Closing summary
That concludes our coverage of the second Trump administration for today. Here are the latest developments:
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The major US television news outlets agreed to suspend their video coverage of Donald Trump after the administration banned journalists from several outlets from entering the White House grounds. Newsrooms including the New York Times and the Washington Post also decided to hold off on publishing or distributing still photographs taken as part of the White House pool coverage on Monday until midnight as part of the collective effort. More here.
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The barred outlets – CNN, MS Now and Politico – sued the administration on Monday, saying the president’s actions were a violation of their first amendment rights. The parties are seeking a temporary restraining order that would immediately lift the ban – and return access for the journalists – while the case plays out. More here.
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Trump is bracing for a loss in the lawsuit brought by the three media organizations, as he considers that the judge presiding over the case – his own appointee – previously ordered the White House to restore credentials for journalist Jim Acosta. “In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal,” he wrote on Truth Social.
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Trump said that he hoped Zohran Mamdani would be a “great mayor” for New York, an unusually warm assessment of the democratic socialist leader whom the president and his Republican allies have spent months holding up as a symbol of the Democratic party’s alleged embrace of “communism” ahead of the November midterms. More here.
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At a news conference following their closed-door meeting at Gracie Mansion, Mamdani said he and Trump held a “wide-ranging” discussion, which touched on affordable housing and immigration.
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The Venezuelan man who was shot by a federal immigration officer in Texas on Sunday spoke out from detention on Monday afternoon when he was able to call his lawyer, in the middle of a press conference, and plead for better medical care. Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was taken from a hospital in Austin into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, even though he apparently still has a bullet lodged near his spine and is in much discomfort. More here.
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Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Republican subject of a House ethics complaint that she had sex with three staff members, and paid one to keep quiet, has said the allegations are untrue – and part of a “politically motivated” campaign against her. More here.
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A long-running legal fight over Missouri’s congressional map took another turn Monday when a federal appeals panel ruled in favor of new districts backed by Donald Trump, even though the US supreme court has blocked those districts from being used in the November election, the AP reports.
A three-judge panel of the eighth US circuit court of appeals said Missouri should use the new Republican-drawn US House districts in the November election, just as the state did in its August primary. To revert to its prior districts for the general election would violate the US constitution, the appeals judges said.
However, the ruling has no immediate impact. That’s because the federal appellate panel delayed the effect of its order for a week to allow time for an appeal. The US supreme court already has twice sided against the Trump-backed map and had blocked enforcement of a lower court order favoring the map pending a potential appeal and eventual decision by the high court.
Missouri is currently set to run its November election with the same congressional districts it used in 2024 and 2022, following prior decisions by both the Missouri supreme court and the US supreme court.
Read the full story here:
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In a press conference held on Monday, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani was in disagreement with Donald Trump’s decision to ban CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House, and instead welcomed all members of the press at Gracie Mansion in New York.
“I told the president that we’re going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in – is everyone, no matter the opinion or the critique, that we engage,” Mamdani said.
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US Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff are asking California attorney general Rob Bonta to look into the claims of a whistleblower alleging the Department of Homeland Security is ordering officers to impersonate voters to access online voter data.
According to the senators, officers in a unit of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency within the department, are being tasked with investigating 40 subjects per day.
The whistleblower claims that officers were instructed to pull citizens’ personal data from federal databases and enter it into the state website to gain access.
“The Trump Administration appears to be undertaking this rushed effort to find – or manufacture – evidence for its baseless election conspiracy theories of widespread voter fraud ahead of the 2026 midterm elections,” reads a letter by the senators. “Inaccurate claims of ‘unlawful voters’ and erroneous federal law enforcement records can result in serious consequences for Californians, including many naturalized citizens.”
“The Trump Administration may also use these claims to further threaten state and local election officials in California and undermine or challenge the election results themselves,” the senators added in the letter.
