Here's a recap of the first night of the GOP midterm convention
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In a nearly two-hour speech, Donald Trump capped off his first night remarks at the GOP midterm convention by pleading with Republicans to “pretend that I’m running”. The president centered himself in the battle to control Congress, and acknowledged that candidates are more successful when he is on the ballot. He offered an ominous outlook if Republicans fail to retain power. “If we lose, you’re going to lose your border, you’re going to lose your tax cuts, you’re going to lose your safety and security. You’re going to lose your wealth. Our country is going through hell. You will be going through hell just like you did just two years ago,” Trump said.
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The president made the stunning claim that he would send every citizen $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US House and Senate. However, he provided no details about where he would source this money from or the legality of the incentive. “It will be called the Trump dividend,” the president said. A reminder that it’s against federal law to “make or offer to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote”. It would cost over $1tn, accounting for more than 235 million adult citizens across the country.
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Throughout his remarks, Trump also tried to campaign on behalf on Republicans in competitive midterm races. While he made fun of Ken Paxton’s clothing choices and the way he speaks, he praised the Republican nominee for US Senate in Texas as “the single greatest attorney general” in the state’s history, while also branding his opponent James Talarico as a “disaster”. He also praised Michael Whatley, who is running to keep the open Senate seat in North Carolina red, and blasted his challenger – the state’s former Democratic governor Roy Cooper – over his handling of the devastating hurricane that swept through the state in 2024.
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Earlier, Democratic senator John Fetterman made a surprise virtual appearance at the Republican midterm convention, delivering a video address supporting Dave McCormick, a Republican senator in Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who has increasingly broken with his party since his election in 2022, said in the video that he would always reject “extremes and socialism”, repeating an oft-used Republican critique of the Democratic party’s increasingly popular left wing. “Yes, I’m a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because well, I’m a commonsense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker said in the pre-recorded message. Fetterman, for his part, insisted that he would not be switching parties in the next Congress. ““I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party-and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on,” he said in a statement.
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Meanwhile, several Republicans who are facing tough races have chosen not to attend the convention in Dallas. This include Susan Collins, the five-term incumbent senator from Maine, and Dan Sullivan – the Republican senator from Alaska who is facing a tough contest against former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola. By showing up at the convention, these nominees run the risk of isolating swing voters they need to court in competitive districts and states where the administration’s policies have proven unpopular.
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Trump caps nearly two-hour speech by repeating his plea to 'please pretend that I'm running'
In a nearly two-hour speech, Donald Trump capped off his first night remarks at the GOP midterm convention by repeating his plea to Republicans.
“Please pretend that I’m running,” he said. “Get out and vote on November 3rd or sooner, because in actuality, I really am running … we have to take Congress.”
The president noted that he’ll also speak on the second and final night of the convention, but it won’t be as long.
“I’m not doing a big deal like this because I don’t have to say the same stuff twice. I gave you a lot of material,” he said. “I’m going to be just sort of getting up here and saying, good luck. We love you all.”
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Also in his speech, Trump referenced the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk – which happened a year ago on Thursday. Erika, Kirk’s widow who is now leading his organization, Turning Point USA, was in the audience.
Those at the American Airlines Center gave Erika a standing ovation, while Trump chided people who “cheered” Kirk’s death. “The mask came off the radical left,” the president said.
As we’ve previously reported, by November of 2025, a Reuters investigation estimated that 600 people had been terminated, disciplined, investigated, suspended or otherwise admonished for their Kirk posts, likening the reaction to an ideological purge.
The so-called “Trump dividend” would cost more than $1tn – accounting for more than 235 million US adult citizens.
The president has given shout outs to several Republicans running for Senate in a number of competitive races throughout his speech.
He boosted Michael Whatley – the former RNC chair who is the GOP nominee for Senate in North Carolina.
Whatley is facing Roy Cooper – the state’s former governor – as they vie for the open seat that the incumbent senator, Thom Tillis, is vacating.
Trump took aim at Cooper’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene – the devastating storm that killed at least 107 people and caused nearly $60bn in damage.
“[Cooper] did nothing to help. He was a disaster during that very traumatic time,” the president said.
However, as my colleague Chris Stein has reported, when Trump visited the state shortly after returning to office, he said Whatley would be “in charge of making sure everything goes well” with the recovery. That’s led to Whatley being known in the state’s press as the “recovery czar”, a title the Republican’s campaign said he was never given, but which Cooper has wielded to argue that his opponent is the one letting North Carolinians down.
Trump defended the war in Iran during his speech today, and appeared to downplay concerns about the price of gas – now more than a dollar higher per gallon than this time last year.
“Let me ask you one question: Can Iran have a nuclear weapon? Absolutely not,” he said.
The economic ramifications of the conflict, including record-high inflation, have had an impact on voters. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s decision to go to war.
Earlier, the president spoke about his prized White House ballroom. The supreme court recently allowed construction to continue after several legal challenges.
Again, Trump claimed that this is a “tax free” project. “I’m giving you a ballroom free of charge,” the president insisted. But the Guardian previously reported that the administration quietly redirected $352m in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the ballroom project, despite repeated promises by Trump that the construction would be financed by private donations.
The funds were drawn from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s signature tax legislation passed last summer on Republican-only votes. The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.
A reminder that Congress explicitly refused to provide $1bn in funds for the “East Wing Modernization Project” in June.
It’s unclear on what legal grounds the president can offer a cash incentive to vote for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. It is against federal law to “make or offer to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote”.
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Trump claims he will send $5,000 to every citizen if Republicans hold on to control of Congress
Trump has claimed he will send every citizen $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US House and Senate. He provided no details about where he would source this money from or the legality of the incentive.
“So if the Republicans win, you win with us … it will be called the Trump dividend,” the president said.
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Trump went on to claim Democrats are opposing his sweeping legislation that requires voter ID in order to cast a ballot, as well as proof of citizenship in order to register, “because they want to cheat”.
“You have to admit they’re really good at this stuff, they come up with more excuses,” the president said. Democrats and a small number of Republicans have said their concerns about the stalled bill – known as the Save America act – are that it would actually make it harder for eligible voters from casting a ballot.
Trump went on to praise top House Republican Mike Johnson – who he branded as the “greatest speaker” in history, and Senate majority leader John Thune.
Thune’s name, however, was met with boos. Trump came to the top senator’s defense. “John is working hard. He’s got great opposition,” the president said.
As Trump continues his rechristening streak, he repeated his suggestion to rename the strait of Hormuz as the “Trump strait”, which was met with cheers across the arena.
This comes after Trump signed executive orders to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
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Fact check: Trump falsely claims 'zero' border crossings in last 16 months
Donald Trump falsely claimed that there have been “zero” border crossings over the last 16 months. He also falsely claimed there were “25 million” under his predecessor Joe Biden.
