Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump’s contentious Oval Office exchange with reporters in the Oval Offcie was dominated by questions, and tetchy answers, about his decision to punish three news outlets that were not allowed to be there: CNN, Politico and MS Now.
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Reminded that he tried to ban a CNN reporter from the White House in his first term, and lost in court, Trump said: “I don’t think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day”. In his comments, he made it plan that his real beef with the outlets was that their coverage of him was not sufficiently flattering. “I get I don’t get fair press. I get it from Breitbart. I get it from a little bit from Fox,” Trump said. “It’s sick, I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” the president said. “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my- into the people’s house.”
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At another stage in the chaotic news conference, Trump was asked about how his banning of the three outlets from the White House would work. “When you say ‘the ban’, which ban?” Trump asked. After an NBC News correspondent rephrased the question, Trump said: “Oh, the ban on the free press, right?”
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Trump’s threatened annexation of Greenland appears to be off the table, as the US president and the leaders of Denmark and Greenland announced that they expect to sign an Arctic security pact next week that might just reiterate the existing access the US has to Greenland through Nato.
Trump points to partisan, rightwing reporters as the kind of journalists he wants around him
Donald Trump’s contentious Oval Office exchange with reporters on Friday was dominated by questions, and tetchy answers, about his decision to punish three news outlets that were not there – CNN, Politico and MS Now – for their unflattering coverage of his performance as president by banning them not just from the room, but from the White House.
The impromptu half-hour news conference was also a demonstration of the extent to which the president has already exerted control over the way he is covered on live television by selecting which outlets are allowed in to the Oval Office, and who he calls on to ask him questions.
That dynamic was on display throughout the event, as Trump repeatedly hectored reporters from nonpartisan outlets who asked him challenging questions and called on reporters from partisan, rightwing outlets who helped him steer the conversation away from his attack on press freedom and back to attacks on Democrats, culture war issues and boasts about his record.
Trump clearly knew where the friendly faces in the room where, calling first on Daniel Baldwin of the far-right fringe cable channel One American News, who invited the president to criticize Democrats, and later moved away from being pressed on the media bans by Danny Kemp of AFP by calling on Willie Nelson of the rightwing outlet Salem Media. Nelson asked Trump to comment on the Lindsay Clancy trial and then invited him to riff on Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer Republicans are trying to use to paint Democrats as extremists.
When reporters like Catherine Lucey of the Wall Street Journal tried to bring the subject back to the president’s assault on the first amendment, Trump was scathing.
“Freedom of the press is enshrined in the first amendment-”, Lucey began.
“Oh, thank you for telling … thank you for telling me that, appreciate it,” Trump cut in.
“Are you trying to intimidate the press from doing its job?” Lucey asked.
“No, no, no, no. I dislike dishonest press like you. I think you’re terrible,” Trump replied, before calling on a reporter for the conservative Washington Examiner. When she returned to the subject of the ban, reminding Trump that he “tried a similar ban against CNN, and it didn’t survive a court challenge” in his first term, Trump gave a rambling answer that resulted in a frank admission that he was simply peeved by negative coverage.
“I don’t get fair press,” he complained. “I get it from Breitbart. I get it from a little bit from Fox.”
After scolding the NBC News correspondent Kelly O’Donnell for supposedly just asking Joe Biden what his favorite flavor of ice cream was (which O’Donnell said she never did), Trump said in response to another question that the outlets he banned on Friday simply “never write a good story” about him.
“I won’t get a good story out of these people,” he added. Then, looking first in the direction of Baldwin, the One America News correspondent, and then at Nelson, of Salem Media, and pointing at each in turn Trump said: “From some of them I will. I’ll get one from him. I’ll get one from him.”
“I’ll get a few of them, but it’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” Trump said.
“Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my- into the people’s house.”
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Press freedom groups sound the alarm: 'The White House can’t be allowed to decide which journalists are able to cover the president'
Statements continue to roll in from press freedom groups on Donald Trump’s move on Friday to ban CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House for the grave crime of not producing sufficiently flattering coverage of him the president.
Here is some of what Seth Stern, chief of advocacy of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement:
It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government. It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move. The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him. The press keeps exposing his corruption and his failures. These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public.
“Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the First Amendment works,” Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation director at PEN America chimed in. “As we’ve seen time and time again, this administration’s hostility toward the press is never about the accuracy of news stories, but about its inability to withstand scrutiny of its actions. The White House can’t be allowed to decide which journalists are able to cover the president based on the content of their news coverage.”
Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said:
When the White House opens its doors to the press, it must comply with the First Amendment. The president is as free as any other person to criticize media coverage. But he can’t ban outlets from the White House just because he doesn’t like their reporting or commentary. Press credentials aren’t a reward for loyalty to the government. A free, even adversarial, press is a sign of our country’s strength. The public deserves to hear about its government from independent voices, not just its leader’s loyalists and allies.
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While the scope of the new security agreement announced on Friday by the leaders of the United States, Denmark and Greenland seems certain to fall far short of Donald Trump’s previously stated desire for “the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”, a Trump administration insider dropped a strong hint that the US side intends to present whatever the deal actually is as an American triumph.
After news of the agreement broke, Katie Miller, a former White House aide in the first Trump administration whose husband is Trump’s most influential adviser, posted a map of Greenland entirely covered in the American flag, with the caption: “ITS [sic] HAPPENING”.
Thousands rally outside the Kennedy Center in face of Trump demolition threats
On Friday evening thousands of protesters gathered outside the Kennedy Center in view of the marble facade that remained concealed by scaffolding and tarpaulins.
The speakers included a drag queen while among the demonstrators were people in inflatable animal costumes and a man in a golden Trump mask with a crown and a sign that said: “Restore my name in gold you sycophants.” Another man wore a blue hat that said: “Make America intelligent again.”
Baby Trump balloons danced in the air against the setting sun. Protesters beat drums, chanted “hands off!” and waved signs including: “Keep your tiny hands off our Kennedy Center”; “You’re no Jack Kennedy”; “Donny you are no JFK!”; “Kennedy Center 4 ever”; “Our center not DJT’s”; “Hands off the arts”; and “Wicked starring DJT”.
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Speaking Friday at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, former president Barack Obama briefly reacted to Trump banning Politico, CNN and MS Now from the White House due to their coverage of his administration.
“I’m trying to think what would have happened if I’d said, you know what Fox News, get out of here,” Obama said. “It’s unimaginable.”
Fox News aired relentless negative coverage of Obama’s two terms in office, regularly promoting the birther conspiracy and catering coverage to the fears of white conservatives, but always maintained a seat in the White House briefing room.
'It just stinks - it’s corruption': Utah Republican Senator John Curtis says of Russian oligarch paying for Donald Trump Jr's wedding party
Senator John Curtis, a Utah Republican, said on Friday that Donald Trump Jr’s wedding celebration in the Bahamas being paid for, in part, by a Russian boxing official close to the Kremlin, “just stinks – it’s corruption”.
In a social media review of the week’s highs and lows, Curtis said: “inflation has worsened, I think we all have to admit that. Another low, believe this: a Russian oligarch paid for a lavish wedding afterparty for Donald Trump Jr, which, to me, it just stinks – it’s corruption.”
“I don’t like it,” Curtis added, before hinting that he might soon have more to say on the topic. “I want to be careful because I don’t want to just talk about this passively. You’ll hear more from me later on. This is a big deal.”
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Trump to meet Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez next week
Donald Trump plans to meet next week with Delcy Rodríguez, who became president after a US military raid in January captured then-leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.
Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that Trump and Rodriguez will take part in what’s known as a “pull-aside” meeting – a more casual meeting than a formal bilateral sit-down – during the United Nations general assembly in New York City.
Trump will meet with the new UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, for the first time, according to Waltz, who as Trump’s national security adviser until he mistakenly added the editor of the Atlantic magazine to a private Signal group chat in which the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, briefed senior officials, including the vice-president, JD Vance, on planned strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Iran-backed rebels Yemeni fighters recently seized control of the Bab al-Mandab strait – the other major regional energy chokepoint after the strait of Hormuz.
Trump also plans to meet the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain, which are on the front lines of the war he started with Iran nearly seven months ago.
The first meeting between Trump and Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s vice-president, comes after the two countries announced an agreement last month to give the US a stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves.
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White House Correspondents’ Association notes Trump himself called his ban on three news outlets a 'ban on the free press'
In response to Donald Trump’s move to bar CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Jacqui Heinrich, who covers the president for Fox News, points out that Trump himself referred to his action as a “ban on the free press”.
Here is the full statement from Heinrich, on behalf of the organization that recently made the US president the featured speaker at its annual dinner celebrating press freedom, where he congratulated and then trashed reporters who covered his chaotic presidency:
The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a “ban on the free press.”
The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.
This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office.
