There was an almost childlike excitement from general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell on Tuesday afternoon at TCO Performance Center as they set the stage for the Vikings to start training camp.

The humbling loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs is in the rearview mirror, as are the feelings of failure attached to it.

Instead, the Vikings get to operate with overwhelming optimism, at least for the time being, after spending more than $300 million in free agency to address all of the weaknesses the Rams helped reveal.

“We’ve spent this offseason focusing on building the idea of the 2025 Vikings,” Adofo-Mensah said. “This is the time to really build the reality of what this team is going to be.”

What exactly does Adofo-Mensah want that to look like? He described it by saying he wants the Vikings to be able to show up to a fight, not necessarily knowing what the fight is going to be like, and leave as the last man standing.

“When it’s single elimination in the playoffs, we might have to play a certain type of game,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We wanted to build the type of team that’s versatile and can win in different ways and we think we’ve done that.”

There’s a big difference between thinking and knowing, however, and whether the Vikings have accomplished that goal won’t be known until they either make or miss the playoffs at the end of the regular season.

In the meantime, O’Connell is trying to get this particular group to focus on the journey rather than the destination, believing that if they lean into the work every, then everything else will take care of itself.

“How do we do that?” O’Connell said. “We have a good training camp.”

Though there are storylines aplenty for the Vikings as they prepare to return to the field, the maturation of young quarterback J.J. McCarthy will be chief among them as he steps into the spotlight as the new face of the franchise.

Not that O’Connell seems to worried about how McCarthy will handle the pressure.

“We feel like we’ve built a team with leadership on both sides of the ball, and with experience on both sides of the ball, all designed to help him be comfortable in his role,” O’Connell said. “You feel the energy and the enthusiasm that J.J. has brought to the group and that they’re reciprocating right back to him.”

That should serve as a good starting point for the Vikings as they set their sights on that elusive Lombardi Trophy.

Never mind that neither Adofo-Mensah nor O’Connell directly referenced the Super Bowl ahead of training camp. It’s pretty clear that everybody associated with the Vikings is moving forward with that at the forefront of their mind.

“It’s time for us to acknowledge what we’re actually trying build here,” O’Connell said. “We’ve got to put in a lot of work to feel totally worthy in those moments to get to where we want to get to.”

Briefly

The only players starting training camp on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list are tight end Gavin Bartholomew and edge rusher Chaz Chambliss. The fact that left tackle Christian Darrisaw was not placed on the PUP list speaks to his progress as he continues to work his way back from torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee.

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Both directions of Interstate 494 in Inver Grove Heights will be closed between Blaine Avenue and Babcock Trail this weekend, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Starting at 10 p.m. Friday, the stretch of freeway will shut down so crews can begin demolition work on the northbound U.S. 52 bridge. Along with the freeway closure, all Highway 52 clover-leaf ramps to I-494 will shut down.

The detour for motorists going westbound on I-494 will be northbound U.S. 52 to Mendota Road to southbound U.S. 52 to westbound I-494.

Motorists going eastbound on I-494 will be detoured to southbound Highway 52 to eastbound 70th Street to northbound U.S. 52 to eastbound I-494.

The freeway is scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. Monday.

The eastbound I-494 to northbound Highway 52 and northbound U.S. 52 to westbound I-494 ramps will remain closed through September.

More information about the project can be found at mndot.gov/metro/projects/hwy52invergroveheights.

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By ERIC TUCKER and CHRIS MEGERIAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rehashed longstanding grievances over the Russia investigation that shadowed much of his first term, lashing out Tuesday following a new report from his intelligence director aimed at casting doubt on long-established findings about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

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“It’s time to go after people,” Trump said from the Oval Office as he repeated a baseless claim that former President Barack Obama and other officials had engaged in treason.

Trump was not making his claims for the first time, but he delivered them when administration officials are harnessing the machinery of the federal government to investigate the targets of Trump’s derision, including key officials responsible for scrutinizing Russia’s attempts to intervene on Trump’s behalf in 2016.