While there has been a steep drop in encounters at the southern border, there have been almost 600,000 since January 2025. Meanwhile, most estimates suggest that there were about 11 million throughout the Biden administration – less than half of the number Trump has claimed.
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Trump uses headlining speech to campaign for Ken Paxton in competitive Senate seat in Texas
Trump has used parts of his speech to direct Texans to vote for Ken Paxton in the US Senate race in November. The beleaguered attorney general is facing Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico in one of the most competitive contests this midterm cycle.
Several recent polls show Talarico leading Paxton. A reminder that no Democrat has actually won statewide office in Texas since 1994.
“Some may not like the way he dresses. I don’t. Although tonight he looked very spiffy in his blue suit, I must tell you. But they may not like the way he talks. I can see that, you know,” Trump said. “You may not like the way he looks, but here’s the news. In the history of Texas, he is the single greatest attorney general you’ve ever had, and maybe the top attorney general in the whole United States.”
“When I’m on the ticket, Republicans always do very well,” Trump said, before repeating the false claim that he has “won the presidency three times”.
Trump won the 2016 and 2014 presidential elections but lost the 2020 election – despite routinely falsely insisting that the election was “rigged” and “stolen”.
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Trump repeated that there are about “35 races” which are competitive this midterm cycle. However, a number of vulnerable Republicans have to be careful about yolking themselves to the administration – particularly in districts and states who disapprove of the president’s policies.
Trump added that he’ll spend time over the next two months campaigning on behalf of the candidates in key battlegrounds.
“I’m going to go to every one of those states for congressmen and for senators. I’m going to do that, and we’re going to have rallies,” the president said. “
Trump implores voters to 'pretend that I'm on the ballot' ahead of November midterms
The president implored attendees and voters throughout the country to “pretend that I’m on the ballot” as they cast their votes in this year’s midterms.
“I’m on the ballot, just one more time,” he added. “Because if we lose, you’re going to lose your border, you’re going to lose your tax cuts, you’re going to lose your safety and security. You’re going to lose your wealth. Our country is going through hell. You will be going through hell just like you did just two years ago.”
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Trump congratulated himself within the first few minutes of speaking. “I want you to remember me in four or five years when this country is rocketing. Remember, I’m the one that got it started,” he said. Cheers erupted and calls for him to “run in 2028” could be heard.
Running for a third term is something the president frequently floats, even thought the constitution limits him to two non-consectutive terms in office.
Trump: 'Vote Republican and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come'
The president made his case clear in his opening remarks to attendees.
“Your vote will decide whether our country stumbles at the starting gate of the next 250 years or surges forward and never ever looks back,” he said. “Hand America’s future to the radical left Democrats, and our nation will spend the next decade just getting back on its feet. It will be a tragedy. Vote Republican and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come. There’ll be nothing like it.”
Trump acknowledged that the convention was thrown together in eight weeks, and insisted that the arena is “packed”. However, as my colleagues Adam Gabbatt and David Smith report from Dallas, there are several parts of the American Airlines Center with empty seats.
Trump speaks at GOP midterm convention in Dallas
Donald Trump walked on stage at the American Airlines Center in Dallas with a live performance from Lee Greenwood singing God Bless the USA – Trump’s mainstay anthem that plays at all of his campaign and presidential events.
“Welcome to the first ever midterm convention of any party,” the president said. “Took a little imagination to think of it, but we thought of it.”
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We’re seeing backlash trickle in from Democrats over Senator John Fetterman’s video message that played at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas.
“A year ago I labeled John Fetterman ‘Trump’s favorite Democrat’. Tonight, he yet again proves why,” said Congressman Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
Meanwhile Sarah McBride, the sole US representative for Delaware and the first openly transgender member of Congress, said that “being a Democratic politician who decides to speak at Trump’s midterm convention is like boarding the Titanic after it hit the iceberg”.
Ahead of Donald Trump’s speech in Dallas, Justin Gaethje – an MMA fighter who took part in the UFC match at the White House in June – took the stage.
“This is about supporting President Trump and sending him Republican allies in Congress to continue moving forward with his agenda for the economy, national security, and the country. So let’s get behind him,” Gaethje said. “We have seen what will happen if we give away the midterms to complacency, we cannot do that again.”
Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, addressed attendees at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, where he slammed former president Joe Biden.
He accused Biden and Democrats of bringing the US “to the brink of ruin”.
“They opened our borders and shuttered our factories. They imposed one set of rules on American workers, while allowing our competitors to play by another, inflation soared to a 40-year high,” Bessent said. This, despite the fact that current prices are actually higher than when Biden left office in 2025, according to the latest inflation date.
“This summer, we celebrated what our founders began. This fall, we will decide faithfully how we preserve it,” Bessent added. “We’ve come a long way under President Trump. Now it falls on us to show up when it matters the most to continue this fight.”
Here are a few more pictures from the GOP midterm convention
New York congressman defends attending convention as some Republicans in swing districts steer clear
Reporting from Dallas
Mike Lawler, the vulnerable Republican congressman running for reelection in New York, has defended his decision to attend the midterm convention.
As we reported earlier, numerous Republicans running in swing districts have stayed away from the event, wary of being associated with Trump, but Lawler is among those due to speak here on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters outside the convention hall, Lawler was why he decided to appear at the Trump-heavy event, when others have stayed away. “Well, he’s the president of the United States, and whether people want to say yay or nay, the fact is he’s the president. Two, this is an opportunity to talk about what we’ve actually done, and my speech is going to focus on what I’ve delivered for my district, and in fact, standing up to the president to do it,” Lawler said.
Lawler represents New York’s 17th district, which Kamala Harris won, narrowly, in 2024, and the Cook report rates the race as a “toss up” between Lawler and Cait Conley, his Democratic opponent. He claimed he has “loudly and vocally pushed back” against Trump on issues including funding to Ukraine, adding: “I have the ability to deal with the president, just screaming and yelling and saying ‘I hate Donald Trump’ gets you there. What does that deliver for your constituents? Nothing.”
Members of Congress reportedly had to pay $25,000 to attend the convention, but Lawler said he hadn’t stumped up that amount.
“I didn’t pay anything other than a plane ticket and a hotel room,” he said.
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Congressman Mike Collins, the Georgia Republican who will face Senator Jon Ossoff in the state’s US Senate race in November, is now speaking at the GOP midterm convention.
Ahead of his appearance on stage, a video about Laken Riley, the University of Georgian nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented immigant in 2024, was played for the audience in Dallas.
Riley’s death became a flashpoint for the hard-right to eventually introduce, and pass, legislation that mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, and allows state attorneys general to sue the federal government if they believe their states have been harmed by its failure to enforce immigration laws.
Several House and Senate Democrats, including Osoff, joined Republicans to advance the bill, which Trump signed into law last year.
