ban” in part because of the length of time and amount of resources needed to prepare an application for a court order.

The idea of requiring a warrant or probable cause to access information about people in the U.S. has been advocated by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the most pro-Trump members of Congress, and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, a reliable champion of civil liberties and liberal standard bearer for decades.

Wyden last week released a bill with a bipartisan group of lawmakers — including Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, a vocal Trump supporter — that would mandate a warrant except for limited exemptions, such as when officials need to stop an imminent threat or if the subject of the query has consented to the search.

In an interview, Wyden said that though he felt strongly about the need for warrants — they’re “important because the Founding Fathers thought they were important” — he also believed that his team had adopted a measured approach by including significant exceptions to the warrant requirement.

“We’re not negotiating with ourselves,” Wyden said. “We’ve got an open-door policy. If there are concerns from the administration, they ought to come up, make the case and talk them through.”

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Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping will meet at a historic country house and museum with lavish gardens for one-on-one talks aimed at improving relations between the two superpowers.

The two leaders will meet Wednesday at Filoli, a secluded estate along Northern California’s coastal range. It was built in 1917 as a private residence and later became a National Trust for Historic Preservation site. The estate is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco, where leaders are gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ conference this week.

The location for the meeting was disclosed by three senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter with security implications.

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, said the location likely has met Xi’s expectations for a private meeting with Biden away from the main summit venue.

“It appears to be a quiet, secluded estate, where Biden and Xi can have an intimate conversation in a relaxed environment,” Glaser said. “Importantly, the venue is not connected to the APEC summit, so it provides the appearance that the two leaders are having a bilateral summit that is distinct from the multilateral APEC summit.”

Observers of China’s elite politics have said Xi wants to project himself to his domestic audience as equal with Biden and as commanding the respect of a U.S. president.

The estate has more than 650 acres (2.6 square kilometers), including a Georgian revival-style mansion and a formal, English Renaissance-style garden. The mansion and grounds are open daily, but the site is currently closed for three days for holiday decorating, its website says.

“A place like this allows them to get away, not just from the media, but from a lot of the other things that encourage conflict,” said Jeremi Suri, a professor of public affairs and history at the University of Texas at Austin. “If they like each other, they are likely to start trusting each other and to communicate better.”

Suri says this is what happened with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union before it was dissolved. The two met at a secluded chateau in Reykjavik in 1986, sat by a fireplace and walked outdoors wearing heavy coats, forging a relationship, Suri said.

“We need leaders who can break through the fear,” he said.

San Francisco socialite William Bowers Bourn II named Filoli by taking the first two letters of key words of his personal credo, according to the estate’s website: “Fight for a just cause. Love your Fellow Man. Live a Good Life.”

The venue is available for private events, weddings and commercial filming and photography. The gardens feature in Jennifer Lopez’s film “The Wedding Planner.”

——

AP writers Didi Tang and Colleen Long in San Francisco, and Zeke Miller and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Johnson’s proposal to temporarily fund the government into the new year passed on a bipartisan 336-95 tally, but 93 Republicans voted against it. It was the first time the new speaker had to force vital legislation through the House, and he showed a willingness to leave his right-flank Republicans behind and work with Democrats — the same political move that cost the last House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, his job just weeks ago.

This time, Johnson of Louisiana appeared on track for a temporarily better outcome. His approach, which the Senate is expected to approve by week’s end, effectively pushes a final showdown over government funding to the new year.

“Making sure that government stays in operation is a matter of conscience for all of us. We owe that to the American people,” Johnson said earlier Tuesday at a news conference at the Capitol.

The new Republican leader faced the same political problem that led to McCarthy’s ouster — angry, frustrated, hard-right GOP lawmakers rejected his approach, demanded budget cuts and voted against the plan. Rather than the applause and handshakes that usually follow passage of a bill, several hardline conservatives animatedly confronted the speaker as they exited the chamber.

Without enough support from his Republican majority, Johnson had little choice but to rely on Democrats to ensure passage to keep the federal government running.