The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and Politico who are being singled out for doing their jobs.
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Donald Trump on Friday signed legislation enabling sweeping sanctions on Russia aimed at pressing it into ending its war with Ukraine, and also giving him the power to impose additional tariffs on countries breaking the embargo.
The US president signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act into law two days after it passed the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 262-159 vote, amid concerns the legislation gives him too much power.
The legislation imposes new sanctions on Russian political and military officials and foreign networks helping to supply Russia’s war machine and evade existing sanctions.
In addition, it targets Russia’s fleet of “shadow tankers”, which have allowed the country to continue to ship crude around the world despite existing sanctions on its energy exports.
But it also gives Trump wide leeway over its implementation, including which countries could face tariffs, and which tariff rates could be imposed. It also gives him sweeping discretion over whether sanctions provisions can be waived against certain countries.
Controversially, it allows Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on buyers of Russian energy, including China, and on other countries that help Moscow to evade sanctions.
The bill’s broad provisions were criticized by many Democrats, who complained that it gave Trump excessive authority to resort to tariffs, which he has already imposed on multiple countries despite a US supreme court ruling prohibiting him from doing so under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
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Trump and leaders of Denmark and Greenland announce security pact to be signed next week
Donald Trump’s threatened annexation of Greenland appears to be off the table, as the US president and the leaders of Denmark and Greenland announced on Friday that they expect to sign an Arctic security pact next week during the United Nations general assembly in New York City.
Trump cast the deal as a personal triumph, claiming on social media that the agreement “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns”.
“We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland,” Trump added without mentioning that the US already has a presence on the island, and the right to expand bases, through Nato.
Statements from Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and the leader of Greenland’s government, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, posted online late Friday, emphasized that the agreement would fall far short of Trump’s stated desire for “the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”. The island is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Frederiksen said that what she called “a great agreement” for all three parties, “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination”.
Nielsen said it was “joyous” that the agreement “ensures and strengthens the security of Greenland, the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States and the Western alliance”, suggesting that the deal might possibly just reiterate the existing US rights through Nato to use the island as a security base.
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In chaotic news conference, Trump refers to barring CNN, Politico and MS Now as his 'ban on the free press'
Near the end of a chaotic news conference in the Oval Office on Friday, when a reporter tried to bring Donald Trump back to the subject of his move to ban CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House, over unflattering coverage he referred to as “fake”, the president seemed to admit that what he is attempting to do is a violation of the freedom of the press enshrined in the US constitution.
“On the ban, what does that mean in practice?” the reporter asked. “Are you taking away their badges? Are you banning them from the pool? What does this actually mean?”
“When you say ‘the ban’, which ban?” Trump replied. “Do you know how many bans I’m involved in? I’ve got more bans going than any human being!”
“On the three news outlets, sir, what does that mean in practice?” the reporter clarified.
Looking genuinely confused, Trump said: “Wh- I still don’t know what she’s”, before turning for help to those around him.
NBC News correspondent Kelly O’Donnell then rephrased the question, asking: “What do you envision the bans would look like on the media outlets?” Trump said: “Oh, the ban on the free press, right?”
“Uh”, Trump said, “a very simple ban. I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here. I would say the ban would go as far as you can. And if they could straighten themselves out, you know, if they could straighten themselves out, I’d love it. Look, they’re very dishonest people. They write in a very dishonest way.”
He then went on to give an inaccurate account of the settlements he extracted from ABC News and CBS News after suing them over coverage he objected to, and, not for the first time, falsely claimed that the BBC documentary on the January 6 2021 Capitol riot he has sued the corporation over used technology to put words in his mouth that he never actually said. “They put horrible fighting words into my mouth,” Trump claimed, incorrectly. “BBC actually changed my language and they put words in my mouth.”
“We’ll be suing these people too,” he added, in apparent reference to the three outlets he banned from the White House on Friday.
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Here is a statement from Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, on Donald Trump’s move to bar CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House for unflattering coverage of his work as president:
The First Amendment prohibits the president from punishing journalists because he doesn’t like their coverage, just as it prohibits him from punishing universities because he doesn’t like the courses they offer, or from punishing law firms because he doesn’t like the clients they represent. With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now. If President Trump means to expel these news organizations from the White House press pool, his action is doubly unconstitutional because the press pool is a ‘public forum’ under the First Amendment, which means the president can’t exclude journalists from it on the basis of their viewpoints.
“Donald Trump just did what dictators throughout history have done,” Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats posted in response to Trump’s move to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House.