The backward-looking inquiries are taking place even as the Republican administration’s national security agencies are confronting global threats. But they have served as a rallying cry for Trump, who is trying to unify a political base at odds over the Jeffrey Epstein case, with some allies pushing to disclose more information despite the president’s push to turn the page.

Trump’s attack prompted a rare response from Obama’s post-presidential office.

“Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” said Patrick Rodenbush, an Obama spokesman. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”

Gabbard’s new report on the Russia investigation

Trump’s tirade, a detour from his official business as he hosted the leader of the Philippines, unfolded against the backdrop of a new report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that represented his administration’s latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Russia investigation, which has infuriated him for years.

The report, released Friday, downplayed the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election by highlighting Obama administration emails showing officials had concluded before and after the presidential race that Moscow had not hacked state election systems to manipulate votes in Trump’s favor.

But Obama’s Democratic administration never suggested otherwise, even as it exposed other means by which Russia interfered in the election, including through a massive hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails by intelligence operatives working with WikiLeaks. Also, a covert foreign influence campaign aimed at swaying public opinion and sowing discord through fake social media posts.

Gabbard’s report appears to suggest the absence of manipulation of state election systems is a basis to call into question more general Russian interference.

Democrats swiftly decried the report as factually flawed and politically motivated.

“It is sadly not surprising that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence community, is once again weaponizing her position to amplify the president’s election conspiracy theories,” wrote Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Several investigations found Russian interference in 2016

Russia’s broad interference in 2016 has been established through a series of investigations, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which concluded that the Trump campaign welcomed the Kremlin’s help but also found insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy. A House Intelligence Committee report also documented Russia’s meddling, as did the Senate Intelligence Committee, which concluded its work at a time when the panel was led by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s now Trump’s secretary of state.

A different special counsel appointed by the Trump Justice Department to hunt for problems in the origins of the Russia investigation, John Durham, did find flaws, but not related to what Gabbard sought to highlight in her report.

“Few episodes in our nation’s history have been investigated as thoroughly as the Intelligence Community’s warning in 2016 that Russia was interfering in the election,” said Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

He added that every legitimate investigation, including the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee probe, “found no evidence of politicization and endorsed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment.”

Gabbard’s document was released weeks after a CIA report that reexamined a 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian interference. That new review, ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, did not dispute Russia had interfered but suggested officials were rushed in the intelligence assessment they produced.

Seeking investigations of former officials

Ratcliffe has since referred former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the Justice Department for investigation. The department appeared to acknowledge an open investigation into both former officials in an unusual statement earlier this month, but the status or contours of such inquiries are unclear.

Besides Obama, Trump on Tuesday rattled off a list of people he accused of acting criminally “at the highest level,” including Comey, his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and former national intelligence director James Clapper.

He accused Obama, without evidence, of being the “ringleader” of a conspiracy to get him. Obama has never been accused of any wrongdoing as part of the Russia investigation, and, in any event, a landmark Supreme Court opinion from last year shields former presidents from prosecution for official acts conducted in office.

Trump launched his tirade when asked about the Justice Department’s effort to speak with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Epstein, who was convicted of helping the financier sexually abuse underage girls.

“I don’t really follow that too much,” he said. “It’s sort of a witch hunt, a continuation of the witch hunt.”

Trump is under pressure from conspiracy-minded segments of his political base to release more about the Epstein case. Democrats say Trump is resisting because of his past association with Epstein. Trump has denied knowledge of or involvement with Epstein’s crimes and said he ended their friendship years ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person’s voice to bypass security checks and move money.

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Altman spoke at a Federal Reserve conference Tuesday in Washington.

“A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” Altman said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”

Voiceprinting as an identification for wealthy bank clients grew popular more than a decade ago, with customers typically asked to utter a challenge phrase into the phone to access their accounts.

But now AI voice clones, and eventually video clones, can impersonate people in a way that Altman said is increasingly “indistinguishable from reality” and will require new methods for verification.

“That might be something we can think about partnering on,” said Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, the central bank’s top financial regulator, who was hosting the discussion with Altman.