Obama mocks Trump's response to Cheesecake Factory jibe. 'They mobilized a whole of government response to that joke, not to inflation, but to that joke!'
We are still watching simultaneous rallies, for Republicans in Ohio, and for Democrats in Georgia, that have overlapped in interesting ways at times.
Minutes ago in Ohio, Donald Trump responded his indignation to his predecessor Barack Obama’s joke that “he’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
“I paid for it myself. I fixed it, and now it’s more beautiful and in better shape,” Trump said, defending the quality of his renovations to the White House. “President Obama,” he added, was miffed because he is someone “who doesn’t understand cleanliness, who doesn’t understand broken, cracked stone and sidewalk, who doesn’t understand that having asphalt going to your main entrance is not the right thing”.
A short time later in Georgia, Obama repeated his jibe and then reflected on the outraged response to his joke.
“The guy is building a ballroom that is bigger than the White House. He’s paved over the Rose Garden, put a helicopter pad on the South Lawn, and there is gold everywhere. So much gold,” Obama said. “This is a fact, I’m not making this up. He, the president of the United States, is spending time super-gluing gold medallions to the mantel in the Oval Office. I am not making this up. He is literally doing arts and crafts while we are fighting a war and trying to deal with out-of-control prices.”
“I heard the president was not happy when I joked over the weekend that he’s got the white House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president said. “First of all, let me get this on the record: I am the father of two daughters. Do you think, could have survived their childhood without going to the Cheesecake Factory?”
“Chucky Cheese and California Pizza Kitchen and the Cheesecake Factory – that was my jam for about a decade,” Obama said.
“The interesting thing about how the administration responded to the speech I gave the other day. They did not dispute what I said about them being directly responsible for rising prices. They did not argue with that,” Obama continued. “They did not deny tariffs were contributing to higher costs for families. They didn’t say anything about that. I accused this administration, based on the facts, that they were engaging in unprecedented levels of corruption. They didn’t say anything about that. The president wasn’t even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison. That part didn’t bother him, but he was very upset about the Cheesecake Factory comments. He took great umbrage. He said, I didn’t understand the work of the artisans in the White House.”
“It’s all crazy, but this was the really crazy part,” Obama added. “They mobilized a whole of government response to that joke - not to inflation, but to that joke.”
“The White House even called the secretary of the treasury – this is the man who is in charge of the economy, the person who’s supposed to be figuring out how to make your life more affordable, the guy who’s supposed to be figuring out how to lower inflation and reduce interest rates. They told him he should hold a press conference in front of the Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said, to laughter from the crowd.
Cris Seda Chabrier contributed reporting.
Updated
'Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane!' heckler shouts at Trump rally in Ohio
Donald Trump is 40 minutes into his remarks in Ohio, where he was heckled over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted child sex offender he socialized with for at least 17 years.
During a pause in the president’s remarks, a man shouted: “Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane!” before being removed from the crowd.
“He mentioned Epstein. So I threw Jeffrey Epstein out of a club like 20 years ago, because I thought he was a whack job. That was a great thing I did, I must say,” Trump said. “I threw Jeffrey Epstein the hell out of Mar-a-Lago. And I was the one that was totally exonerated from him.”
While Trump’s aides have repeatedly claimed that Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago “because he was a creep”, the president has explained the falling out with his old friend differently, saying that the reason was that Epstein “stole people that worked for me”.
Last year, when a reporter asked Trump if one of the people he was referring to was the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers who said in a lawsuit that she was hired away from the Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16.
Giuffre, who died last year, alleged in her complaint that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together, and then “lent out to other powerful men”, including then Prince Andrew.
“I think she worked at the spa,” Trump replied then. “I think so. I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”
The president’s claim that one of the employees Epstein “stole” from him, leading to their break, was the 16-year-old Giuffre complicated the timeline. Giuffre was hired away from Mar-a-Lago in 2000, but two years later, Trump spoke highly of Epstein to a reporter.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in late 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter, also pointed out in her 2020 book on Mar-a-Lago that Epstein remained on the membership rolls of Mar-a-Lago until October 2007, more than a year after he was first arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Cris Seda Chabrier contributed reporting.
Updated
As Trump boasts about Iran war in Ohio, Ossoff mocks his claims in Georgia
At rallies occurring at the same time, Donald Trump just boasted in Ohio about what he calls the great success of his war in Iran, while Jon Ossoff, in Georgia, mocked Trump for that war and other failures.
Trump made no mention of the fact that the war with Iran he started in February is still not over, and repeated his lie that the war was necessary to prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon.