Directly addressing Trump on social media, Schumer added: “this is a democracy. You will not be able to manipulate the news or hide the truth.”
Trump says that his son paid back Kremlin-linked Russian who covered wedding party costs
Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Friday if it was appropriate for Umar Kremlev, a Russian linked to the Kremlin, to have paid for part of Donald Trump Jr’s wedding celebration in the Bahamas, Donald Trump said “it’s totally allowed. But as I understand it, he paid him back.”
“A person that he knows pretty, I guess a friend of his, gave him a wedding party. That’s very common, I’ve heard of many people giving wedding parties,” Trump added.
When the reporter seemed to suggest that a Putin-connected boxing official was not just a routine friend to make such a gift, Trump replied: “Well, I don’t know, maybe he didn’t do a background check. But I’ve given wedding parties to numerous people.”
“With all of that being said, I understand that Don’s paid him back,” Trump added.
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Trump defends banning CNN, MS Now and Politico from White House: 'I don't think a court should allow fake news'
At an Oval Office event to promote changes he says he’s making to the US healthcare system, including pressing for lower drug prices and reducing vaccine doses for children, Donald Trump defended his decision to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House.
Reminded by the NBC News correspondent Kelly O’Donnell, a past president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, that “every president takes an oath to uphold the constitution, which includes the first amendment,” the president said, that he does, “much more so than you,” before adding: “you get so tired of reading and seeing fake news.”
“There may be others to join them,” Trump warned, before hinting a short time later that the New York Times and the Washington Post are on his list.
“Our country has to have honest news,” the president said.
“You need a free press,” Trump added. “You need a fair press and an honest press.”
When another reporter reminded Trump that he had lost in court in 2018 when he tried to ban CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House, Trump tried to rewrite history by claiming that “we didn’t have to take it too far because the reporter that you’re talking about discredited himself.” In fact, after a judge ordered the White House to restore Acosta’s access, the first Trump administration relented immediately.
“I don’t think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day,” Trump went on. “I think that somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time,” he insisted, apparently failing to understand a fundamental part of the US constitution.
Trump then went on to reveal that what he is mainly upset about is the tenor of coverage of him not being positive enough from non-partisan media outlets, while praising partisan, rightwing outlets.
“I get I don’t get fair press. I get it from Breitbart. I get it from a little bit from Fox,” Trump said. “But what I do ask is just a semblance of truth.”
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Journalists, lawmakers attack Trump's order to block news outlets from White House
A flurry of journalists and Democratic lawmakers took to social media to criticize Donald Trump’s plan to bar several news outlets from the White House (also announced over social media).
“This is yet another attack on the First Amendment from a president who knows he and his party of bootlickers are deeply unpopular,” JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois and potential 2028 presidential contender, posted on X after the announcement. “Donald Trump can’t hide from his failing record, so he’s banning journalists he doesn’t like to keep you from hearing about it.”
The president posted earlier this afternoon that he intended to bar three outlets – Politico, CNN and MS Now – from the White House, alleging that they reported “FICTION and LIES”. He threatened to do the same to other outlets peddling “fake news”.
Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, called the ban “straight out of the authoritarian playbook”.
Trump doubled down on the ban while addressing reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.
“Because they’re fake news”, Trump said, when asked why he wanted to block the outlets’ access. “You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it’s just fake.”
“There may be others to join them,” Trump added.
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Here's a quick recap of the day's headlines:
Trump vowed to ban several news outlets from the White House. In a Truth Social post, the President said he was barring CNN, Politico, and MS Now (the news outlet formerly known as MSNBC) from the White House. The reason for the ban was not immediately clear.
JD Vance rallied for Republican candidates in Iowa. The vice-president, a key salesman for the Trump administration on the midterm campaign trail, was in Council Bluffs, Iowa, campaigning for the state’s GOP ticket. But he reserved plenty of time for jabs at Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and James Talarico.
Several governors took action on AI and data center regulation. Executive orders in California and Nevada. Public calls for reform in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Across the country, governors – including potential 2028 presidential contenders Josh Shapiro and Gavin Newsom – ended the week with action on the technology, as data center frustrations and fears of runaway AI development loom over the midterms.
The Washington Post reported that the official count of military deaths in the Iran war may be too low. According to several frustrated officials who spoke to the paper, the true number of American servicemembers killed as a result of the escalating conflict with Iran stands at least 22 – not 18, as the Pentagon is publicly reporting.
