By SEUNG MIN KIM, JILL COLVIN and CALVIN WOODWARD (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden and Donald Trump are two presidents with unfinished business and an itch to get it done.

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Their track records and plans on abortion, immigration, taxes, wars abroad — you name it — leave no doubt that the man voters choose in November will seek to shape the landscape of American life in ways wholly distinct from the other.

The choices, if the winner gets his way, are sharply defined. The onward march of regulation and incentives to restrain climate change, or a slow walk if not an about-face. Higher taxes on the super rich, or not. Abortion rights reaffirmed, or left to states to restrict or allow as each decides. Another attempt to legislate border security and orderly entry into the country, or massive deportations. A commitment to stand with Ukraine or let go.

At no time in living memory have two presidents, current and former, competed for the office. Not since Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, both Republicans, in 1912, and that didn’t work out for either of them — Democrat Woodrow Wilson won that three-way race.

More than a century later, voters again get to judge two presidents on their records alongside their promises for the next four years. Here’s where they stand on 10 of the top issues:

ABORTION

BIDEN: The president has called for Congress to send him legislation that would codify in federal law the right to an abortion, which stood for nearly 50 years before being overturned by the Supreme Court. He has also criticized statewide bans on abortion in Republican states and says he will veto any potential nationwide ban should one come to his desk. In the absence of legislation, his administration has taken narrower actions, such as proposals that would protect women who travel to obtain abortions and limit how law enforcement collects medical records.

TRUMP: The former president often brags about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion. After dodging questions about when in pregnancy he believes the procedure should be restricted, Trump announced in April that decisions on access and cutoffs should be left to the states. He said he would not sign a national abortion ban into law. But he’s declined to say whether he would try to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone. He told Time magazine in recent interviews that it should also be left up to states to determine whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor their pregnancies.

CLIMATE/ENERGY

BIDEN: In a second term, Biden could be expected to continue his focus on implementing the climate provisions of his Inflation Reduction Act, which provided nearly $375 billion for things like financial incentives for electric cars and clean energy projects. Biden is also enlisting more than 20,000 young people in a national “Climate Corps,” a Peace Corps-like program to promote conservation through tasks such as weatherizing homes and repairing wetlands. Biden wants to triple the group’s size this decade. Despite all this, it’s unlikely that the U.S. will be on track to meet Biden’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030.

TRUMP: His mantra for one of his top priorities: “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.” Trump, who in the past cast climate change as a “hoax” and harbors a particular disdain for wind power, says it’s his goal for the U.S. to have the cheapest energy and electricity in the world. He’d increase oil drilling on public lands, offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers, speed the approval of natural gas pipelines and roll back the Biden administration’s aggressive efforts to get people to switch to electric cars, which he argues have a place but shouldn’t be forced on consumers. He has also pledged to re-exit the Paris Climate Accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden administration targeting energy-inefficient kinds of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

DEMOCRACY/RULE OF LAW

BIDEN: Protecting democracy has been the raison d’etre behind Biden’s decision to run for reelection. In a symbolic nod to the Revolutionary War, Biden delivered his first campaign speech of 2024 near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where he spoke of George Washington’s decision to step down as the leader of the Continental Army after American independence was won. During the Jan. 5 speech, Biden said this year’s presidential contest is “all about” whether U.S. democracy will survive and he regularly condemns Trump’s denial that he lost the 2020 general election. Biden has called the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol a “day that we nearly lost America — lost it all.”

TRUMP: The former president, who famously refused to accept his loss to Biden in 2020, has not committed to accepting the results this time. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” Trump recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.” He has said he will pardon the Jan. 6 defendants jailed for assaulting police officers and other crimes during the attack on the Capitol. He vows to overhaul the Justice Department and FBI “from the ground up,” aggrieved by the criminal charges the department has brought against him. He also promises to deploy the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violent crime, and in response to protests, and has also vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Biden.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

BIDEN: The Biden administration is already taking steps to make it harder for any mass firings of civil servants to occur. In April, the Office of Personnel Management issued a new rule that would ban federal workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other at-will employees, which makes them easier to dismiss. That was in response to Schedule F, a 2020 executive order from Trump that reclassified tens of thousands of federal workers so they could be fired more easily.