“Every life taken by an illegal immigrant is preventable, but it can only be stopped when we have leaders that will prioritize Americans,” said Collins, who was one of the legislation’s authors. “I sat in Jon Ossoff’s office and demanded that he help America remember the name of our shared constituent, but no, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. He forgot her name until it was politically convenient.”
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A reminder that Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat, has been frequently dodging work, as well as his own constituents, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.
The Journal reported that Fetterman has forgone many of the duties of his office to focus on supporting Israel and making the rounds in conservative media.
The Senator has also reportedly made a habit of denying or canceling meetings with constituents, including, in one case, bailing on a group of paralyzed veterans who’d arrived at his office.
Radio host Adam Carolla just joked with the crowd in Dallas, saying that Donald Trump is backstage.
“I just saw the man,” Carolla said. “Actually, I was lying. He’s not in the building yet.”
Fetterman says he is always going to reject 'extremes and socialism' in surprise video message praising Republican colleague at GOP convention
Senator John Fetterman’s video message, ahead of Senator Dave McCormick’s speech in Dallas, has just aired.
In the video, Fetterman is seen standing outside the Mon Valley Works – a processing plant operated by US Steel in Pittsburgh.
“Yes, I’m a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because well, I’m a commonsense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker, who has increasingly broken with his party since he was elected in 2022, said in the pre-recorded message. “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done, and he’s going to fight for Pennsylvania.”
In the stunning display of support for a Republican colleague in the Senate, Fetterman called McCormick his “great friend”, and said that he will work with him and Donald Trump “to fight and defend the steel way of life”.
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Ohio Senator John Husted, another Republican facing a tough race in November, spent time attacking his Democratic challenger, Sherrod Brown – a former senator who lost his seat in 2024.
“It’s also hard to explain why Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown raised our taxes to fund benefits for illegals and shift our jobs to China,” Husted said. “Sherrod Brown put Shanghai over Steubenville and Beijing over Brunswick, didn’t he, Ohio?”
One of the more vulnerable Republicans who IS at the GOP midterm convention is Representative Rob Bresnahan – a Pennsylvania Republican who flipped his seat red in 2024, but is facing a tough race this November. Bresnahan is hoping to fed off Paige Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of Scranton.
Bresnahan spent most of his speech focused on his battleground district’s industrial roots.
“When manufacturers can keep more of what they earn, they can buy equipment, hire workers, and train apprentices,” the congressman told the crowd in Dallas. “I’m ready to keep fighting to preserve these tax cuts and stop Democrats from repealing them.”
Bresnahan barely mentioned Trump by name, and avoided talking about social issues. “Our future depends on making what America needs right here at home, with American workers not relying on other countries to do it for us, our future depends on ensuring the next generation can earn a good living in the communities that built this country from the ground up,” he said.
Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general and the Republican nominee for US Senate in the state, is now delivering a speech that is supposed to be focused on affordability.
But Paxton spent time issuing several digs at his Democratic rival, James Talarico. “I will fight to preserve the American dream. James Talarico is running to destroy it,” Paxton said. “This guy is really obsessed with transitions. He wants to transition your kids. He wants to transition Texas off of oil and gas. How about we transition him and his crazy ideas right out of Texas?”
Before he left the stage, Paxton said that if he loses the Texas Senate seat “we lose the commonsense revolution”. The scandal-plagued Republican received Trump’s endorsement, that allowed him to defeat the incumbent John Cornyn in the GOP primary earlier this year. But Paxton’s campaign has also received a boost from Maga Inc – which has spent $10m on ads to attack Talarico.
Fetterman set to issue video message praising Trump at GOP midterm convention - report
John Fetterman – the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who has found himself increasingly estranged from his party – is set to issue a video message praising Donald Trump at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, according to a report from Axios.
The first-term lawmaker – who has cast several votes bucking Democrats – will be in the video that will play ahead of his colleague Senator Dave McCormick’s appearance on stage. Fetterman will thank Trump for his work in helping the US steel industry.
Citing unnamed sources, Axios reports that Fetterman isn’t expected to announce that he’s switching parties, but he is going to distance himself from the left flank of the Democratic party. McCormick helped arrange Fetterman’s appearance, according to one of Axios’ sources with knowledge of the situation.
Fetterman was the sole Democrat to vote no on several war powers resolutions to curb the Trump administration’s military action in Iran. Earlier this year, he voted to confirm Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Markwayne Mullin, and last year Fetterman routinely joined Republicans on key votes to keep the government open – while Senate Democrats withheld support for key appopriations bills to protest expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.
According to a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena poll in August, 74% of Democrats in Pennsylvania had a favorable opinion of Fetterman in 2024 – two years after he won his Senate election – that has now fallen to 22%.
Meanwhile, only 25 % of Pennsylvania Repbublicans viewed Fetterman favorably in 2024. That number has shot up to 73%.
Despite not confirming whether he would seek a second term in office, Fetterman recently said that he has no intention to switch parties. He has, however, issued a caveat – he would consider leaving the Democratic caucus if it became the “anti-Israel party”.
Fetterman has emerged as one of Israel’s most prominent advocates among Senate Democrats, even as others in the party back away from their traditional support for the country amid accusations that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government committed genocide in Gaza.
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Trump is now participating at a Maga Inc meeting in downtown Dallas, ahead of arriving at the midterm convention. This, you may remember, is the Super Pac that supports the president and many of the candidates he backs.
Maga Inc is sitting on a $400m war chest, and has earmarked $47m for six competitive Senate races and one competitive House race, via its No Going Back PAC Inc, according to the New York Times.
Deployed emergency slide on Air Force One was 'accidentally triggered' ahead of Trump takeoff for Dallas
A person briefed on the situation told the press pool traveling with Donald Trump that members of the US air force, which operates Air Force One, “accidentally triggered” the emergency inflatable slide that deployed before the president’s takeoff to Dallas. Trump is set to deliver the keynote speech at the GOP midterm convention.
However, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, claimed that the slide was “checked out to make sure everything works perfectly”.
Missouri’s Trump-backed voting maps approved by federal panel challenged in supreme court
Opponents of congressional redistricting in Missouri appealed to the US supreme court on Wednesday after a federal panel let stand a ruling allowing the state to use a new map backed by Donald Trump in November’s midterms.
The map’s challengers, including a group opposed to the Republican-drawn map called People Not Politicians, made the request in an emergency filing, moving swiftly after Stephen Clark, a St Louis-based chief US district judge, issued his decision on Tuesday.
Clashing rulings had plunged Missouri’s congressional elections into uncertainty, less than two months out from the crucial midterms that will decide which party controls a closely divided congress – and will impact the fate of Trump’s agenda for the rest of his term.
First, the conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh had denied an emergency request from Missouri officials to use a congressional map in November that was redrawn with Trump’s support to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. That decision effectively allowed a Missouri supreme court ruling to revert back to the 2022 map to stand.