Kash Patel briefly cut off FBI cooperation with Canadian authorities over a broadcaster’s policy. Outrage over an editorially independent public broadcaster’s language guidelines around 9/11 led to a temporary break in ties between the FBI and its Canadian equivalent, a close international partner, the New York Times reported.
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Trump says he has banned CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House
In a new post to his personal social media platform, Donald Trump said that he would ban three news outlets – CNN, MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and Politico – from the White House.
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” the US president wrote.
Trump threatened that other media outlets were soon to face the same punishment. What exactly prompted the president to ax those three outlets – beyond familiar allegations that they were “fake news” – was not immediately clear. Nor did he elaborate on which outlets he would consider targeting.
It isn’t the first time Trump has tried to bar a news outlet whose coverage he found unfavorable from the White House. During his first term, he tried to bar CNN journalist Jim Acosta from the building, only for the administration to back down and restore his access after a judge’s ruling.
And at the start of his second term, Trump excluded the Associated Press from certain restricted spaces in the White House in retaliation for the outlet’s refusal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to his preferred “Gulf of America” in its stylebook.
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Officials say Pentagon's tally of military deaths in Iran war is an undercount, Washington Post reports
Currently, the Department of Defense’s official public tally of American service members killed in Iran stands at 18. But new reporting from the Washington Post indicates that the total number of military deaths in the conflict could be higher.
Six officials who spoke to the Post said that at least 22 service members have died in the spiraling conflict with Iran, the outlet reported. The officials the outlet cited said they were frustrated that the Pentagon appeared to be publicly undercounting the war’s true death toll.
The Post reported that the exact identities of the deceased and the circumstances surrounding their deaths was, for the moment, unclear. One official who spoke to the outlet said that not all of the unreported deaths were an immediate result of the fighting with Iran, but have included service members who were in the region as the US and Iran traded pfire.
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Report: Trump's FBI chief halted cooperation with Canadian authorities over broadcaster's guidelines on 9/11
After news outlets reported in August that Canada’s national public broadcaster had issued internal guidance not to refer to the September 11 attacks as terrorist attacks without outside attribution, Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s FBI director, voiced his outrage on social media.
“Any agency in Canada that doesn’t publicly reject this bastardization of history, and an insult to the souls lost during our largest terrorist attack in US history will no longer have friend in this FBI… Not to mention our heroes that responded in the aftermath 🇺🇸,” Patel tweeted.
Patel, it turned out, made good on his threat. But it wasn’t the broadcaster, CBC – which is editorially independent from the Canadian government – that Patel retaliated against. Rather, Patel responded by cutting off cooperation with the FBI’s counterpart in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted police, the New York Times reported Friday.
The CBC revised its policies soon after they came to public attention, the Times reported, but that didn’t stop the FBI from canceling meetings with the RCMP, and halting parts (but not all) of the cooperation between two law enforcement agencies that typically work closely together.
The unusual move to retaliate against a domestic law enforcement agency over the policies of a public broadcaster came amid escalating US-Canada tensions, and in the shadow of a growing trade war stoked by the US president.
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Trump on war in Iran, Houthi advance in Yemen: 'It’ll all work out'
In a new interview with NewsNation on the war in Iran – where the Donald Trump hopes for a quick toppling of the Iranian regime have dissolved into an ever-escalating regional conflict –the US president said he was still waiting to determine how he would move forward.
“Well, we’re gonna see what happens,” Trump told NewsNation. “Right now, they want to make a deal. And if the deal’s not a correct deal, then I wouldn’t even think about it. But right now, they want to make a deal because they’re losing in every way.”
Since the initial strikes on Iran failed to force the Iranian leadership to capitulate, Trump has increasingly turned to economic measures. After Iran effectively closed the strait of Hormuz, strangling global energy supplies, the Trump administration responded with a counter-blockade. And the administration has installed a new round of secondary sanctions aimed at cutting Iran off from the countries still doing business with it.
Trump also addressed his conversations with the Houthis – the Yemeni faction whose rapid advance on the Red Sea coast threatens shipping through another vital artery of global trade.
“Well, we’re talking to the Houthis also, and they would like to see if we can make a deal,” Trump said.
“It’ll all work out,” he added.
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JD Vance is now onstage speaking at a Republican campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, as the GOP tries to rally voters in a state with a Senate seat and the governor’s office on the line.