US Representative Ro Khanna said on Monday that the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Texas by a federal immigration officer “demands a full investigation”.
“No one should be shot in the back and denied urgent medical care,” Khanna wrote in a post on social media. “The shooting of Venezuelan DoorDash driver Wilber Garcés Pérez by ICE in Austin demands a full investigation.”
Khanna added: “Abolish ICE. Prosecute rogue agents.”
Earlier today, Garcés Pérez pleaded for better medical care. “I haven’t received any medical attention. I’m in a lot of pain,” he said.
My colleague Emiliano Tahui Gomez is reporting the latest details on the shooting:
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The US is planning to reopen a former cold war-era military base in southern Greenland and set up a military presence at an east coast base, Reuters reports.
Sources told the wire that an agreement is expected to be signed by the US, Denmark and Greenland on Tuesday at the United Nations general assembly in New York City.
One of these military bases, Mestersvig, is currently used by the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. The other post is Narsarsuaq, where the population has dwindled to a few dozen people since the US closed its Bluie West One military base in the 1950s.
The agreement follows the announcement of an Arctic security pact between the US and the leaders of Denmark and Greenland, following pressure from Trump to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory by force.
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In his remarks today, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani said he shared “very strong opinions” on “how we can keep immigrant New Yorkers safe” during his meeting with Donald Trump, especially regarding temporary protected status (TPS) for immigrants in the United States.
Mamdani said he told the US president “how important immigrant New Yorkers, especially Haitian New Yorkers, are not only to the fabric of our city, but also to our city’s economy, to so many of the industries that build our city, and the stability that is in the president’s hands”.
In June, the US supreme court ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s effort to strip TPS from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians.
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Zohran Mamdani was asked whether he challenged Donald Trump on the banning of CNN, MS Now, and Politico from White House grounds.
“I told the president that we’re going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in,” Mamdani said at Gracie Mansion in New York City.
“It’s interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me, so I wasn’t very worried about that,” Trump said.
In response to a question about whether the ban was put in place as a distraction from the war in Iran and high gas prices, Trump said: “I’m not.”
“I’m only doing it because I think the press also has an obligation,” Trump said. “I think that these outlets have an obligation to be fair. And if they’re fake news, I really think I have an obligation not to allow them into another very special house. This is a special house, Gracie Mansion. Well, the White House is the most special of all houses.”
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New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump spoke ahead of the UN General Assembly this week following a closed-door meeting at Gracie Mansion on Monday.
“One of the focuses of the conversation the president and I have been having is about the possibility of building more housing here in New York City,” Mamdani said.
“We’ve spoken about Sunnyside Yard,” he added, referring to the 180-acre railyard in Queens, “and it’s a real pleasure that just today we’ve agreed to set up a new level of that conversation between our housing and operations team at City Hall and the White House team.”
“I can tell you that Sunnyside’s a big job,” Trump said. “I’ve been watching that for 35 years. Everybody’s wanted to do something with Sunnyside Yards.”
“You’re going to need a lot of federal approvals and probably some federal money to do it. But it’s always been a great location,” Trump added.
The New York Times said it would hold off on publishing or distributing still photographs taken as part of the White House pool coverage on Monday until midnight, joining a collective effort with photographers in other newsrooms in support of the media organizations that were banned from the White House.
“The New York Times will not publish or distribute any images taken as part of the White House still photography pool today, in conjunction with the other members of that pool and in a show of support for the news organizations being unfairly targeted by the president’s barring of journalists from the White House,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the news outlet, in a statement.
“We remain committed to covering the president’s travel to New York City today,” Stadtlander added. “Americans deserve a free and independent media covering their government without intimidation, as well as comprehensive coverage of newsworthy events.”
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, the Venezuelan man who was shot by an ICE officer in Austin, spoke over the phone at a news conference, offering further details on his condition.
The 28-year-old was taken to a hospital in Austin, Texas, in serious but stable condition before being taken into custody.