Not long after, a ruling by Clark, who was appointed by Trump, issued a contradictory decision, temporarily preventing the state from using its old congressional maps in the November elections. The temporary restraining order, or TRO, ordered Missouri to use the newly drawn districts that favor Republicans, which the state used in its August primary elections.
Clark’s order was then swiftly appealed to the eighth US circuit court of appeals.
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During his remarks in Dallas, Michael Whatley – the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair and GOP nominee for US Senate in North Carolina – avoided spending much time talking about the Trump administration’s policies like tariffs, the war in Iran and the ensuing economic strain. Instead, Whatley spent much of his speech denigrating his Democratic challenger – former governor Roy Cooper.
Whatley said the “blood” of Iryna Zarutska – the Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed onboard a light rail train in Charlotte by Decarlos Brown Jr – is on Cooper’s “hands”.
Brown has a documented history of prior arrests, other legal problems and mental health issues. However, the Trump administration and its Republican allies seized on the case, claiming the killing demonstrated how local leaders, judges and policies in Democratic-led cities were failing to protect residents from violent crime.
“That monster should have never been on the streets,” Whatley said in Dallas. “When it comes to keeping our kids and our communities safe, Roy Cooper was the worst governor in the history of North Carolina.”
Several Republicans in competitive races stay away from GOP midterm convention
While there are dozens of Republican lawmakers and candidates who are facing tough races in November at the convention in Dallas over the next two days, there are several who have chosen not to attend the event that has been hastily thrown together at the behest of Donald Trump.
This includes Susan Collins, the five-term incumbent senator from Maine, who is contending with a deluge of anti-Trump animus in her purple state ahead of her re-election race. Her campaign has told various outlets that she would be constituents back in Maine during the convention.
Similarly, Dan Sullivan – the Republican senator from Alaska who is facing a tough contest against former Democratic congresswoman Mary Peltola – is opting to skip the event. Sullivan has spent Wednesday on the trail in Alaska, posting videos and photos from various campaign stops. This comes after the US president said last week that he would travel to the state to campaign on behalf of Sullivan ahead of the general election.
Meanwhile, Tom Barrett, a Michigan representative, and Tom Tiffany, the congressman and Republican nominee for Wisconsin governor, are some of the House members – seen as vulnerable in their respective races – who will also not attend the GOP convention in Dallas.
If these nominees show up in Dallas, they could run the risk of isolating swing voters they need to court.
Earlier, Trump snapped at an ABC News reporter who asked about the absences.
“We have room for the ones that have a close race, if they’re slightly behind or slightly ahead or tied,” the president said. “But we don’t have room for people that are 35 points up and don’t need to be there … Every politician that we’ve wanted to be there is there.”
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Reporting from Dallas
The midterm convention is under way. Each speaker stands at a lectern on a shiny black stage with big blue star and gold trim. There are four US national flags and five giant video screens behind them. Earlier today, the screens showed dark, spooky images of Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Tim Walz.
The red-carpeted convention floor looks full and has the familiar vertical signs with the names of individual states, even though state delegates have not been elected this time. There is also a flavour of a Donald Trump campaign rally: the so-called “Front row Joes” are here, as are the “Trump Tribe of Texas” with “Lady Liberty” (a woman dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume).
Blake Marnell, wearing his customary brick patterned suit and tie and red “Make America great again” cap, told me: “There’s probably no administration in history that you can look at two years in and say we got everything we wanted but I’m overall extremely happy. My number one issue of course is the border. There are a lot of other issues that are important, but I think that most of those are downstream from illegal immigration.”
But the regular seating at the American Airlines Center is a different story: some sections are quite full, others have lots of empty seats (some occupied only by Stars and Stripes signs). The “nosebleeds” at the top seem completely unfilled so far. Of course, it’s still early days: Trump and other big name speakers are yet to appear. The stadium may well be much nearer capacity when they do.
Chris Daniel, 44, from Houston, Texas, who has been a delegate to every Republican convention since 2004, said: “It feels different only because this is the midterms and we haven’t seen anything remotely like this since the 1800s. In this case, it is to rally the troops and get everyone on the same page so that we move forward towards November.”
Trump merchandise is on sale in the square outside. It includes “Trump 2028” baseball caps.
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Reporting from Dallas
At the Republican convention, several people – not me – are already on the booze.
Miller Lite appears to be the beer of choice. Others have been taking advantage of free food provided by Steak n’ Shake, a burger company which has aligned itself with Robert F Kennedy’s idiosyncratic healthcare agenda. Steak n’ Shake has a van here with an inflatable box of fries which declare that its fries are “100% beef tallow” and do not contain seed oils. On a chalkboard on the side of the van someone has written “Eat mor bef tallow”.
There are always interesting outfits at Republican conventions, and this year’s theme seems to be “sequins”. Among those sporting the style was Denise Hopkins, a keen Trump supporter from Louisiana who had an interesting idea about who should be the Republican nominee in 2028.
“I would like President Trump. I think he’s doing a great job. I know he’s got family and grandkids, and he’s done so much for us, but if he would like to,” she said.
The back of Hopkins’ jacket spelled out “Team Jesus” in sequins. It had a biblical verse at the bottom, but some of the sequins had fallen off, rendering it unreadable.
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Reporting from Dallas
Ray Washburne, co-chair of the Republican midterm convention, has acknowledged that Donald Trump will be “front and center” of the event and denied the US president will be a liability for the party’s candidates.
“Absolutely, he’s an asset – just look at the turnouts he gets,” Washburne told a roundtable at Bloomberg News in Dallas. “The ratings for listening to him speak will be fantastic because people want to hear what he’s got to say and he’s gonna set the tone for the rest of this fall. People are gonna look at that and his tone towards people like Ken Paxton and others to get the enthusiasm behind their campaigns.”
Washburne said the two main contenders to host Republicans’ first midterm convention had been Dallas and Las Vegas. After Dallas got the nod in mid-June, the host committee raised $45m in three weeks as it raced to meet the September deadline. He expects an attendance of 18,000 to 20,000 each night in the American Airlines Center but is not aware of how many members of Congress will be among them. More than 1,600 reporters have been credentialed.
Washburne, chair of the gas company Sunoco and vice-chair of Gillon Capital, said the idea of a midterm convention appealed to Trump. “He’s an entertainer. He obviously loves big, big events and things and his career has been built around that. I think when the idea was broached to him about doing it he thought about it for a while and was like, that makes a lot of sense to do it because it’s going to get a lot of attention, we can showcase people we need to showcase, and make the argument for another two years of Republican-held House and Senate to go along with the administration’s goals to get things done.”
The co-chair added:
I think once that was really talked through this spring, it was realised, yeah, let’s do something. I don’t think the Democrats – who would they put up? AOC, Bernie Sanders, Mamdani. They’re going to run that lineup in front of the American people? We wish they would: they’d run that lineup versus our lineup, that would really show a true contrast. Democrats could easily have done one as well but I don’t think they want to show what they’ve got versus what we have on at prime time.”