TRUMP: The former president vows an overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, which he has long blamed for stymying his first term agenda: “I will totally obliterate the deep state.” He plans to reissue the Schedule F order stripping civil service protections. He’d then move to fire “rogue bureaucrats,” including those who ”weaponized our justice system,” and the “warmongers and America-Last globalists in the Deep State, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the national security industrial complex.” He’s pledged to terminate the Education Department and wants to curtail the independence of regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission.

IMMIGRATION

BIDEN: The president continues to advocate for the comprehensive immigration bill he introduced on his first day in office, which would grant an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, with a faster track for young immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought here as children. That legislation went nowhere in Congress. This year, the president backed a Senate compromise that included tougher asylum standards and billions more in federal dollars to hire more border agents, immigration judges and asylum officers. That deal collapsed on Capitol Hill due to Trump’s opposition. Biden is currently considering executive action on the border, particularly if the number of illegal crossings increases later this year.

TRUMP: The former president promises to mount the largest domestic deportation in U.S. history — an operation that could include detention camps and the National Guard. He’d bring back policies he put in place during his first term, like the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42, which placed curbs on migrants on public health grounds. And he’d revive and expand the travel ban that originally targeted citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, he pledged new “ideological screening” for immigrants to bar “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs.” He’d also try to deport people who are in the U.S. legally but harbor “jihadist sympathies.” He’d seek to end birthright citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose parents are both in the country illegally.

ISRAEL/GAZA

BIDEN: The war in Gaza, far more so than other national security considerations, has defined Biden’s foreign policy this year, with significant political implications. He has offered full-throated support for Israel since Hamas militants launched a surprise deadly assault on Oct. 7. But as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb, Biden has faced massive backlash at home. His administration is working to broker a temporary ceasefire that would release some hostages held by Hamas, which would also allow for more humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn region. Biden also calls for a two-state solution, which would have Israel existing alongside an independent Palestinian state.

TRUMP: The former president has expressed support for Israel’s efforts to “destroy” Hamas but he’s also been critical of some of Israel’s tactics. He says the country must finish the job quickly and get back to peace. He has called for more aggressive responses to pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses and applauded police efforts to clear encampments. Trump also proposes to revoke the student visas of those who espouse antisemitic or anti-American views.

LGBTQ ISSUES

BIDEN: The president and White House officials regularly denounce discrimination and attacks against the LGBTQ community. Shortly after he took office, Biden reversed an executive order from Trump that had largely banned transgender people from military service, and his Education Department completed a rule in April that says Title IX, the 1972 law that was passed to protect women’s rights, also bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The new rule was silent on the issue of transgender athletes.

TRUMP: The former president has pledged to keep transgender women out of women’s sports and says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that “only two genders,” as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States. He promises to “defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology.” As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he would declare that any health care provider that participates in the “chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth” no longer meets federal health and safety standards and won’t get federal money. He’d take similarly punitive steps in schools against any teacher or school official who “suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body.” Trump would support a national prohibition of hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors and bar transgender people from military service.

NATO/UKRAINE

BIDEN: The president has spent much of his time rebuilding alliances unraveled by Trump, particularly NATO, a critical bulwark against Russian aggression. Since the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden has pledged unceasing support to Kyiv and he made an unannounced visit there in February 2023 in a show of solidarity. His administration and Congress have sent tens of billions of dollars in military and other aid to Ukraine. The latest tranche of aid totaled $61 billion in weapons, ammunition and other assistance and is expected to last through this year. Continued U.S. assistance is critical, Biden says, because he argues that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not stop at invading Ukraine.