“While the crook president and his crook family rake in billions from all over the world, you pay more for everything,” Ossoff told Georgians. “They lied us into war and spent most of the last year covering up for the world’s most famous pedophile.”
“Now remember, they also promised peace. They promised peace. Instead, today marks eight months of a needless war that the useless, draft-dodging commander-in-chief can’t figure out how to end or how to win,” Ossoff continued.
“Remember last year, last year they claimed Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated? Do you remember that? And then this year, they told us it posed an imminent threat. Both times lies,” he added.
“On day four of the war, day four, the president declared victory,” he continued. “On day 11, Trump said, quote, ‘the war is very complete’. Day 13, quote, ‘we won’. Day 21, ‘getting very close’. Day 32, quote ‘leaving very soon’. On day 40, the president declared, quote, ‘total and complete victory’. Today is day 243. Twenty one Americans are dead and hundreds wounded. Iran still has its uranium and drones and missiles while diesel hits its all time high. They’ve drained our stockpiles to achieve nothing while the president builds himself a victory arch.”
Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens' fiancé says he is voting for Republican Mike Rogers, not Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race
Jason Turkish, who is engaged to be married to Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, appeared at a campaign event for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan on Wednesday and told reporters that he was voting for the Republican, not Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who narrowly defeated Stevens in the Democratic primary in August.
Turkish, a disabilities and civil rights lawyer, said at a Republican Jewish Coalition event for Rogers that El-Sayed’s refusal to say that Iran was a greater threat to the United States than Israel in the first general election debate was “100% disqualifying to be a United States senator”.
Turkish, described by Jewish Insider as “a prominent Jewish Democrat in Michigan”, said that El-Sayed’s rhetoric “makes folks unsafe”.
“When he says genocide over and over,” Turkish said of El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, “he makes my community less safe.”
“We’ve never seen a candidate for US Senate act so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community as we have from Abdul,” Turkish told the Detroit News.
According to the Detroit News, Turkish has donated Democrats and Republicans, including $200,000 to Democratic candidates in the midterm elections and over $24,000 to support Maine Republican Susan Collins.
Donald Trump is scheduled to speak soon at a rally for Republican candidates in Chillicothe, Ohio, where the party’s nominee for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the sitting senator Jon Husted, have already spoken.
Meanwhile in Georgia, Barack Obama is waiting to address a Democratic rally in Atlanta, in support of the party’s nominee for governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms and sitting senator Jon Ossoff.
Bottoms and Ossoff are scheduled to speak immediately before Obama. The Georgia rally is running about 30 minutes behind schedule, meaning that it is likely that Trump and Obama will be speaking at the same time.
As we watch the simultaneous rallies for in Ohio and Georgia, we are currently being treated to a musical split-screen.
Janelle Monáe is currently performing live in Atlanta, following a performance by the HBCU Clark Atlanta University marching band, while Trump supporters in Ohio are being treated to his rally playlist, which includes songs from a number of artists who sued to have him stop using their music. The crowd is currently listening to Sinéad O’Connor’s version of Nothing Compares 2 U, which her estate said in 2024 she would have been “disgusted, hurt, and insulted” to have used at Trump’s rallies.
During tonight’s rally in Georgia, Raphael Warnock, the state’s Democratic senator, described the upcoming election as a “moral moment in America”.
“There are demagogues at the highest levels of our government who are trying to divide us and distract us in order to dominate us, but we come here tonight to say the jig is up.”
Warnock criticized Republicans in Congress for supporting legislation that will take away healthcare from millions of Americans, and cause 1.2 million children to lose access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits. He referenced a photo of Republicans praying before voting on Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Our nations leaders, led by the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, gathered together, put their arms around each other and they knelt down to pray, donning the garments of virtue while literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry children,” Warnock said.
Updated
Obama campaigns in Georgia as Trump stumps in Ohio in dueling midterm rallies
With midterm elections less than a week away, Donald Trump and Barack Obama were set to appear at rallies on Wednesday night as Republicans and Democrats make some of their final appeals to voters in key states.
Obama, who was recently in Michigan to support Abdul El-Sayed, is in Georgia, where he will campaign for Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor seeking the governor’s office, and the senator Jon Ossoff.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who has appeared at more than 20 rallies in October, was returning to the battleground state of Ohio to support Republican candidates, including Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor, and Jon Husted for Senate.
JD Vance was in North Carolina stumping for Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair, who faces a tough race for Senate against Democrat and former governor Roy Cooper.