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Similarly, as part of Democrats’ counter-programming to the Republican convention, James Talarico held a food drive in Dallas, where his campaign said the event saw more than 20,000 pounds of groceries collected.
The Democratic nominee for US Senate in Texas is facing the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, in one of the most closely watched contests of this midterm cycle. Talarico called this week’s Republican convention a “billionaire’s ball”.
“I think there is a bipartisan backlash growing across the state to the extremism and the corruption that we’re seeing in our government,” Talarico, a state lawmaker, told CBS News at today’s food drive. “Everywhere I go across Texas, big cities, small towns, red areas, blue areas, everyone is struggling to survive in this economy.”
Talarico added that his “day one” policies include repealing the Trump administration’s “crazy tariffs”, suspending the federal gas tax and the federal diesel tax, and bringing the war with Iran to an end.
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As the GOP midterm convention gets under way in Dallas, the Texas Democratic party held a press conference with JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor and frequent target of Donald Trump’s ire.
“We’re the ones who fight for affordability,” Pritzker said when asked about the low polling numbers that Democrats are also seeing going into November. “We’re the ones who believe that everybody ought to have healthcare in this country. [Republicans] are trying to take healthcare away from people. They’re trying to take food assistance away from people. They’re succeeding in a lot of cases. They’re attacking people in our streets and our American cities.”
Pritzker also said that James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the US Senate seat in Texas, is seeing huge momentum, but will be outspent by his Republican challenger, Ken Paxton. “Voters are the ones who are going to make the difference. That there’s no way for candidate who’s getting outspent to win unless voters want to vote that person in,” Pritzker said.
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RNC chair Joe Gruters kicks off midterm convention: 'This is history in the making'
Joe Gruters, the Republican National Committee (RNC) chair, has kicked of the GOP midterm convention. Expected to be full of party pageantry, Gruters said the two-day event in Dallas would be about “defying history”.
Wielding a super-sized gavel, Gruters said that Republicans didn’t come to the American Airlines Center to “to talk about winning. We came here to do it.”
“This isn’t just another convention; this is history in the making,” Gruters added.
The RNC chair also flagged that tonight’s programming will include everyday Americans and several GOP candidates in midterm races this November.
A reminder that both nights of the convention will end with speeches from Donald Trump.
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Here's where things stand today
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An unconventional GOP midterm convention is set to kick off in Dallas. Pulled together at Donald Trump’s request, the two-day event will feature remarks from the president himself, along with several members of his cabinet and his top Republican allies in Congress. The convention is meant to rally the party as it seeks to hold on to its narrow margins in Congress. But it’s also left some Republicans uneasy, as they seek to distance their own campaigns from a president whose actions – including a seemingly directionless conflict with Iran – they fear have alienated some voters.
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Trump, en route to Texas, teased a possible pardon for his former fixer. After being held up by what appeared to be an inspection of the inflatable emergency slide on his Qatari-gifted Air Force One replacement, Trump suggested he might be open to pardoning his one-time lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen once testified against Trump in his Manhattan criminal trial, which ended in Trump’s conviction, but has since sought to get back into the president’s favor.
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Speaking in Texas, JB Pritzker accused Trump of trying to rig the vote. As Republicans geared up to sell the American people on President Trump’s first term, Pritzker, the Illinois governor joined Texas Democrats in speaking out against them. A potential presidential contender in 2028, Pritzker accused Trump of trying to rig the election to avoid having to win on an unpopular platform.
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Rhode Island’s Democratic governor faces steep odds in Wednesday’s primary. Voters are going to the polls today for Rhode Island’s primary election. Daniel McKee, the state’s governor, faces tough odds in a primary rematch with Helena Foulkes, whom he narrowly beat in 2022. McKee has faced criticism for drawn-out repairs on a vital bridge in Providence.
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Trump gave massive cash gifts to close White House aides, including Natalie Harp. Circling back to Trump, financial disclosures released by his administration reveal that he showered his White House aides with tens of thousands of dollars as apparent holiday gifts. Those included a $45,000 payment to Natalie Harp, the executive assistant whose constant presence at Trump’s side has attracted scorn from his opponents. The Washington Post first reported the payments late on Tuesday.
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Before taking off for Texas, Trump avoided taking a hard stance when pressed about the coalition of countries, including the UK, France and Canada, that has imposed new sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“I’ll be speaking to Israel, I’ll be speaking to them, and I’ll find out what’s their thinking,” Trump said.
He also predicted, again, that Iran would cave as soon as the midterm election is over, but only if Republicans win.
“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there, and leave them alone, and let them have their nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
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Trump signals openness to pardoning Michael Cohen, his former fixer
Trump on Wednesday said he was open to pardoning Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer who once testified against him in court before again seeking his favor in his second term.
“If everything is checking out, it’s something I would consider,” Trump said of a possible pardon for Cohen. He was asked about the subject on the tarmac before departing to the GOP midterm convention in Dallas.
It might seem like ages ago, so in case you forgot, Cohen testified in Trump’s 2024 criminal trial in Manhattan that the then-former President had directed him to illegally misclassify hush money payments to a porn star as legal fees. Trump’s conviction on 34 counts in that case could’ve landed him in prison, if not for his 2024 presidential election victory.
Trump’s remarks on the tarmac come a week after he took to social media to claim that Cohen had fully recanted his testimony against him. In actuality, Cohen has so far stopped short of such a step, saying only that he felt pressured by the prosecution in Trump’s cases without disputing the accuracy of his testimony.
Over the course of a decade, Cohen has traced a winding path from the President’s former fixer, to a key witness in legal proceedings against him, before finding his way back into Trump’s good graces in his second term. Along the way, he served a three-year prison sentence in connection with the hush money payments he later said he made at Trump’s behest, along with other offenses.
“What they did to Michael Cohen was a disgrace,” Trump continued on the tarmac. “They forced him to say things that he didn’t want to say, and that he didn’t believe. And I appreciate that at least he came out, although late, he came out and rectified the situation.”
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Pressed on the tarmac about global oil prices surging past $100 a barrel, Trump predicted that those prices would start coming down again… just not until after the midterm elections.
“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said, boasting that he’d get gasoline below $2 a gallon.
But, he caveated, “I think it’s going to take a little longer than the midterms.”
Trump also played up the administration’s efforts to economically isolate Iran, claiming the country’s economy was teetering on collapse, and that the economic shockwaves are justified by the administration’s aims.
“I think it’s very easy to explain to America,” Trump said of the high oil prices. “All you have to do is say, will you let Iran have nuclear weapon? And the answer is no.”