The Associated Press reports that, speaking by phone during a news conference, Garcés Pérez said doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it’s near his spine.
He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from the hospital so officers could move him to a detention center. He said he had received no pain medication or treatment there, and had slept on the floor before eventually being given a “pill” by a nurse on Monday.
“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Perez said, speaking in Spanish over the phone as his wife translated during the news conference.
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Trump braces for loss in lawsuit brought by media organizations, expects to 'go for appeal'
Donald Trump is bracing for a loss in the lawsuit brought by three media organizations, as he considers that the judge presiding over the case – his own appointee – previously ordered the White House to restore credentials for journalist Jim Acosta.
“They have drawn a great Judge, for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the Planet,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to a lawsuit filed by CNN in 2018. “The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by ‘TRUMP.’ In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”
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President Donald Trump has arrived at Gracie Mansion to meet with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, per CNN.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the official residence of New York City’s mayors “one of my favorite places in the World.”
“It will be interesting to see how it looks now, invited by Mayor Mamdani,” Trump wrote. “Look forward to it. MAKE NEW YORK CITY GREAT AGAIN!”
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It appears the media boycott of President Trump in response to his banning of several news outlets from the White House has expanded from video coverage to include still images.
On Monday afternoon, The Washington Post said in a statement posted to social media that it would not publish any photos of Trump until midnight.
“The Washington Post will not publish any photographs of today’s presidential events – including Trump’s departure from the White House and his events at the United Nations in New York – until midnight Eastern Time, joining a collective effort with photographers in other newsrooms covering the White House in a show of support of the banned outlets.”
It was unclear which other outlets, if any, had joined the Post’s roughly 8-hour moratorium on sharing images of the president.
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Here's a quick breakdown of what's happened today:
Three news outlets sued after Trump blocked them from the White House. If you missed it, Trump on Friday announced a surprise decision to ban Politico, CNN and MS Now from the White House, citing unfavorable coverage of his administration. On Monday, the three outlets, as anticipated, filed a lawsuit to restore their access.
The other White House TV pool members paused coverage of Trump in solidarity. The pool, for the uninitiated, is a rotation of five major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and the recently axed CNN) who take turns following the president day-to-day and sharing their collected footage with other outlets. After Trump’s decision to nix CNN, the other four outlets agreed to cease covering the president as per usual, so far leaving Trump bereft of his usual tag-along camera crew.
Some key Republicans are pressing their president hard on war-inflated diesel prices. As the war in Iran continues to jack up the price of diesel — the fuel that runs America’s semi trucks, tractors, and heavy machinery — some influential Republicans are coming out publicly to pressure the president to take more drastic action. Republican senator Chuck Grassley called for an embargo on diesel exports. And Republican congresswoman and Iowa Senate candidate Ashley Hinson called for measures to tamp prices and bring an “immediate” end to the war in Iran.
Trump is beginning a busy week of diplomacy. Trump is heading to New York to attend the United Nations’ annual convening of world leaders. While there, he’s expected to meet with a number of key heads of state, including the US-backed interim president of Venezuela, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and possibly the leaders of Iran. But first, Trump will be meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a political opposite with whom he’s so far maintained a strange rapport.
An ICE agent shot a DoorDash driver in Austin, Texas, on Sunday. The shooting — just the latest in a string of shootings by ICE agents enforcing the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown — prompted protests in the Texas capital.
At UN, Trump looks to lean on Zelenskyy to agree to energy ceasefire with Russia
Donald Trump is expected to press Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy on an energy ceasefire during a face-to-face meeting this week during United Nations high-level week, as world diesel prices have soared due to the war in Iran, as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Ukraine stepped up its attacks on Russia’s energy sector over the weekend, launching its largest reported strike yet on the Moscow region in a barrage that struck a major Moscow oil refinery and killed three people.
On Monday, Trump said the whole world was suffering due to an energy shortage that he said was being exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
“Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday morning. “A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission.”