Updated
Donald Trump continued to rail against Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola, accusing her of “Voter Fraud at the Highest Level” following a report from the New York Times that her campaign recruited a man with the same name as her Republican opponent.
In his fourth social media post on the subject in two hours, the president said on Wednesday that Peltola should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted: “Nothing else will do! This behavior in our Elections cannot be allowed to continue.”
Peltola’s campaign recruited the candidate in order to peel away votes, the New York Times reported.
JD Vance echoed Trump’s criticism. “Even the New York Times admits that Mary Peltola is a total crook who tried to rig the Alaska senate race in her favor,” he said.
Updated
Vance contacts Iran security chief to resume peace negotiations – report
JD Vance has reportedly contacted Iran’s security chief in an effort to resume peace negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials and others familiar with the matter, reported on Wednesday that the vice-president sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline leader of Iran’s supreme national security council, at Trump’s urging.
Vance is seeking to determine whether the countries can “find enough common ground” to deter the president from ordering an attack in the near future, according to the outlet.
The development comes just ahead of the midterm elections, and Trump’s deeply unpopular war threatens to hurt Republicans. The US military has already spent over $47bn on the conflict, more than 25% higher than the defense department’s estimate in the summer, according to Pentagon data first obtained by Reuters.
Updated
Summary: the day so far
Trump is bound for Ohio to campaign for Republican candidates in the state. Republicans are defending a seat there in a Senate race that has turned out much closer than might’ve been expected in reliably red Ohio. JD Vance, meanwhile, is campaigning in North Carolina, where Republicans face even longer odds.
Obama will campaign in Georgia alongside local Democrats. Obama will join Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor seeking to flip the Georgia governor’s office, on the campaign stage.
Alaska Democrats intentionally recruited a candidate with the same name as their opponent, according to a new report. The New York Times found that Mary Peltola’s campaign had, despite its public denials, recruited a man named Dan Sullivan to run against the Republican incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan. The revelation prompted Trump to call for Peltola’s removal from the ticket.
Flavio Bolsonaro, the defeated rightwing candidate for Brazil’s presidency, landed in Miami. Bolsonaro had been ordered to turn over his passports in connection with a criminal investigation following his defeat by leftwing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Instead, he fled across Brazil’s border with Argentina and flew to the US, where he’s been granted apparent safe harbor by Trump’s state department.
The US Federal Reserve opted to keep interest rates steady. Despite inflation remaining above the central bank’s target of 2%, its leaders chose to maintain interest rates at their current level.
Updated
Trump shared another post to social media railing against Mary Peltola and calling for her disqualification over recruiting a second Dan Sullivan into the Senate race:
“In Alaska, I don’t think Mary Peltola, after perpetrating such a terrible scheme, should be allowed to run, because this is ELECTION FRAUD,” Trump wrote. “The Democrats cheated! They found a man named Dan Sullivan, put him on the Ballot, then lied to the Court, and said they didn’t know anything about it. That’s perjury. She shouldn’t be allowed to run, and neither should the FAKE Dan Sullivan!”
Updated
Trump rages at Alaska Democrat whose campaign reportedly recruited man with same name as Republican opponent
Donald Trump responded on Wednesday afternoon to a new investigation from the New York Times, which found that Mary Peltola’s Alaska Senate campaign actively recruited a man with the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent in order to peel away votes.
In a social media post, Trump insisted that Peltola’s actions were illegal (it’s not clear that they were) and that she should be disqualified from the race.
“It has just been determined that the Democrats in Alaska illegally searched for, and recruited, a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator, Dan Sullivan, in order to defraud, confuse, and obfuscate the Election, thereby taking votes away from the REAL Senator, Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on his personal social media account.
The Peltola campaign had, up until now, denied any connection to the campaign launched by the second Dan Sullivan, who just so happened to share the name of Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent whose Senate seat Peltola is trying to win.
The Department of Justice has moved to try to block the certification of the Alaska Senate race, should the second, non-Republican Mr Sullivan pull enough votes to shift the outcome.
Trump continued: “The Democrats’ false statements were made under oath in Federal Court. Therefore, they perjured themselves, and should be liable for very serious consequences. Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”
Updated
How an innocent chain restaurant became a talking point in the final days before the midterm election
It was a fairly standard quip from former president Barack Obama, delivered to an Ohio crowd as he stumped for the state’s Democratic midterm ticket.
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said, mocking Trump’s redecorating of the White House. “Just gold everywhere.”
Little did the ex-president know, that remark would catapult the humble Cheesecake Factory, and its interior decorating choices, into the public consciousness, ahead of a decisive vote for control of Congress.