Emergency slide deployed on Qatari Air Force One delays Trump en route to Dallas
Donald Trump boarded a flight to Dallas for the GOP’s midterm convention, after being delayed as an emergency slide on his Qatari-gifted replacement for Air Force One was unfurled on the tarmac.
Crew members pictured on live news feeds inspected the slide while Trump waited aboard Marine One. After being stuck on Marine One for about 20 minutes, the president boarded the jet as crews continued to look at the inflatable slide.
The president, speaking briefly to reporters before boarding the plane, said that crews were performing a safety check on the slide, but that there was no real danger.
“They want to make sure everything works perfectly,” he said.
Crews appeared to cart away the emergency slide just before the jet took off.
The jet, an unusual gift from Qatar meant to serve as a temporary replacement for Air Force One, has experienced significant security vulnerabilities, which led to it being temporarily removed from service for upgrades. In July, those vulnerabilities prompted Trump’s security team to smuggle him to a different plane aboard a catering truck before flying him out of Turkey. It’s unclear what exact upgrades were made to the jet since then, or when.
Asked he was sure the jet was now safe to fly, Trump responded: “Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it.”
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The Trump administration has removed a Tetris-themed video game from its online arcade a few days after the company behind Tetris made a veiled legal threat to go after the administration for copyright infringement.
The game, a Tetris clone complete with the retro pixelated graphics, had players stacking bricks to build a wall along the southern border. It was one of several edgy Maga-themed arcade games the White House had posted to its new online arcade and promoted widely on social media.
The Tetris Company responded to the game with a statement saying it played no part in the White House arcade game’s creation. It concluded with a warning: “We take copyright infringement very seriously.”
Other games on the site were equally transparent rip-offs of popular retro titles. Rio Run – in which the player controls a pixelated immigration agent detaining migrants at the border – is clearly designed to play like Snake, once a fixture on 90s Nokia cellphones. Another, Flappy Bill, is a clear reskin of the infuriating mobile game Flappy Bird.
Using video game culture to promote his presidency isn’t a new move for Trump; he’s been riffing on popular titles from Halo to Pokémon for years.
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Elsewhere this morning, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, made it clear that she does not want to talk about the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.
The former Fox News host was taking questions at a justice department news conference announcing enforcement actions taken against a Chinese scam marketplace. The reporter had barely begun asking his question about the reflecting pool before Pirro shut him down.
NO! … No, and no. Who wants to know about this? How many times do I have to say no? I am not talking about that. Anyone want to talk about this case?
You can watch the clip here.
In the last few months, Pirro butted heads with Donald Trump over the apparently never-ending reflecting pool drama.
After Trump repeatedly accused “vandals” of damaging the pool, Pirro’s office accused former US Olympian David Hearn of vandalism, but later dropped the charges after investigators found the damage was actually the result of shoddy construction work, not vandalism.
The whole affair irritated Trump, who publicly criticized Pirro for “folding like an umbrella”. He said he was “really disappointed in her” and suggested that he hadn’t made a decision on whether to remove her from her post.
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Texas Republican in race for key House seat under fire for derogatory comments
A Republican candidate for a key congressional district in Texas has come under scrutiny over a series of derogatory comments made about women in his social media posts and videos.
Brandon Herrera, who is the GOP candidate for Texas’s 23rd congressional district, has made a string of insults while fashioning a rightwing online persona as the “AK Guy”, and hosts a YouTube channel with more than 4 million subscribers that tests and reviews firearms.
The comments, first reported by CNN, include Herrera taking aim at people he opposes politically, and women. In a 2023 video, he said that a gun range dummy’s empty head was “full of mush – much like the average Austin feminist”, and in a separate 2024 video, he likened the weight of “angry blue-haired” feminists to that of orca whales and elephants.
In 2020, Herrera filmed himself firing a gun at bottles of ranch dressing and, after they exploded, rubbing the condiment on to himself and declaring that this would “make me irresistible to the fat bitches”. While discussing the merits of a car on X in 2023, Herrera opined that “4 doors means more whores”.
Other groups have also been the focus of Herrera’s online content. In 2020, while firing a gun at a ham, Herrera said that while purchasing a ham for target practice was expensive, it was “still cheaper than a homeless person”.
This isn’t the first time that Herrera has come under scrutiny. In 2024, during a run for Congress, Herrera said: “I am not, nor have I never [sic] been, a neo-Nazi” after describing a Nazi-era gun as “the original ghetto blaster”. The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned him at the time as “a goose-stepping extremist”.
Herrera said that all these comments were jokes, and took aim at his opponent in this November’s midterm election, Democrat Katy Padilla Stout. “It’s disappointing that CNN would allow someone to allege that jokes about feminism lead to violence when Stout is fighting to return children to the parent convicted of abusing them,” Herrera said in a statement to CNN, referring to a case in which Stout was appointed as a defense attorney for a father seeking to restore parental rights after a domestic abuse allegation.
Asked to comment on his previous statements made online, Herrera said via his campaign that it was “disappointing” that “alleged journalists” would “ignore” the Stout case. He did not reference his own past statements.
The past comments could add to Republicans’ challenge of holding on to the US House of Representatives seat. Herrera is attempting to replace Tony Gonzales, a Republican lawmaker who resigned in April amid a House ethics committee investigation into his relationship with a former aide.
While Democrats have not prevailed in this district since 2015, the party has recently added it to its target list and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has sent funding to Stout, a former teacher and attorney, in what is expected to be a strong year for Democrats amid rising voter dissatisfaction with Donald Trump.
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Donald Trump often brings up September 11, the devastating al-Qaida attack that struck his home town New York City almost 25 years ago.
His recollections of that day have repeatedly included exaggerations and falsehoods – including this week, when he shared an anecdote at a White House event commemorating the attacks that appears to be untrue.
Ahead of the anniversary on Friday, my colleague Chris Stein has compiled some of the ways Trump has stretched the truth about September 11, beginning shortly after the attacks and continuing into his second presidential term:
A final outtake from the Democrats’ press conference ahead of the GOP midterm convention: Kendall Scudder, the chairman of the Texas Democrats, made an impassioned defense of Jasmine Crockett, the Texas congresswoman who lost the party’s Senate primary. Some Democrats have said Crockett isn’t doing enough to rally voters around the current Democratic Senate nominee, James Talarico, who bested Crockett in that contest.
“I think y’all need to get off Congresswoman Crockett’s case, OK,” Scudder told a reporter in the crowd. “The day after the election, she endorsed James Talarico. She is a phenomenal team player as a member of our delegation while we’re able to have her, and she has been a team player for years.”
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Pressed on a timeline for a potential decision to run for president, Pritzker kept things vague.
“First of all, I’m running for re-election as governor, and I do want to serve as governor of the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “And any decisions that get made after that are going to be about whatever’s best for the people of our state.”