Among the candidates JD Vance is in town to stump for: Chris McGowan, candidate for the state’s 4th congressional district, Ashley Hinson, a TV journalist-turned-congresswoman now running for Senate, and Zach Lahn, the GOP nominee to replace Kim Reynolds as Iowa governor.
Vance quickly turned his praise for Land into a jab at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive leader who many suspect may join Vance in a crowded field of presidential contenders in 2028.
“A lot of people who run for governor spend twenty years learning how to say nothing. And some politicians are very good at it — AOC,” he said, uttering Ocasio-Cortez’s name as an aside to the crowd.
He went on to aim attacks at Democratic Senate nominees James Talarico (Texas) and Adam Hamilton (Kansas). Both men have featured their ties to the Christian faith – Talarico has studied at a seminary, and Hamilton is a pastor – and Vance sought to cast their ideas of Christianity as counter to his own.
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A federal immigration officer has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of lying to the FBI that he was attacked before shooting a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis at the height of Donald Trump’s deportation sweeps in January.
Christian Castro, who has been suspended without pay from his job as a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, is the first federal law enforcement officer to be charged by the US Justice Department with wrongdoing in Operation Metro Surge, which saw thousands of armed, masked agents deployed to Minnesota’s cities last winter.
Castro was taken into custody by agents of the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension in Minneapolis on Thursday and was booked into the Hennepin county jail on his outstanding arrest warrant.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will attend Donald Trump’s state dinner for Chinese president Xi Jinping, Reuters has reported.
Trump will host the Chinese leader at the White House next week for their second meeting this year, as the two leaders seek stability in a relationship under pressure over issues ranging from trade to Taiwan and Iran as well as global worries about artificial intelligence.
Dimon joins other top executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who are also planning to attend the meeting, Politico reported earlier.
The meeting comes as concerns about the dangers of AI are at an all time high after insiders at Anthropic voiced fears that the technology they are building could become so advanced and dangerous as to cause human extinction within the decade, and they asserted many of their colleagues feel the same but have not said so publicly.
Majority of Michigan voters dislike Trump's Canada tariffs, new poll finds
Ove 60 percent of prospective voters in Michigan, a border state both heavily dependent on trade with Canada and key to control of Congress in 2026, dislike the Trump administration’s tariffs on the US’s northern neighbor, according to a new poll.
The poll by the The Washington Post and Schar School found that most likely voters it surveyed in Michigan, including a majority of independents, weren’t a fan of the tariffs on Canada. Support largely broke down along party lines, with 89 percent of Democrats against them, but only a slim majority – 56 percent – of Republicans in favor.
Michigan hosts one of this year’s most closely-watched Senates races, between Republican congressman Mike Rogers, a Republican, and his progressive Democrat challenger Abdul El-Sayed. Unlike other Republicans in northern border states, who have spoken out against the escalating US/Canada trade war, Rogers has largely voiced support for Trump’s tariffs.
The latest round of US tariffs against Canada snapped into effect in late August, after negotiations between the two countries broke down in the eleventh hour. Canada retaliated with new tariffs on US goods, disrupting a flow of trade vital to the economies of border states like Michigan.
Shapiro and Newsom aren’t the only governors making moves on AI lately.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, announced at a news conference today plans for tighter rules on data center development in order to address transparency, energy use and environmental concerns. And Nevada’s governor, Joe Lombardo, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at tackling similar issues.
While concerns over an AI doomsday remain abstract, the impacts of the physical infrastructure needed to support the technology have manifested in a very real way. And outrage over massive data center projects bulldozing over local opposition and transforming communities has become a rallying point in state and local races across the country.
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Josh Shapiro, Gavin Newsom stake positions on AI regulation
As the threat of an AI apocalypse becomes a growing issue ahead of the midterm elections – and as both parties are struggling to form an identity around the subject – two prospective 2028 presidential candidates are going public with their positions: Josh Shapiro and Gavin Newsom.
First at an event on Thursday in Pittsburgh, and later in an interview with NBC News, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro made an appeal for guardrails on AI technology.
Shapiro’s take landed somewhere between President Trump’s all-out support of AI development and the doomsaying of high-profile opponents like Bernie Sanders. Steering a middle course, Shapiro called for comprehensive regulations on AI development without putting a halt to it altogether.
“We’ve got to regulate this, we have to have real guardrails, we have to understand this technology better,” Shapiro said in an interview with NBC News.
“You have to have third parties in the room with these companies, understanding what they’re doing,” Shapiro continued. “When the CEO says ‘I can’t control what I’ve built, and what I’m building could destroy humanity,’ that’s not a time to kick the can down the road.”