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Johnson’s proposal puts forward a unique — critics say bizarre — two-part process that temporarily funds some federal agencies to Jan. 19 and others to Feb. 2. It’s a continuing resolution, or CR, that comes without any of the deep cuts conservatives have demanded all year. It also fails to include President Joe Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel, border security and other supplemental funds.

“We’re not surrendering,” Johnson assured after a closed-door meeting of House Republicans Tuesday morning, vowing he would not support another stopgap. “But you have to choose fights you can win.”

Johnson, who announced his endorsement Tuesday of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, hit the airwaves to sell his approach and met privately Monday night with the conservative Freedom Caucus.

Johnson says the innovative approach would position House Republicans to “go into the fight” for deeper spending cuts in the new year, but many Republicans are skeptical there will be any better outcome in January.

Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who is part of the House Freedom Caucus, threatened to take the House floor hostage if the chamber doesn’t pass all of the appropriations bills by the deadlines.

He said he would give “a little bit of room” to Johnson, who is three weeks into the job of speaker. But Roy did not hold back on his opinion of the funding bill: “It’s crap.”

The opposition from hardline conservatives left Johnson with few other options than to skip what’s typically a party-only procedural vote, and rely on another process that requires a two-thirds tally with Democrats for passage.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries noted in a letter to colleagues that the GOP package met Democratic demands to keep funding at current levels without steep reductions or divisive Republican policy priorities.

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In a statement alongside other Democratic leaders, Jeffries said they would try to find common ground with Republicans whenever possible and pointed out that a federal shutdown “would hurt the economy, our national security and everyday Americans.”

Winning bipartisan approval of a continuing resolution is the same move that led McCarthy’s hard-right flank to oust him in October, days after the Sept. 30 vote to avert a federal shutdown. For now, Johnson appears to be benefiting from a political honeymoon in one of his first big tests on the job.

“Look, we’re going to trust the speaker’s move here,” said Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga.

But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a McCarthy ally who opposed his ouster, said Johnson should be held to the same standard. “What’s the point in throwing out one speaker if nothing changes? The only way to make sure that real changes happen is make the red line stay the same for every speaker.”

The Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority, has signaled its willingness to accept Johnson’s package ahead of Friday’s deadline to fund the government.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the House package “a solution” and said he expected it to pass Congress with bipartisan support.

“It’s nice to see us working together to avoid a government shutdown,” he said.

But McConnell, R-Ky., has noted that Congress still has work to do toward Biden’s request to provide U.S. military aid for Ukraine and Israel and for other needs. Senators are trying to devise a separate package to fund U.S. supplies for the overseas wars and to bolster border security, but it remains a work in progress.

If approved, passage of the continuing resolution would be a less-than-triumphant capstone to the House GOP’s first year in the majority. The Republicans have worked tirelessly to cut federal government spending only to find their own GOP colleagues unwilling to go along with the most conservative priorities. Two of the Republican bills collapsed last week as moderates revolted.

Instead, the Republicans are left funding the government essentially on autopilot at the levels that were set in bipartisan fashion at the end of 2022, when Democrats had control of Congress but the two parties came together to agree on budget terms.

All that could change in the new year when 1% cuts across the board to all departments would be triggered if Congress failed to agree to new budget terms and pass the traditional appropriation bills to fund the government by springtime.

The 1% automatic cuts, which would take hold in April, are despised by all sides — Republicans say they are not enough, Democrats say they are too steep and many lawmakers prefer to boost defense funds. But they are part of the debt deal McCarthy and Biden struck earlier this year. The idea was to push Congress to do better.

The legislation also extends farm bill programs through September, the end of the current fiscal year. That addition was an important win for some farm-state lawmakers. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., for example, warned that without the extension, milk prices would have soared and hurt producers back in his home state.

“The farm bill extension was the biggest sweetener for me,” said Pocan.

“Thank you very much, I appreciate the confidence of the vote from all of you,” said Zembower after the unanimous vote by his fellow board members. He replaces Commissioner Amy Lockhart.