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Democrats accuse Republicans of 'working to rig' midterms
JB Pritzker has taken the microphone a few more times for the Democrats in Texas, fielding questions from reporters. He’s accused Republicans stumping for Trump of “bootlicking”, and alleged that Trump’s efforts to enact restriction on mail-in voting amount to a promise to end fair elections in the future.
“If Democrats don’t win, if they don’t win in this election, we may not have other elections,” Pritzker said. “Or certainly we’re going to have future elections, every single one of which will be rigged.”
Pritzker leveled a similar allegation earlier in the press conference. Republicans, he said, are seeking other ways to win the midterms to compensate for waning voter support for President Trump and his policies.
“Republicans know that they can’t win on the merits of their unpopular policies, so they’re working to rig the 2026 election,”
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A leading Democratic organiser in Texas has called on Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett to “get on the team” and support James Talarico in the election for the US Senate.
Wendy Davis, president of Blueprint Texas, a political action committee that aims to flip down-ballot races, told a Bloomberg roundtable in Dallas on Wednesday that “there will need to be work done” to ensure that Black and Latino voters turn out in November.
Democrats are struggling to reunite after Talarico, who is white, defeated Crockett, who is African American, in a hard-fought Senate primary election earlier this year. Talarico now faces the scandal-haunted Republican Ken Paxton. Davis said: “I wish it were the case that Jasmine Crockett had come out strongly for James and campaigned for him.
“I think that could have a very beneficial impact for him but it’s not just about him; it’s about the state and we need to be all hands on deck to make sure that our candidates have the best chance to succeed. I don’t know if she’ll do that as we come into these final weeks but I certainly hope so because she has a lot of respect and people pay attention to her opinions and positions. I just hope she’ll get on the team and help make that happen.”
Asked why she believes Crockett has not yet fully joined the effort, Davis, a former state senator, replied: “I don’t know; I can’t answer for her; I’ve never had a tough primary. That was a tough primary and I think there was some bruising along the way. I’m sure there has been some pain associated with that. I don’t know what her process has been to work through that but there’s likely some difficulties that remain as a consequence of that. Just guessing.”
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Local Texas Democrats speaking to reporters in Dallas have repeatedly brought up Texas Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting push, which Donald Trump heavily pushed for, as an example of presidential overreach. That move saw the state’s congressional maps redrawn in 2025 to make district lines more favorable to the GOP, likely securing the party extra seats in the midterms.
The redistricting effort in Texas was the first shot in a redistricting war that has seen congressional maps redrawn across the country, with both Democrats and Republicans carving up districts in an effort to win more seats.
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Illinois governor attacks Republican party as 'self-dealing, racist, misogynist grifters'
Democrats are holding a press conference in Texas ahead of the GOP’s Dallas-based midterm convention.
JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, was just speaking to the assembled reporters. He lambasted the Trump administration for, in his words, launching a war on Iran that worsened inflation, for trying to undermine voting rights, and for engaging in corruption and self-dealing – lines of attack we can expect to hear frequently through the midterms.
“Republicans are lying, and they’re corrupt,” Pritzker said.
He continued: “I’m done pretending that these self-dealing, racist, misogynist grifters are an aberration of the Republican party. They are the mainstream of the Republican party now.”
Pritzker, a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, notably faced off with Trump when the President sent a legion of ICE agents – and later the national guard – to target to the city in a mass deportation operation in 2025.
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What to expect at tonight's GOP convention in Dallas
Republicans are descending on Dallas today to prepare for an unconventional midterm convention, convened at Donald Trump’s request, to try to rally the party ahead of a testy midterm election. The US president himself is slated to take the stage twice during the convention’s two-day run, as well as JD Vance, top congressional Republicans and several members of Trump’s cabinet.
The convention’s first night will kick off at 3pm, local time. Among the speakers on deck are Steve Scalise, the House majority leader; Mehmet Oz, the television personality turned head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; the Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton; and Scott Bessent, Trump’s treasury secretary. Expect plenty of breaks in between for music and hype videos.
All of it will build up to Trump’s keynote address, scheduled for after 8pm.
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Americares, a non-profit that delivers medical supplies and other aid to poverty- and disaster-stricken parts of the world, received a record $50m donation in light of cuts to US foreign aid programs.
Donald Trump has taken a hatchet to US-funded foreign aid programs in his second term, including the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development. Those cuts have left non-profits scrambling to make up for canceled funds and programs covering food and medical aid, in addition to other kinds of assistance, around the world.
The $50m donation, announced on Wednesday, is the largest in Americares’ history, the organization said in a statement. It will go toward expanding access to critical medicines in the countries Americares serves.
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Nebraska's governor, a backer of Trump's immigration crackdown, employed undocumented immigrants, report finds
Nebraska’s Republican governor, a staunch conservative who has backed Trump’s mass deportation campaign, has employed undocumented immigrants in his massive pork production business, a report published by the Flatwater Free Press and the New York Times found.
The governor, Jim Pillen, rose to prominence as the founder of Pillen Family Farms, now one of the country’s biggest pork producers. He won Nebraska’s governorship in 2022, and more recently he has embraced and aided Trump’s deportation crackdown.
But according to the Times and Flatwater Free Press’ reporting, at least 20 hog farms under Pillen Family Farms relied on labor from the same undocumented workers Trump is pushing to deport en masse.
Pillen has echoed Trump’s rhetoric on immigration as he runs for re-election, facing off against Democratic nominee Lynne Walz.
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Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of a longtime New Hampshire senator and former governor, has won the Democratic nomination in the race for Chris Pappas’s former House seat.
Stefany Shaheen’s mother Jeanne Shaheen is a former governor who has represented New Hampshire in the Senate since 2009. The younger Shaheen’s family ties to the Democratic establishment – and accusations of nepotism – became a point of attack by her opponent in the primary race.
With their respective victories in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, Pappas won the nomination to replace the elder Shaheen in the Senate, as Stefany Shaheen won the nomination to replace Pappas.
Stefany Shaheen will go up against the Trump-backed Republican nominee, Anthony DiLorenzo, in a swing-district race that could prove competitive.
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Howard Lutnick, Trump’s secretary of commerce, scrapped a planned trip to Mexico City on Wednesday to meet with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, the country’s secretary of economy said in a post to social media on Wednesday morning.
Lutnick’s meeting with Mexican leaders will instead take place over a video call, Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s economy secretary, said in a brief statement posted to X. Their conversation, which will include discussions of trade between the US and Mexico, will take place in the shadow of the escalating tariff war between the US and Canada.
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Global oil prices creep past $100 for first time since July
As the US and Iran again trade fire in the Middle East, the global benchmark for oil prices has surged back past $100 a barrel.
The increase in Brent crude, which now stands at $100.6, comes as the US and Iran step up their attacks on oil tanker ships in and around the Persian Gulf. American authorities said they took out five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday in retaliation for attacks on a US naval vessel. Iran, in turn, launched a missile barrage targeting a US base in Jordan as well as several oil tankers.