TRUMP: The former president has repeatedly taken issue with U.S. aid to Ukraine and says he will continue to “fundamentally reevaluate” the mission and purpose of the NATO alliance if he returns to office. He has claimed, without explanation, that he will be able to end the war before his inauguration by bringing both sides to the negotiating table. (His approach seems to hinge on Ukraine giving up at least some of its Russian-occupied territory in exchange for a cease-fire.) On NATO, he has assailed member nations for years for failing to hit agreed-upon military spending targets. Trump drew alarms this year when he said that, as president, he had warned leaders that he would not only refuse to defend nations that don’t hit those targets, but “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent.”

TARIFFS/TRADE

BIDEN: This is where Biden and his protectionist tendencies — in a continued appeal to working-class voters — have some similarities with Trump. Biden is calling for a tripling of tariffs on Chinese steel, a move that would shield U.S. producers from cheaper imports. The current tariff rate is 7.5% for both steel and aluminum but Biden wants that to go to 25%. Biden has also said he opposes the proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, because it is “vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.”

TRUMP: The former president wants a dramatic expansion of tariffs, proposing a levy of perhaps 10% on nearly all imported foreign goods. Penalties would increase if trade partners manipulate their currencies or engage in other unfair trading practices. He would also urge Congress to pass legislation giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the U.S. Much of his trade agenda has focused on China. Trump has proposed phasing out Chinese imports of essential goods including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals and wants to ban Chinese companies from owning U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and farmland. Whether higher tariffs come from a Biden administration or a Trump one, they are likely to raise prices for consumers who have already faced higher costs from inflation.

TAXES

BIDEN: In his State of the Union address, Biden proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and the corporate minimum tax to 21% as a matter of “fundamental fairness” that will bring in more money to invest in Americans. The current corporate rate is 21% and the corporate minimum, raised under the Inflation Reduction Act, is at 15% for companies making more than $1 billion a year. Biden also wants to require billionaires to pay at least 25% of their income in taxes and to restore the child tax credit that was enacted under his 2021 COVID-19 relief package, but has since expired.

TRUMP: The former president has promised to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017 and that are due to sunset at the end of 2025. That package cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and roughly doubled the standard deduction and child tax credit.

By GARANCE BURKE and ALAN SUDERMAN (Associated Press)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump’s former campaign manager looked squarely into the camera and promised his viewers they were about to witness a bold new era in politics.

“You’re going to see some of the most amazing new technology in artificial intelligence that’s going to replace polling in the future across the country,” said Brad Parscale in a dimly lit promotional video accentuated by hypnotic beats.

Parscale, the digital campaign operative who helped engineer Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, vows that his new, AI-powered platform will dramatically overhaul not just polling but also campaigning. His AI-powered tools, he has boasted, will outperform big tech companies and usher in a wave of conservative victories worldwide.

It’s not the first time Parscale has proclaimed that new technologies will boost right-wing campaigns. He was the digital guru who teamed up with scandal-plagued Cambridge Analytica and helped propel Trump to the White House eight years ago. In 2020, he had a public blowup then a private falling out with his old boss after the Capitol riot. Now he’s back, playing an under-the-radar role to help Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in his race against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Parscale says his company, Campaign Nucleus can use AI to help generate customized emails, parse oceans of data to gauge voter sentiment and find persuadable voters, then amplify the social media posts of “anti-woke” influencers, according to an Associated Press review of Parscale’s public statements, his company websites, slide decks, marketing materials and other documents not previously made public.

Since last year, Campaign Nucleus and other Parscale-linked companies have been paid more than $2.2 million by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their related political action and fundraising committees, campaign finance records show.

While his firms have received only a small piece of Trump’s total digital spending, Parscale remains close to top Republicans, as well as senior officials at the campaign and at the RNC, according to a GOP operative familiar with Parscale’s role who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.

Lara Trump, the RNC’s new co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law, once worked as a consultant to a company co-owned by Parscale. And U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign recently hired Campaign Nucleus, campaign finance records show.