“This ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine must be ended,” Trump said. “The whole World suffers as 25,000 people, mostly soldiers, are being killed each month. What a shame!”
Trump had earlier blamed Kyiv for the escalating energy war even as Russia has decimated Ukraine’s economy and launched night barrages of drones and ballistic missiles against Ukrainian cities.
Zelenskyy on Monday said negotiations were continuing and that that there are “ideas on the table for bringing peace closer, starting with strong de-escalation steps”.
“Ukraine’s energy sector, critical infrastructure, and our food exports must stop being targets for Russia, and this will lead to matching de-escalation steps on our part,” he said in a statement. “Solutions are possible.”
The two leaders are expected to meet on Tuesday during a rare sitdown on the sidelines of the high-level week of the United Nations general assembly. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will also be in Washington this week, and is expected to meet with secretary of state Marco Rubio.
During a trip to Ireland last week, Trump directly addressed Zelenskyy, saying he has to do “one thing: he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia”.
“Let him go after targets but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage,” he said.
Trump spoke with Zelenskyy on Sunday in a phone call that one senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times was about “diesel, diesel, diesel”.
Average diesel prices in the United States hit a record $6.50 per gallon on Monday, up from $3.19 per gallon this time last year before the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran and Tehran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most international trade. The rise in prices is seen as a liability for Trump’s Republican party in the US midterm elections, which will take place in November.
Trump is expected to deliver a speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday morning, and is expected to meet with major energy producers including the Gulf Cooperation Council and Venezuela’s recently installed leader Delcy Rodriguez.
In a preview, Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, said Trump would speak about how he has “confronted complex problems head-on around the world. Many of the peace deals that he has driven to conclusion, or is in the process of driving to conclusion.”
Trump last week prematurely announced an energy ceasefire under which Ukraine had agreed not to hit Russian energy targets and that “Russia has agreed to do likewise!” The deal had not been agreed, however, and Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy and other critical infrastructure have continued.
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After a ribbon cutting ceremony not covered by the standard White House TV press pool, Trump boarded Marine One, en route to New York City for a planned meeting with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and, later, French President Emmanuel Macron.
The White House streamed video of Trump’s remarks. However, the audio was too distorted to make out what he said.
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Iowa GOP Senate candidate calls for "immediate end" to Iran war
Ashley Hinson, a Republican member of the House of Representatives campaigning for a valuable Senate seat in Iowa, publicly called for an end to the war with Iran in a social media post on Monday.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson wrote. “We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices.”
After listing some potential policy measures to mitigate the costs of diesel fuel, she added: “These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.”
While Hinson didn’t name Trump outright, her comments diverge from the oft-repeated stance of a president who has said the high prices are a worthwhile setback to bring Iran’s leadership to heel.
Hinson, once a steady ally of Trump, has drifted further from the president in recent weeks. When JD Vance, a key surrogate for Trump on the 2026 campaign trail, headlined a rally in her state last week, Hinson was notably absent. Her comment also comes as Republicans worry that the unpopular conflict will hamstring the party in the midterm elections and help secure control of one or both chambers of Congress for the Democrats.
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'I think it's totally appropriate,' says JD Vance on Trump's White House media bans
JD Vance defended Trump’s ban of three news outlets from the White House while speaking to reporters en route to a campaign event in North Carolina.
“He’s not banning media outlets,” Vance said on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. (Trump, in his social media post announcing the move, referred to his actions as a ban.)
Vance continued: “What he’s doing is saying we’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda.”
He criticized the outlets for coverage that he said was overly negative of the Trump administration.
“That’s not representative of the American people. It’s not representative of public opinion. So if you’re going to engage in what is effectively far left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?”
But, he said, Trump’s actions didn’t violate the outlets’ rights, because “they can still report on the Trump White House, they can still get the public reports” and “they can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration”.