The county chair presides over county commission meetings, signs legal documents on behalf of the commission and appoints fellow commissioners to committees.

The commission chair selection, however, brings a level of political interest not seen in recent years, as Lockhart and other county officials clashed with Supervisor of Elections Chris Anderson.

The county chair also sits on Seminole’s canvassing board — which every election cycle oversees the voting process in the county — along with a county judge and the supervisor of elections. The canvassing board is responsible for testing voting machines, overseeing the counting of ballots and conducting a post-election audit of the voting system.

Anderson — who is Seminole’s first Black supervisor of elections — has expressed concerns about racism in the county, including in letters and in an emotional video he posted on TikTok in late August.

In response, then-chair Lockhart sent a letter on Oct. 3 to Gov. Ron DeSantis, which asked his office to investigate what she called Anderson’s “erratic” and “combative” conduct.

“Mr. Anderson’s outward displays of resentment include candidates who will be on the ballot in an upcoming election,” Lockhart said in her missive. “One must wonder if they will be able to participate confidently in the electoral process and without fear of retaliation by the person counting the votes.”

The Governor’s Office has not said publicly whether it will pursue Lockhart’s request for an investigation.

On Nov. 3, Anderson and other members of the canvassing board — including Lockhart — had a tense meeting in which Anderson called to remove Phil Kaprow as the board’s attorney. But Lockhart and county Judge Carsandra Buie voted to keep Kaprow as the canvassing board’s attorney.

The tension comes less than a year before a large countywide election in November 2024, in which Seminole voters will cast ballots for an array of candidates — including the U.S. President, U.S. Senator, Congressional and state representatives, along with three county commission candidates and five county constitutional officers. Anderson’s position as supervisor of elections will be on the ballot next year, and he has said he plans to seek reelection.

As the new chairman, Zembower will serve on the canvassing board for that next election cycle. However, Lockhart will stand in for Zembower at the next canvassing board meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Supervisor of Elections Office, 1500 E. Airport Blvd., in Sanford.

Commissioners on Tuesday also selected Andria Herr to continue serving as the board’s vice chair.

Zembower last served as chair in 2020 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic when local governments were struggling with whether to impose restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease.

“Does somebody know something about a pandemic about to break out?” Zembower joked after Tuesday’s vote from commissioners.

He later lauded Lockhart for serving as chair when the board hired this year county Manager Darren Gray and county Attorney Kate LaTorre.

“I’d like to take a moment and thank Chairman Lockhart for her leadership in on-boarding a new county manager and a new county attorney — the two key positions in our county,” Zembower said.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia district attorney who charged former President Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election said Tuesday that she expects his trial will be underway through Election Day next year and could possibly stretch past the inauguration in 2025.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis made the comments at an event sponsored by The Washington Post. Her remarks came shortly after Willis asked a judge for an emergency protective order to prevent evidence in the case from being leaked, just a day after news outlets reported on prosecutors’ video interviews with four co-defendants who have pleaded guilty in the case.

Trump was indicted along with 18 others in Fulton County in August on charges they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to keep the Republican incumbent in power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump and the remaining defendants — including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — have all pleaded not guilty.

“I believe in that case there will be a trial. I believe the trial will take many months. And I don’t expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025,” Willis told the newspaper at the The Washington Post’s Global Women’s Summit.

Trump is the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican nominee for president. The timing suggested by Willis would make the Georgia prosecution the last of his four criminal cases to go to trial. Ultimately, it will be up to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee to set the trial date.

“I don’t, when making decisions about cases to bring, consider any election cycle or an election season. That does not go into the calculus. What goes into the calculus is: This is the law. These are the facts. And the facts show you violated the law. Then charges are brought,” Willis said.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, declined to comment on Willis’ remarks.

Willis’ team on Tuesday filed an emergency request asking McAfee to issue a protective order to prevent any leaks of evidence, known as discovery, that the prosecution shares with the defense ahead of trial. McAfee has set a hearing on the motion for Wednesday afternoon.