Crude oil is the primary component in gasoline and diesel fuel, and as crude oil prices rise, so do the costs American drivers pay at the pump.
Surging gas prices downstream of the US and Israeli campaign against Iran have rankled voters, and loom over Republicans’ efforts to retain control of Congress through the midterms. Trump campaigned heavily on bringing down prices – and gas prices in particular – ahead of his 2024 election.
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Rhode Island's Democratic governor faces steep odds in Wednesday's primary election
It would be the first time in nearly a decade that an incumbent governor has been ousted in a party primary.
Dan McKee, Rhode Island’s Democratic governor, stands to lose his seat as voters head to the polls today in the state’s primary elections. McKee has been trailing in the polls for weeks against Helena Foulkes, a former CVS executive who he narrowly bested to win the party’s nomination in 2022.
This contest, however, isn’t the kind of progressive vs. establishment showdown that has turned heads in other Democratic primary races this year.
Rather, McKee’s problems stem, in large part, from his handling of repair work on Providence’s Washington Bridge, a major east-west traffic artery. Foulkes has criticized McKee for bungling those repairs, which have dragged on longer than originally planned.
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Germany’s Merz cancels White House call after Trump hails far-right win
German chancellor Friedrich Merz cancelled a planned phone call with US president Donald Trump on Wednesday, hours after Trump publicly celebrated a regional election win by Germany’s far-right AfD party.
A spokesman for Merz declined to give a reason for the cancellation, but noted in response to questions from journalists that it was not due to scheduling conflicts.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, hailed the “really big night” for the AfD.
“They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly,” Trump wrote on Tuesday night Washington time.
Merz’s spokesman did not directly respond to Trump’s comments, but noted that the chancellor had frequently objected “in general terms” to “interfering in or commenting on the domestic political situation, particularly regarding elections”.
On the first day of the fall semester at California State University, Northridge, student organizers holding “Hot People Vote” signs wheeled a bright pink wagon outside the student union.
They offered “no strings attached” donuts, heart-shaped sunglasses and voting information for the November general election. Even though it was 105F outside, dozens of people stopped by to chat with the Donuts + Democracy volunteers and register to vote.
One student told organizer Dzian Tran that she didn’t plan to vote because she was disillusioned with politics. Tran chatted with her about how civic engagement is important to democracy and how some elections are won by a margin of only 400 votes. As she thanked Tran, the student held her phone up to a QR code to get more information about voting.
About 50 million young people are eligible to vote in 2026, but nearly half are either not registered or civically engaged, according to US Census Bureau data. After young people shifted right for Donald Trump in 2024, Democratic-aligned groups have been eager to capture gen Z voters who may be disaffected by politics. From bringing politicians, celebrities and donuts to campuses to hosting tailgating events, happy hours and street parties, a crop of youth-led and youth-focused organizations are employing fresh tactics to meet gen Z where they are – and luring them in with fun.
Heather Haggarty, who runs Democracy + Donuts with her daughter, said traditional voter engagement strategies such as postcards, clipboards and phone-banking fail with young voters. When her two gen Z children suggested taking donuts to a university voter registration event a few years ago, she ended up speaking to more than 100 kids in 90 minutes. Haggarty said the deep-fried snack is akin to “breaking bread”, making zoomers more willing to talk and connect.
“Young kids aren’t apathetic,” she said. “They care. But voting isn’t easy and traditional voter engagement can feel transactional and alienating.”
Americans are more skeptical of government information than they were a few years ago, with majorities now saying they have little or no trust in federal government information about elections and politics, foreign affairs or the environment, a new poll has found.
The survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USA Facts shows that while mistrust of government information has grown since 2024, it is higher than it was at the end of president Donald Trump’s first term.
Those suspicions extend to the results of the coming midterm elections. Only 34% of US adults trust government certifications of election results “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” which is down slightly from 40% in 2024.
Certification is a typically routine process in which local and state officials confirm the vote count but it has become politicized since Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.
Trust in government information has also become more partisan since Trump’s first term, the survey found.
Here are some images from the Republican national convention in Dallas, Texas:
Trump gave $45,000 to Natalie Harp and other White House aides as holiday gifts
Donald Trump gave sizable holiday gifts to four White House aides, according to new financial disclosures released by the administration, including $45,000 to executive assistant Natalie Harp.
Communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris also received $45,000, while director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta received a $20,000 gift.
The gifts were noted in the staffers’ annual financial disclosure forms that were published by the administration last week. Harp, Martin and Harris make $150,000 annually and Nauta is paid $175,000 a year, according to the White House’s salary disclosure report to Congress.
A White House official told the Associated Press that Trump “has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector.”
The official did not say if any other staffers were given similar gifts from the president, but added that the cash gifts were not related to the “individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”
The disclosures of the gifts were first reported earlier on Tuesday by The Washington Post.
Republicans put Trump center stage for convention in US midterms gamble
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump is due to address Republicans tonight at the party’s first ever national convention ahead of the crucial midterm elections, with the GOP hoping to energize voters as it fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities.
The two-day gathering takes place in Dallas, marking a break from the longstanding tradition of holding national conventions only during presidential election years.
“It has never been done before, and will be a truly Historic Event,” Trump said in July while announcing the convention, promising the convention would feature “Great Entertainment”.
Trump first floated the idea for a convention last year, arguing that it would provide an opportunity to showcase his administration’s achievements since he returned to the White House in 2024.
More than 100 House members and candidates are expected, with over 50 speakers or presentations scheduled each night.
Trump delivers this evening’s keynote speech and returns for Thursday’s finale after his vice-president, JD Vance, speaks. Cabinet members, congressional leaders and candidates in closely watched House and Senate races are also on the program.
Republicans plan to highlight tax cuts, immigration enforcement, manufacturing and prescription drug prices, while depicting Democrats as dangerously far to the left.
In other developments:
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Clashing court rulings plunged Missouri’s congressional elections into uncertainty. The US supreme court decided not to intervene to reinstate a Donald Trump-backed US House map, upholding a ruling from the state’s highest state court that prevented the use of the map in the November elections. But shortly after, a federal judge temporarily barred the state from using its old congressional maps in November.
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The US military destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers after a US navy warship was targeted with ballistic missiles. Iran had targeted the warship twice over two days, US Central Command said.
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The US will ban Canadian dairy products, motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages. The move marked an escalation in the ongoing trade war between the North American countries, and comes just after Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on $20bn in US goods.
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Congressman Chris Pappas beat back progressive challenger Karishma Manzur in the New Hampshire Democratic primary for US Senate. Former senator John E Sununu, who is backed by Trump, won the state’s Republican Senate primary.
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Lonnie G Bunch III announced he is stepping down as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution after seven years in the role amid Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on the world’s largest museum complex’s autonomy.
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