“It’s about basic fairness. They can still report. They still have access to free speech. They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore. And I think it’s totally appropriate, unless, of course, they start to behave like real news organizations.”
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Key ally urges Trump to back US farmers amid anger over rising prices
Donald Trump is facing growing calls, including from within his own party, to boost support for US farmers as his administration faces mounting anger over its treatment of the agricultural sector.
Republican senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa called on the US president to place an embargo on diesel exports this weekend and help farmers grapple with high prices.
Grassley, who is largely aligned with Trump, suggested the embargo in multiple social media posts, calling on the president to issue a 1970s-style embargo on diesel and agricultural products to help farmers.
“If our [government] can embargo chips to China it can embargo diesel to help American farmers & truckers,” Grassley wrote on Sunday. “We need our family farmers who feed&fuel the world [to be] on the strongest footing possible no matter what’s happening across the globe.”
For months, farmers – traditionally a reliable Republican voting base – have been angry with the Trump administration because they believe some of its policies adversely affect them.
That includes tariffs, which have driven up the cost of fertilizer, machine parts, seed and more; increasing beef imports to lower prices for Americans, which undermines domestic producers; and the Iran war, which has made it more expensive for farmers to operate machinery and transport products.
The national average cost of diesel was $6.51 as of Sunday, according to AAA. In Iowa, it was slightly lower at $6.31 – still nearly $3 more than the cost one year ago.
Gas prices are not the only rising cost Americans are facing as a result of the Iran war. Groceries have also become more expensive, and the Trump administration has sought to lower some of those prices, particularly beef, by allowing 300,000 metric tons of overseas beef trimmings to enter the US at a reduced tariff rate.
But domestic farmers in the US, who are already struggling with smaller herds, say the decision will increase competition and make it more difficult to sell their own.
“It takes something big to change long-established voting patterns, but I think there’s a possibility that the Trump administration has done things that are big enough and bad enough from the standpoint of rural America to make some of the voters who shifted a decade ago reconsider their choice,” William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Sun.
US strikes on alleged drug boats may constitute ‘crimes against humanity’, UN finds
South America correspondent
A special rapporteur for the UN human rights council has concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the United States attacks on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Pacific and Caribbean “constituted crimes against humanity”.
The boat strikes, carried out since September 2025 on the stated grounds of stopping drugs being trafficked by sea to the US, have killed more than 230 people. The latest, on Saturday, killed four people in the Caribbean.
The UN itself, along with several human rights organisations, lawyers and international law experts, had already described the bombings as “extrajudicial killings”, but special rapporteur Ben Saul went further.
In a briefing note posted by Saul on social media on Sunday night and first reported by the BBC, Saul wrote that, in addition to “serial extrajudicial killings”, the attacks were “in violation of the right to life, being unjustified in national or personal self-defence or under international humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotics suppression conventions, or international counter-terrorism law”.
He added: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the reported 68 attacks that killed 223 people constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.”
The report cites 68 US attacks that killed 223 people. It is unclear how recently the figures were updated – tallies by organisations such as the Washington Office on Latin America put the death toll at 234 people in 66 attacks.
US Southern Command, which has coordinated the attacks, posted on Saturday, alongside a grainy video, that it had “executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean. Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists”.
As has become standard in announcements of such attacks, the US did not identify the victims or provide any details about the alleged intelligence that supposedly confirmed their involvement in drug trafficking.
Saul’s report rejects the claim made by Donald Trump before Congress that the strikes amounted to “self-defence” against “designated terrorist organizations”.
The special rapporteur wrote that the crews were not “militarily armed and possessed the intent and capacity to launch military attacks” against the US.
“Even assuming that the vessels and crew attacked were members of the criminal groups listed as terrorist, such organizations have not mounted any ‘armed attack’ on the United States so as to trigger a right of self-defence,” he added.