Once a cheerleader of data center development in his state, Shapiro began to take a more skeptical position toward AI as pushback began to grow.
He isn’t the only 2028 hopeful seriously mulling AI policy; Gavin Newsom, governor of California (home of the AI industry’s biggest players), also told POLITICO that he’s considering taking further action on the tech before his term expires.
On Friday, Newsom also issued an executive order aimed at increasing third-party oversight of AI development.
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Republican-aligned groups are pouring millions of dollars into Ohio to try to shore up an imperiled GOP Senate seat in the state, as the party’s incumbent has fallen behind a democratic challenger in the polls, Reuters reported on Friday.
Super PACs friendly to President Trump and backed by major Republican donors like Elon Musk have fueled the surge in advertising spending, which the outlet found amounted to $14 million in the past week alone.
Ohio’s Senate race has pitted Jon Husted, a former Ohio lieutenant governor who was appointed to finish out JD Vance’s Senate term, against Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic Senator eying a return to office.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive standard-bearer and potential 2028 presidential hopeful, is planning to campaign for Democrats across New York state ahead of the midterms, according to a new interview with The New York Times. During the trip, she will reportedly venture far from her home district in the Bronx to make stops in Buffalo, Syracuse and Ithaca, among other sites.
AOC is backing up the campaign blitz with financial support, the Times wrote, contributing to a pot of money overseen by New York governor Kathy Hochul to support Democratic candidates around the state.
She embarks on the trip as speculation continues to swirl about her future ambitions – either for a Senate seat or for the presidency.
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Head of Postal Service tells AP work has stopped on Trump-backed mail voting system
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court struck a final blow at President Trump’s audacious plan to centralize authority over mail-in voting under the federal government, which would’ve given his administration a say in who does and doesn’t get to vote by mail.
By Thursday, the behind-the-scenes efforts in the Postal Service to bring that system to life had ground to a halt, David Steiner, Trump’s postmaster general, told the Associated Press in a new interview.
Steiner and his agency had been caught in the middle of a legal and political whirlwind since March, when Trump signed an executive order seeking to position the USPS as an arbiter of mail-in voting. Under the terms of the order, states – which typically oversee their own elections – would’ve been required to turn over lists of eligible voters to the federal government for approval, and adopt a uniform design for mail-in ballot envelopes. The USPS could’ve refused to deliver ballots for states that declined to go along.
The whole project was the latest manifestation of Trump’s fixation with mail-in ballots and illegal voting by noncitizens, a largely debunked issue which has nonetheless formed a cornerstone of Trump’s domestic policy agenda in his second term.
In the same interview, Steiner dismissed rumors that the strain of being torn between Trump and the courts had prompted him to consider resigning.
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JD Vance is back on the midterm campaign trail today, slated to head to Iowa to speak at a rally in Council Bluffs.
Republicans in the state are fighting to hold on to a Senate seat and the governorship, both of which appear too close for comfort. Vance will be joined at the rally by the Republican candidate for governor, Zach Lahn. The GOP’s Senate nominee, Ashley Hinson, has said she will not attend due to a previously scheduled commitment.
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Analysis: What Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting mean for the midterms
For the millions of Americans who vote by mail – almost a third of the country – the week began with significant uncertainty that they would be able to easily submit their ballot this fall, thanks to a March executive order from Donald Trump that aimed to restrict mail-in ballots. By Monday night, the supreme court restored a measure of order by rebuking the president and rejecting his plan – but Trump’s frothing response portends more danger for the rapidly approaching midterms.
Trump’s March order forbade the US Postal Service from delivering mailed ballots to anyone the administration deemed ineligible. The Department of Homeland Security, working with the Social Security Administration, would have devised that list of supposedly ineligible, noncitizen voters. On its face, the move appeared plainly illegal. One expert told the Guardian’s Sam Levine, “This is a wholly unconstitutional EO,” because ultimately the federal government cannot set election rules; only states can.
The plan was full of logistical problems, too. A whistleblower told Congress earlier this month that the Postal Service simply didn’t have the ability to implement the system safely, and that the whole plan was “perilously rushed and potentially unlawful”, according to Richard Blumenthal, the senator who handled the whistleblower complaint. State election officials also complained they would be unable to implement Trump’s restrictions this close to an election, even if they were deemed lawful. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin had already begun mailing out ballots before the supreme court ruled, and chaos would have reigned there and across the country had the court blessed Trump’s plan.