Parscale, however, is not involved in day-to-day Trump campaign operations, the GOP operative said.

Parscale’s ability to use AI to micro target supporters and tap them for campaign cash could prove critical for Trump’s campaign and other fundraising organizations. They have seen a falloff in contributions from smaller donors and a surge in spending — at least $77 million so far — on attorneys defending the former president in a slew of criminal and civil cases.

Beyond Trump, Parscale has said he’s harnessed AI to supercharge conservative candidates and causes across the globe, including in Israel, the Balkans and Brazil.

NEW AI-POWERED CAMPAIGN TOOLS

Parscale is hardly alone in using machine learning to try to give candidates an edge by predicting, pinpointing and motivating likely supporters to vote and donate money. Politicians at all levels are experimenting with chatbots and other generative AI tools to write speeches, ad copy and fundraising appeals.

Some Democrats have voiced concern over being outmaneuvered by Republicans on AI, much like they were on social media advertising eight years ago. So far, the Biden campaign and other Democrats said they are using AI to help them find and motivate voters and to better identify and defeat disinformation.

Election experts say they are concerned about AI’s potential to upend elections around the world through convincing deepfakes and other content that could mislead voters. Free and low-cost generative AI services have grown in sophistication, and officials worry they can be used to smear a candidate or steer voters to avoid the polls, eroding the public’s trust in what they see and hear.

Parscale has the financial backing to experiment to see what works in ways that other AI evangelists may not. That is thanks, in part, to his association with a Texas billionaire who is among the state’s most influential political donors.

Parscale did not respond to multiple messages from AP seeking comment. The RNC declined comment as well.

AI IS ‘SO SCARY’

Trump has called artificial intelligence “ so scary ” and “dangerous.” His campaign, which has shied away from highlighting Parscale’s role, said in an emailed statement that it did not “engage or utilize” tools supplied by any AI company.

“The campaign uses a set of proprietary algorithmic tools, like many other campaigns across the country, to help deliver emails more efficiently and prevent sign-up lists from being populated by false information,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.

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While political consultants often hype their tactics to land new contracts, they can also be intensely secretive about the details of that work to avoid assisting rivals. That makes it difficult to precisely track how Parscale is deploying AI for the Trump campaign, or more broadly.

Parscale has said Campaign Nucleus can send voters customized emails and use data analytics to predict voters’ feelings. The platform can also amplify “anti-woke” influencers who have large followings on social media, according to his company’s documents and videos.

Parscale said his company also can use artificial intelligence to create “stunning web pages in seconds” that produce content that looks like a media outlet, according to a presentation he gave last month at a political conference, where he was not advertised in advance as a speaker.

“Empower your team to create their own news,” said another slide, according to the presentation viewed by AP.

Soon, Parscale says, his company will deploy an app that harnesses AI to assist campaigns in collecting absentee ballots in the same way DoorDash or Grubhub drivers pick up dinners from restaurants and deliver them to customers.

Chris Wilson, a Republican strategist who recently worked for a SuperPAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential bid, said he has seen Campaign Nucleus’ platform and was “envious” of its capabilities and simplicity.

“Somebody could download Nucleus, start working with it and really begin to use it,” said Wilson.

Other political consultants, however, called Parscale’s AI-infused sales pitch largely a rehash of what campaigns already have mastered through data scraping, ad testing and modeling to predict voter behavior.

“Some of this stuff is just simply not new, it’s been around for a long time. The only thing new is that we’re just calling it AI,” said Amanda Elliott, a GOP digital strategist.

FROM UNKNOWN TO TRUMP CONFIDANT

Parscale, a relatively unknown web designer in San Antonio, got his start working for Trump when he was hired to build a web presence for the business mogul’s family business.

That led to a job on the future president’s 2016 campaign. He was one of its first hires and spearheaded an ambitious and unorthodox digital initiative that relied on an extensive database of social media accounts and content to target voters with Facebook ads.