Republicans quickly hit back at the remark, accusing Obama of being elitist and out-of-touch (a well-worn talking point) for speaking ill of the interior decorating of a beloved restaurant enjoyed by vast swaths of everyday Americans.
My colleague Matthew Cantor has the full story here:
Updated
Vice President JD Vance just took the stage at a campaign event in Kinston, North Carolina.
Vance’s stop in the state comes as the Republican Senate nominee, Michael Whatley, is trailing in the polls to Democratic former governor Roy Cooper.
The vice president has been barnstorming across the country in recent weeks to stump for Republican candidates, serving as one of Trump’s top surrogates on the campaign trail. In the last several days, he’s made stops in Montana, Kansas, and Michigan, among other states.
Updated
Federal Reserve keeps interest rates steady
The Federal Reserve has opted to maintain interest rates at their current level, though inflation remains higher than the central bank’s target.
In a statement, the Fed characterized inflation as “elevated,” remaining above the bank’s target of two percent. Two members of the central bank’s board of governors voted against the decision to keep rates steady, preferring a quarter-point increase. One of them was Lisa Cook, the member who President Trump has tried and so far failed to remove over unsubstantiated claims of mortgage fraud.
President Trump has leaned on the Federal Reserve, as well as Kevin Warsh, his newly appointed chair of the body, to lower interest rates, hoping it would juice the economy. But lower rates can also worsen inflation, which the central bank has been dedicated to reining in.
My colleague Gaya Gupta has more on the Fed’s most recent decision here:
Related: Fed holds interest rates steady in last decision before midterms
Updated
Dolores Huerta, titanic leader in labor and civil rights movement, dies at 96
Dolores Huerta, an influential leader in both the organized labor and civil rights movements who won organized major labor protests and won better conditions for agricultural workers, has died at 96.
Her namesake foundation said in a statement that she died at her home in Bakersfield, California, surrounded by family members.
“We are sad to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96,” Huerta’s family said in a statement. “As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family. We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning, and we will be following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredible life and legacy.”
Several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, as well as former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, publicly mourned Huerta’s death.
“With the passing of Dolores Huerta, Hillary and I have lost a dear friend, and we’ve all lost a stalwart champion of working Americans,” Bill Clinton said in a statement.
“Dolores was a dear friend, and we all responded to her rallying cry, ‘Sí se puede,’ which inspired generations of Americans to believe in the power of collective action,” Pelosi said in a statement.
The legacy of the labor movement Huerta helped lead was shaken earlier this year when Huerta, along with several other women, accused Cesar Chavez, another UFW co-founder and towering figure in the labor movement, of sexual abuse in an investigation published by the New York Times.
Updated
A Senate race in deep red South Carolina could go either way, poll finds
The race for a Senate seat in South Carolina, a state normally as deep red as they come, could break for either the Republicans or Democrats in the midterm election, a new poll from the New York Times and Siena University has found.
Darline Graham, the sister of the deceased senator Lindsey Graham who was appointed to finish his term, leads her Democratic challenger, Annie Andrews, by a single percentage point, the poll found. If Andrews were to win, it would be the first time in nearly three decades South Carolina has voted a Democrat into the Senate.
The poll comes amid growing Republican unease about the security of House and Senate seats that are normally reliable GOP strongholds. Polls show races in places such as Kansas, Ohio and Texas with margins much closer than anticipated, or even Democrats leading.
In recent weeks, top Republicans, including Donald Trump and JD Vance, have campaigned in those deep red states in addition to more expected battlegrounds, like Michigan.
Updated
‘A revolution in slow motion’: is Arizona’s wealthiest district finally done with Trump?
Mary Jo Pitzl
in Scottsdale, Arizona
Donald Trump has repeatedly asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot in November’s crucial midterm elections. And in the comfortable confines of Arizona’s most affluent and fiercely contested congressional district, Trump is definitely on voters’ minds.
But whether that helps or hurts the warring congressional candidates in this sun-drenched swath of suburbia, where Teslas and walled-in luxury homes dominate, depends on who you ask.
“Any politician on the face of the Earth who’s a Republican is not getting my vote,” Tom Wolfe, a lifelong Republican, said while sitting down to a lunch of a burger and fries. Trump’s endorsement is a “death knell”, the 82-year-old said. He plans to vote for Democrats in next week’s elections.
For David McGahan, a retired accountant reveling in his retirement life in Rio Verde, a desert enclave outside Scottsdale, the economy and the country are working well under Trump.