The request came a day after the Post reported the details of video interviews with four people who have already pleaded guilty in the case — attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, and bail bondsman and Trump supporter Scott Hall. ABC News first published details and clips of the interviews with Powell and Ellis.

Prosecutors, who had previously requested a protective order to prevent the release of discovery in September, said the release of the recordings “is clearly intended to intimidate witnesses in this case.”

Former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer, joined by Trump and four other defendants, objected to prosecutors’ request, saying prosecutors had failed to show how it would “allegedly serve the purpose of protecting witnesses from alleged harm.” If the judge plans to impose a protective order, it should be limited to evidence considered “Sensitive Materials,” and defense attorneys should be able to contest that designation, Shafer’s attorneys wrote in a filing Tuesday.

The recorded statements had been shared with all remaining defense attorneys in the case. Going forward, prosecutors wrote, defendants and their lawyers will not receive copies of such recordings but will be able to watch them and take notes at the district attorney’s office.

Ellis told prosecutors that Dan Scavino, then Trump’s deputy chief of staff, told her in December 2020 that “the boss” didn’t plan to leave the White House after she expressed sorrow that none of the legal challenges to the election seemed to be panning out, according to news reports.

Chesebro told prosecutors about a previously unreported meeting at the White House during which he briefed the then-president on election challenges in Arizona and summarized his advice on a plan to assemble Republican slates of electors in several swing states that Biden had won, the Post reported.

Asked by prosecutors why Trump kept asking her for legal advice, Powell said, “Because we were the only ones willing to support his effort to sustain the White House. I mean, everybody else was telling him to pack up and go.”

Trump attorney Sadow dismissed the relevance of the recorded interviews and called for the case to be dismissed.

“Any purported private conversation is absolutely meaningless,” he said in an emailed statement. “The only salient and telling fact is that President Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021 and returned to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.”

DETROIT (AP) — A Michigan judge ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump will remain on the state’s primary ballot, dealing a blow to the effort to stop Trump’s candidacy with a Civil War-era Constitutional clause.

It marks the second time in a week that a state court declined to remove Trump from a primary ballot under the insurrection provision of the 14th Amendment.

In Michigan, Court of Claims Judge James Redford rejected arguments that Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol meant the court had to declare him ineligible for the presidency. Redford wrote that, because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot, he cannot remove the former president.

Additionally, he said it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump is disqualified under the section of the U.S. Constitution that bars from office a person who “engaged in insurrection.”

Redford said deciding whether an event constituted “a rebellion or insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it” are questions best left to Congress and not “one single judicial officer.” A judge, he wrote, “cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation — as does the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

Free Speech For People, a liberal group that has brought 14th Amendment cases in a number of states, said it will immediately appeal the ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals, but also asked the state supreme court to step in and take the case on an expedited basis.

“We are disappointed by the trial court’s decision, and we’re appealing it immediately,” said Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech For People.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung rattled off other losses in the long-shot effort to bar Trump from the ballot.

“Each and every one of these ridiculous cases have LOST because they are all un-Constitutional left-wing fantasies orchestrated by monied allies of the Biden campaign seeking to turn the election over to the courts and deny the American people the right to choose their next president,” Cheung said.

Left-learning groups have filed similar lawsuits in other states seeking to bar Trump from the ballot, portraying him as inciting the Jan. 6 attack, which was intended to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win.

The two-sentence clause in the 14th Amendment has been used only a handful of times since the years after the Civil War. It’s likely that one of the active cases eventually will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the insurrection clause.

Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court sidestepped the issue by ruling that Trump could stay on that state’s primary ballot because the election is a party-run contest during which constitutional eligibility isn’t an issue. It left the door open to another lawsuit to keep Trump off the state’s general election ballot.

A Colorado judge is expected to rule on a similar lawsuit there by Friday. Closing arguments in that case are scheduled for Wednesday.

___

Riccardi reported from Denver.