The US Department of State has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Here’s our full report:
Lauren Boebert slams ethics complaint alleging sexual relationships with three staffers as 'politically motivated'
Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Colorado Republican congresswoman, is the subject of a House ethics complaint that she had sex with three staff members, and paid one to keep quiet. She said the allegations are untrue, and part of a “politically motivated” campaign against her.
Boebert’s denials came through a formal statement from her office, which said “the congresswoman rejects the claims as utterly false”, and a verbose video rant on social media in which she accused the person who filed the document as a “sloppy, desperate, obsessive hack”, and journalists who reported the story as falling victim to a “scam”.
According to the complaint, filed last week by David Wheeler, an independent journalist, activist, and founder of the American Muckrakers political action committee, Boebert committed at least seven violations of House ethics rules.
Among the most prominent allegations are that Boebert conducted a four-year “romantic and sexual relationship” with a senior female staffer, named as Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, then paid her $200,000 when Ratzlaff broke off the affair and threatened to file an ethics complaint of her own.
Additionally, Wheeler alleges, Boebert had a sexual relationships around the same time with Raven Finegan, a congressional employee and the congresswoman’s district chief of staff, and Jeffrey Small, who was her chief of staff from 2021 to 2025.
The code of official conduct prohibits House members from engaging in sexual relationships with employees under their supervision, or the committees on which they serve, unless a couple is married. Consent, the rules state, is not a defense.
Boebert frequently promotes her own Christian values and has previously been publicly critical of same-sex relationships.
JB Pritzker – the governor of Illinois, an expected contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, and one of the country’s heftier political figures – revealed to CBS on Monday that he’s been using GLP-1s to shed weight.
Pritzker told CBS Mornings that he began taking GLP-1s after receiving a diabetes diagnosis two years ago. Since then, he said he’s lost 80 pounds.
Pritzker’s weight has been a source of jabs by political opponents, including President Trump, with whom he has sparred repeatedly during Trump’s second term.
(When pressed by an interviewer on whether he lost weight in part to reshape his image ahead of a presidential run, Pritzker equivocated.)
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CNN, MS Now and Politico file lawsuit against Trump over White House ban
The three news outlets President Trump banned from the White House last Friday have filed their anticipated lawsuit against his administration to restore their access.
In the new complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, CNN, MS Now and Politico alleged that Trump had violated the First Amendment and due process by stripping the outlets of their White House access in a blatant act of retaliation for coverage he disliked.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” CNN, MS Now and Politico wrote in the complaint.
In his Friday social media post announcing the ban, Trump attributed his decision to no specific issue with the outlets’ coverage, but rather to their pattern of producing “fake news” – his usual label for news coverage that is not favorable to him or his policies. He threatened bans against other outlets could follow.
The move, the outlets alleged in their lawsuit, was a deliberate attempt to unlawfully pressure them and other outlets to avoid critical reporting on his administration.
“The Constitution does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting,” the outlets’ complaint continued. “The ban is unconstitutional and should be immediately restrained.”
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Networks halt TV pool coverage of Trump following CNN ban
After President Trump’s snap decision to ban CNN from the White House, the four other networks that comprise the White House’s TV pool decided they would cease their pooled coverage of the president, Politico and other outlets are reporting.
Alongside CNN, those four networks – NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News – have provided rotating video coverage of the president both in the White House and around the country, broadly sharing the footage they gather. They are a near-permanent fixture of the presidency.
But they won’t be for the time being, it seems.
In an email to TV pool subscribers obtained by several outlets, the Washington bureau chief for Fox News said that the decision to ax pool coverage “follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”
The five networks that comprise the standard pool rotation published a statement Monday afternoon: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
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Jared Golden, an outgoing Democratic congressman from Maine not running for reelection this year, published an op-ed Monday endorsing a Republican in a closely-contested House race several states away.
Golden came out in support of Mike Lawler, the GOP incumbent in New York’s 17th congressional district, located in the Hudson Valley just north of New York City.