“I pretty much used Facebook to get Trump elected in 2016,” Parscale said in a 2022 podcast interview.

To better target Facebook users, in particular, the campaign teamed up with Cambridge Analytica, a British datamining firm bankrolled by Robert Mercer, a wealthy and influential GOP donor. After the election, Cambridge Analytica dissolved, facing investigations over its role in a breach of 87 million Facebook accounts.

Following Trump’s surprise win, Parscale’s influence grew. He was promoted to manage Trump’s reelection bid and enjoyed celebrity status. A towering figure at 6 feet, 8 inches with a Viking-style beard, Parscale was frequently spotted at campaign rallies taking selfies with Trump supporters and signing autographs.

Parscale was replaced as campaign manager not long after a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, drew an unexpectedly small crowd, enraging Trump.

His personal life unraveled, culminating in a standoff with police at his Florida home after his wife reported he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself. One of the responding officers reported he saw bruising on the arms of Parscale’s wife. Parscale complied with a court order to turn in his firearms and was not charged in connection with the incident.

Parscale briefly decided to quit politics and privately expressed regret for associating with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In a text to a former campaign colleague, he wrote he felt “guilty for helping him win” in 2016, according to the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack.

His disgust didn’t last long. Campaign Nucleus set up Trump’s website after Silicon Valley tech companies throttled his access to their platforms.

By the summer of 2022, Parscale had resumed complimenting his old boss on a podcast popular among GOP politicos.

“With President Trump, he really was the guy driving the message. He was the chief strategist of his own political uprising and management,” Parscale said. “I think what the family recognized was: I had done everything that really the campaign needs to do.”

PARSCALE’S PLATFORM

Trump’s 2024 campaign website now links directly to Parscale’s company and displays that it’s “Powered by Nucleus,” as Parscale often refers to his new firm. The campaign and its related political action and campaign committees have paid Campaign Nucleus more than $800,000 since early 2023, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Two other companies — Dyspatchit Email and Text Services and BCVM Services — are listed on campaign finance records as being located at the same Florida address used by Campaign Nucleus. The firms, which are registered in Delaware and whose ownership is unclear, have received $1.4 million from the Trump campaign and related entities, FEC records show.

When an AP reporter last month visited Campaign Nucleus’ small, unmarked office in a tony section of Fort Lauderdale, an employee said she did not know anything about Dyspatchit or BCVM.

“We don’t talk to reporters,” the employee said.

The three companies have been paid to host websites, send emails, provide fundraising software and provide digital consulting, FEC records show.

Parscale markets Campaign Nucleus as a one-stop shop for conservative candidates who want to automate tasks usually done by campaign workers or volunteers.

The company says it has helped its clients raise $119 million and has sent nearly 14 billion emails on their behalf, according to a promotional video.

At his recent appearance at the political conference, Parscale presented a slide that said Campaign Nucleus had raised three times as much as tech giant Salesforce in head-to-head tests for email fundraising.

Campaign Nucleus specializes in mining information from a politician’s supporters, according to a recent presentation slide.

For example, when someone signs up to attend an event, Nucleus uses AI to analyze reams of personal data to assign that person a numerical score. Attendees who have been to past events receive a high score, for example, ranking them as most likely to show up, according to a company video posted online.

Campaign Nucleus also can track where people who sign up live and can send them customized emails asking for donations or solicit their help on the campaign, the video shows.

Parscale said two years ago in a podcast that he had received more than 10,000 requests about Campaign Nucleus from nearly every country with a conservative party. More recently, he said his team has been active in multiple countries, including in India and Israel, where he’s been “helping over there a lot with the war with Hamas.”

The company says it has offices in Texas, Florida and North Carolina and has been on a recruiting tear. Recent job listings have included U.S. and Latin America-based intelligence analysts to use AI for framing messages and generating content, as well as a marketer to “coordinate influencer campaigns.”

Campaign Nucleus has also entered into partnerships with other companies with an AI focus. In 2022, the firm announced it was teaming up with Phunware, a Texas-based company that built a cellphone app for Trump’s 2020 bid that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters and mobilize their social networks.