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Early voting in Virginia begins amid a legal dispute over voting by mail.
The Trump administration had sought to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, but on Monday the US supreme court declined to lift a lower court ruling blocking the new requirements. The decision means states can continue using the same mail-voting procedures they have used in previous elections.
The dispute stems from an executive order signed by Trump in March directing the US Postal Service (USPS) to introduce new rules for handling mail-in ballots. The rules would require states to provide the USPS with lists of voters receiving mail ballots and use specially marked envelopes.
Trump argued that tighter controls are needed to prevent election fraud and strengthen confidence in mail voting. Writing on Truth Social after the supreme court ruling, he said the US was “the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM”.
George Chidi, a politics and democracy reporter for Guardian US, provides more background on Trump’s efforts to change mail-in voting rules in this explainer:
The dispute could have an impact on how Virginians choose to vote, said Stephen Farnsworth, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Mary Washington
“President Trump’s continuing efforts to make voting harder, and the possibility of mayhem on election day, should really energize early voting in Virginia and around the country this fall,” he told the Virginia Mercury.
“Virginians have already demonstrated a great willingness to vote early and this year may see even more interest.”
Trump officials sending undocumented children to Texas sparks fears of mass deportation
The Trump administration has started sending a majority of undocumented children who came to the US alone and have new immigration court cases to Texas, where government facilities for them are unlicensed, their chances of getting a lawyer are low and advocates fear that “a deportation churn-out factory” awaits them, the Guardian has learned.
Almost 80% of children in federal custody who arrived unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian and who were placed in immigration court proceedings in July – and over 90% in August – have been funneled into shelter networks somewhere in Texas, a dramatic upswing from the months prior, according to analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian from researchers at the immigration data insights platform bklg.org.
This is understood to amount to a total of 925 children in the care of the Health and Human Services (HHS) department’s office of refugee resettlement (ORR) and in open immigration court proceedings based in Texas, with 651 sent there in July and August alone.
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Early voting begins in midterms as cost of living and Iran war loom large
Good morning, and welcome to our US politics live blog. The midterm elections are less than two months away, but some states begin early voting today, marking the start of a crucial stretch of campaigning for control of Congress.
Virginia begins early in-person voting, while voters in Minnesota, Idaho and South Dakota can cast absentee ballots in person, as the campaign turns increasingly on the cost of living and the continuing war in Iran.
High gas prices and low approval ratings are adding to the challenges facing president Donald Trump as Republicans head into the 3 November elections with their control of the House and Senate at risk. In its analysis of the US economy, the Wall Street Journal reports that mortgage rates are nearing 7%, consumer prices rose 3.4% in the year to August and gas prices are close to their highest levels since 2022.
“We are seeing what happens when a president launches a war of choice without anticipating the unintended consequences,” Aaron David Miller, a former adviser on Middle East policy to Republican and Democratic administrations, told Reuters.
Trump will take his case to the UN on Tuesday, where he is likely to present the Iran war as a victory despite having initially promised the military campaign would be over within weeks. The conflict has instead entered its seventh month, with Iran still able to disrupt regional shipping and the war putting further pressure on global energy prices.
In other developments:
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The Trump administration has approved a potential sale of 48 advanced F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, worth an estimated $24.3b. The Department of State said the propose sale “will improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defense”. The move comes despite concerns from intelligence agencies that China could potentially gain access to, or steal, sensitive F-35 technology through Saudi Arabia, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reported:
One detailed report, issued months ago by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, raised questions about whether the Americans and Saudis would be able to secure sites with F-35 technology. It also raised concerns about the access that Chinese military personnel have to Saudi bases and the prevalent use by Saudi Arabia of Chinese technology in telecommunications infrastructure and defense installations.
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Former staff members of the US Institute of Peace have asked a federal appeals court to prevent the Trump administration from carving the president’s name into the facade of its headquarters in Washington, which was renamed the ‘“Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace” last year. Lawyers for the institute’s ousted board members argued that engraving Trump’s name on the building would cause “irreparable harm” by undermining the organization’s independent mission.
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The USIP dispute comes as another Washington cultural institution faces a court battle over changes under Trump. A federal judge has ordered the Kennedy Center to give 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolition as Trump has threatened. The president said the centre could be “ripped down” amid a dispute over plans to put his name on the building and a proposed $257m renovation. The center is currently closed due to what its Trump-backed leadership described as safety issues caused by age and structural deficiencies.
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