In the pages of Lawler’s local newspaper, Golden extolled his Republican colleague for his bipartisanship, citing their work together on several pieces of aisle-crossing legislation. One of them, particularly crucial for Golden, is a bill to shield Maine’s lobstermen from what he describes as burdensome regulation aimed at saving a critically endangered whale.
Lawler is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley, a former Army officer and national security official in the Biden administration. (Golden’s op-ed makes no mention of her.)
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A cryptocurrency industry super PAC is planning a sizable ad blitz to try to tip the scales against the Democratic candidate in a key midterm Senate race, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The group, Fairshake, told the Times that it’s launching $30 million in advertising money at the Ohio Senate race in a bid to help sink Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for the seat. Brown, a critic of crypto, was once the ranking Democrat of the Senate Banking Committee, which handles crypto legislation, before losing his seat in 2024 – when the industry previously wielded its money against him.
(Brown has, since then, taken a somewhat softer stance on crypto, the Times reported.)
The spending comes after Senate Democrats took down the Clarity Act, a piece of legislation that the crypto industry was desperate to see passed. If successful, it would’ve carved into law many aspects of the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly regulatory environment. (The Biden administration, by contrast, had cracked down on the industry.)
Democrats’ objections to that legislation stemmed, in large part, from Trump himself. They wanted to see stricter provisions barring lawmakers from leveraging their offices to get rich off crypto – like Trump has done in his second term to the tune of $1.4 billion.
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Trump set to begin busy week of diplomacy – with a Mamdani meeting along the way
President Donald Trump is set to depart for New York later today ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, kicking off a busy week of international diplomacy.
Trump is expected to meet with several key figures on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders. Among them will be Delcy Rodriguez, the interim president of Venezuela, who took charge after the US raided her country and arrested her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, in January. Since then, Rodriguez has been pliant in response to the Trump administration’s interests, helping broker an oil deal that would see a large share of Venezuelan oil revenues diverted into US coffers.
Trump is also planning to hold discussions with the leaders of countries around the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have increasingly been drawn into Trump’s war on Iran.
And Trump signaled over the weekend that he’s open to meeting with the leadership of Iran itself, as both countries continue to trade strikes.
That’s all on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Trump is planning to host a visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during which the two are expected to discuss trade, AI, and the war in Iran.
Trump will also meet today with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist whose insurgent campaign to run Trump’s home city rattled his MAGA allies, but with whom he has maintained a strangely cordial relationship. Afterwards, he’s scheduled to talk with French President Emmanuel Macron.
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Trump responds to CNN, Politico, MS Now lawsuit over stripped White House access
Hours after the three news outlets he summarily barred from the White House announced their intentions to file a lawsuit, Trump took to social media to defend himself.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in response to the pending challenge from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, the three outlets he banned.
Trump continued: “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
Trump banned the three news organizations from the White House on Friday via a surprise social media post. He cited no specific grievance against the outlets’ coverage when announcing the decision, saying only that they were “fake news” and that similar sanctions may follow for other outlets down the line.
Since then, reporters and camera crews for the three organizations have been barred from entering the building. A CNN crew slated to accompany Trump to New York today was reportedly nixed.
Earlier this morning, the three organizations (as widely predicted) announced their intentions to sue the administration to restore their access.
The lawsuit, the three outlets said in a joint statement, will aim “to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”
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The United States has refused to issue visas for members of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian’s delegation, including his communications team, for this week’s trip to the UN General Assembly, Iranian state media reported.
Pezeshkian will be the highest-ranking Iranian official to enter the United States since the Middle East war began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.
“In an unprecedented hostile move by the US government, Trump has denied US visas to certain members of the president’s high-level delegation, including members of his communications team,” state news agency IRNA reported.
The Mehr news agency also carried the story, citing a spokesperson for the Iranian presidency, and added that Pezeshkian will address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
ICE agent shoots and wounds Venezuelan man at traffic stop in Austin, Texas
A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and wounded a Venezuelan man on Sunday afternoon in Texas’s capital city, Austin, prompting demonstrations at the scene against the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration campaign.