Since then, Phunware obtained a patent for what a company official described as “experiential AI” that can locate people’s cellphones geographically, predict their travel patterns and influence their consumer behavior.

Phunware did not answer specific questions about the partnership with Nucleus, saying the company’s client engagements were confidential.

“However, it is well-known that we developed the 2020 Trump campaign app in collaboration with Campaign Nucleus. We have had discussions with Trump campaign leadership about potentially developing their app for the 2024 election,” said spokeswoman Christina Lockwood.

PARSCALE’S VISION

Last year, Parscale bought property in Midland, Texas, in the heart of the nation’s highest-producing oil and gas fields. It is also the hometown of Tim Dunn, a billionaire born-again evangelical who is among the state’s most influential political donors.

Over the years, the organizations and campaigns Dunn has funded have pushed Texas politics further to the right and driven successful challenges to unseat incumbent Republican officials deemed too centrist.

In April 2023, Dunn invested $5 million in a company called AiAdvertising that once bought one of Parscale’s firms under a previous corporate name. The San Antonio-based ad firm also announced that Parscale was joining as a strategic adviser, to be paid $120,000 in stock and a monthly salary of $10,000.

“Boom!” Parscale tweeted. “(AiAdvertising) finally automated the full stack of technologies used in the 2016 election that changed the world.”

In June, AiAdvertising added two key national figures to its board: Texas investor Thomas Hicks Jr. – former co-chair of the RNC and longtime hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr. — and former GOP congressman Jim Renacci. In December, Dunn also gave $5 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC and Campaign Nucleus client. And in January, SEC filings show Dunn provided AiAdvertising an additional $2.5 million via his investment company. A company press release said the cash infusion would help it “generate more engaging, higher-impact campaigns.”

Dunn declined to comment, although in an October episode of his podcast he elaborated on how his political work is driven by his faith.

“Jesus won’t be on the ballot, OK? Now, eventually, he’s going to take over the government and we can look forward to that,” Dunn told listeners. “In the meanwhile, we’re going to have to settle.”

In business filings, AiAdvertising said it has developed AI-created “personas” to determine what messages will resonate emotionally with its customers’ target audience. Parscale said last year in a promotional video that Campaign Nucleus was using AI models in a similar way.

“We actually understand what the American people want to hear,” Parscale said.

AiAdvertising did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Parscale occasionally offers glimpses of the AI future he envisions. Casting himself as an outsider to the Republican establishment, he has said he sees AI as a way to undercut elite Washington consultants, whom he described as political parasites.

In January, Parscale told a crowd assembled at a grassroots Christian event at a church in Pasadena, California, that their movement needed “to have our own AI, from creative large language models and creative imagery, we need to reach our own audiences with our own distribution, our own email systems, our own texting systems, our own ability to place TV ads, and lastly we need to have our own influencers.”

To make his point plain, he turned to a metaphor that relied on a decidedly 19th-century technology.

“We must not rely on any of their rails,” he said, referring to mainstream media and companies. “This is building our own train tracks.”

___

Burke reported from San Francisco. AP National Political Writer Steve Peoples and Courtney Subramanian in Washington and Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

This story is part of an Associated Press series, “The AI Campaign,” that explores the influence of artificial intelligence in the 2024 election cycle.

The Associated Press receives financial assistance from the Omidyar Network to support coverage of artificial intelligence and its impact on society. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By JOSEPH KRAUSS, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN (Associated Press)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza after days of closure, but the U.N. said no humanitarian aid has yet entered and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side after workers fled during Israel’s military incursion in the area.

The Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel was closed over the weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers nearby, and on Tuesday, an Israeli tank brigade seized the nearby Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, forcing its closure. The two facilities are the main terminals for entry of food, medicine and other supplies essential for the survival of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians.

The Israeli foray did not appear to be the start of the full-scale invasion of the city of Rafah that Israel has repeatedly promised. But aid officials warn that the prolonged closure of the two crossings could cause the collapse of aid operations, worsening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the U.N. says a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north.

The United States paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on Rafah, in a further widening of divisions between the two close allies.

The U.S. says it is concerned over the fate of around 1.3 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah, most of whom fled fighting elsewhere. Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last stronghold and that a wider offensive there is needed to dismantle the group’s military and governing capabilities. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar are meanwhile ramping up efforts to close the gaps in a possible agreement for at least a temporary cease-fire and the release of some of the scores of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. Israel has linked the threatened Rafah operation to the fate of those negotiations. CIA chief William Burns, who has been shuttling around the region for talks on the cease-fire deal, met Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door negotiations.

With the seizure of Rafah, Israel now controls all of Gaza’s crossings for the first time since it withdrew troops and settlers from the territory nearly two decades ago, though it has maintained a blockade with Egypt’s cooperation for most of that time. The Rafah crossing has been a vital conduit for humanitarian aid since the start of the war and is the only place where people can enter and exit. Kerem Shalom is Gaza’s main cargo terminal.

U.N. World Food Program deputy executive director Carl Skau told The Associated Press that the U.N, agency has lost access to its Gaza food warehouse in Rafah, which he said was “communicated as a no-go zone.”

“We understand that it’s still there, but we are extremely worried of looting,” Skau said during a visit to neighboring Lebanon, adding that a U.N. logistics warehouse in Rafah had already been looted. He said the WFP was able to secure a warehouse in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, but has not stocked it with food yet.

Associated Press journalists heard sporadic explosions and gunfire in the area of the Rafah crossing overnight, including two large blasts early Wednesday. The Israeli military reported six launches from Rafah toward the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday.

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COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, said the Kerem Shalom crossing reopened early Wednesday and released video of what it said were aid trucks entering the 1-kilometer-long (half-mile) area of the crossing. The video then showed their cargo being unloaded. Typically, Palestinian drivers from the other side of the crossing must pick up the aid after it is unloaded and drive it to distribution destinations within Gaza. The video did not show the aid being picked up.

Juliette Touma, the director of communications for UNRWA, said no aid had entered as of late afternoon Wednesday and that the U.N. agency had been forced to ration fuel, which is imported through Rafah.

Gaza’s Health Ministry meanwhile said at least 46 patients and wounded people who had been scheduled to leave Tuesday for medical treatment have been left stranded.

U.N. agencies and aid groups have ramped up humanitarian assistance in recent weeks as Israel has lifted some restrictions and opened an additional crossing in the north under pressure from the United States, its closest ally.

But aid workers say the closure of Rafah, which is the only gateway for the entry of fuel for trucks and generators, could have severe repercussions, and the U.N. says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”

Skau of the WFP said some food has been delivered to the north in recent weeks.

“When we got up there, people were coming out of the rubble extremely weak, not even able to carry the box of food,” he said, adding that an increase in infectious diseases among children could worsen the crisis in the north.

“It’s that combination of widespread disease and acute malnutrition that is that deadly cocktail,” he said.

COGAT said 60 aid trucks entered through the northern crossing on Tuesday. Some 500 trucks entered Gaza every day before the war.

The war began when Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s defenses on Oct. 7 and swept through nearby army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Hamas is still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.

The war has killed over 34,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and has driven some 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. Israel’s military campaign has been one of the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, reducing large parts of Gaza to rubble.

Biden has repeatedly warned Netanyahu against launching an invasion of Rafah. But Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he calls off an offensive or makes too many concessions in the cease-fire talks.

The U.S. has historically provided Israel enormous amounts of military aid, which has only accelerated since the start of the war.

The paused shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 smaller ones, with the U.S. concern focused on how the larger bombs could be used in a dense urban setting, a U.S. official said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. The official said no final decision had been made yet on proceeding with the shipment.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press journalists Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller in Washington, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Julia Frankel in Beirut contributed.