The man, identified by relatives and his lawyer as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, was taken to a hospital in Austin in a serious but stable condition, officials said, before being taken into custody.
He was shot once in the torso on the city’s north side, Austin’s police chief, Lisa Davis, said at a news conference with the mayor and other city officials.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it was leading an investigation into the officer involved in the shooting, with the help of the FBI.
Austin police officers were not involved in the operation or the shooting, which occurred after a traffic stop, Davis told reporters.
The city’s police arrived on the scene after the shooting and could be seen on bystander video asking the federal officers what had happened and then rushing back to their squad car to get surgical gloves and a medical kit and administering first aid to the man.
The federal officers could be heard saying they had called an ambulance, but they did not appear to attempt to give first aid.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico to sue over White House ban
MS NOW, CNN and Politico said they were suing the Trump administration to protect their First Amendment rights after president Donald Trump’s announcement that he would ban them from the White House’s building grounds.
The three news outlets said they had notified the government that they were filing their lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia and could see emergency hearings in the case as soon as this week, according to CNN.
All three news outlets had hinted at legal action, saying they would vigorously defend their First Amendment rights.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the outlets said in a joint statement posted on X. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment outside normal business hours.
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Trump accused of 'manufacturing a national security justification' to push arch plan
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump was accused of “manufacturing a national security justification” to push forward his plans for a triumphal arch.
The president said yesterday that the planned structure near Washington would double as a “military complex” housing drones and snipers, making it the second major construction project he has sought to justify on national security grounds.
“The president’s belated efforts to manufacture a national security justification for this project do nothing to cure its fundamental illegality,” Nicolas Sansone, one of the attorneys representing litigants suing to stop the plan, said on Sunday. “Congress has not authorized the arch and unless and until Congress does so, the project should not be permitted to move forward.”
The arch and plans for the White House ballroom are part of Trump’s broader effort to remake the nation’s capital, including the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the redevelopment of a golf course in East Potomac Park and a push to add his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The initiatives have drawn criticism from preservationists and others who argue they would alter some of Washington’s most prominent historic landmarks.
US representative Don Beyer, a Democrat whose Virginia district includes Arlington National Cemetery, posted on Sunday that operating drones so close to the airport would be dangerous and impractical, and suggested the move was aimed at bolstering the administration’s legal position.
“Trump clearly expects to lose a lawsuit and therefore wants to set up a pretext to argue that the arch is tied to national security,” Beyer, who has introduced legislation to block the arch’s construction, wrote in a social media post.
In a social media post, Trump said that at the “strong request” of the military he had agreed to turn the planned 250 ft (76m) arch “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”
In other developments:
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Trump refused to say whether he would attempt to demolish the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the iconic facility on Washington’s Potomac River. Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump repeated his belief that the center should append his name to the building in exchange for his work to raise money to renovate the facility.
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Trump will meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani when Trump travels to the city for the upcoming UN General Assembly. The meeting is scheduled for later today and at Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence, according to Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s communications director.
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Trump on Saturday said he would appoint an artificial intelligence czar and create an “AI Force” to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan. As global fears over AI have grown, especially in the past week in the face of multiple industry figures sounding the alarm about its dangers, the president has been critical of calls to slow down development of the fast-moving industry.
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China’s leader Xi Jinping will visit the United States this week for talks with Trump, Beijing confirmed today, expressing hope they will strengthen “strategic stability” between the world’s two largest economies. Washington had already made clear that the leaders would meet in a bid to find common ground on trade disputes, artificial intelligence and broader strategic issues including Trump’s war in the Middle East.
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A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and wounded a man on Sunday afternoon in Texas’s capital city of Austin, local authorities said, as protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration campaign quickly gathered at the scene.