“I like the course the country is on,” McGahan said while pumping gas at a local Costco. “Mostly,” he conceded, when a reporter noted the $101 charge for his fill-up.
Cushioned between blue cities and red counties, America’s suburbs have emerged nationally as political battlegrounds. That is especially true of Arizona’s first congressional district, which includes north Scottsdale and Paradise Valley.
Here, among the high-end golf courses and desert estates with breathtaking mountain views, the competition between Democrat Amish Shah – an emergency room doctor who narrowly lost the seat in 2024 – and Republican Jay Feely – a former NFL kicker backed by Trump – could help determine control of the House in November.
Since Trump’s election a decade ago, Republicans’ hold on the district has slipped, though the party still maintains a voter registration advantage. The seat is open, after Republican congressman David Schweikert opted to not seek a ninth term.
“These are your McCain-type voters,” said Matt Grodsky, a Democratic political strategist referring to the late Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. They’re business owners, hold college degrees and relatively tuned in to politics.
Given the current dissatisfaction with the Trump agenda and no incumbent with built-in name ID, Grodsky said circumstances are ripe for a change in this one-time Republican stronghold.
If there’s going to be a swing, it should be this cycle.
You can read Mary Jo Pitzl’s dispatch here:
Related: ‘A revolution in slow motion’: is Arizona’s wealthiest district finally done with Trump?
Updated
Will ‘prairie populism’ defeat Republicans in the midterms? – podcast
Adam Hamilton in Kansas, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Joshua Turek in Iowa. They’re all hoping to flip ruby-red states in the midterm elections next Tuesday.
In this episode of our Politics Weekly America podcast, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Rachel Leingang about her reporting across the midwest, where she has charted the renaissance of progressive populism.
Updated
US costs of Iran war rise to over $47bn, Pentagon estimates
The US military has spent over $47bn so far on Donald Trump’s war against Iran, more than 25% higher than the defense department’s estimate in July, according to Pentagon data first obtained by Reuters.
The figure includes $29bn in munitions fired by US forces, while the destruction of other weapons platforms, such as fighter jets, has cost $6bn. The figures does not account for damage sustained by US military bases in the region during the last eight months.
The disclosure comes as Republicans scramble to mitigate the political fallout of the deeply unpopular conflict, launched by the US and Israel in February, ahead of next week’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.
The war’s impact on global energy costs and the cost-of-living crisis in the US has weighed on support for Republican candidates, even in previously reliably red states, and has tanked Trump’s approval ratings.
Trump is reportedly considering further strikes against Iran after the midterms.
Updated
How Trump is trying to disrupt the midterms – video explainer
From redrawing electoral maps to installing a sense of uncertainty around the electoral process ahead of the midterms on 3 November, Republicans have deployed several tactics to try to skew the vote in their favor.
As Donald Trump’s popularity continues to drop, it is crucial for him and his administration to retain a majority in Congress or they could face investigations and even impeachment.
In this video explainer, Guardian political reporter Shrai Popat looks at the ways the Republicans have tried and are still trying to influence the election.
Updated
Mark Kelly on possible 2028 run: ‘I’m considering it’
in Brunswick, Maine
While stumping on behalf of Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Maine, Senator Mark Kelly teased a possible run for president in 2028.
“I’m considering it,” the Democratic lawmaker for Arizona said at a campaign event for Maine veterans in Brunswick. “I’ll make a decision after this election sometime.”
Kelly noted the weight of the decision. “You know, I’ve always served this country … usually in the cockpit, strapped into the rocket ship,” he said. “By far, the most important job I’ve ever had is the one I have now,” he said referring to his first full-term as US senator.
“If I screw it up in the rocket ship, it just gets blown up. People get over it in a week. This is different. I mean, this is 350 million people, and people around the world. It’s important that the United States maintains its position of leadership in the world,” Kelly added.
Updated
Alaskan Democrats intentionally sought out candidate with same name as Senate component, NYT reports
For months, Mary Peltola’s campaign for Alaska’s Senate seat has denied any connection to a separate campaign launched by a man who, coincidentally, shares the exact same name as Peltola’s Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan.
New reporting from the New York Times undercuts that claim. The outlet reported, based on interviews, obtained text messages and legal filings, that the Peltola campaign had not only recruited Mr Sullivan (not the Republican), but had sought out a number of Dan Sullivans across the state for potential candidacy, as well as others who could peel votes away from Peltola’s main opponent.
Tactics like those the Times claims Peltola used are not unheard of, and are generally considered legal, if perhaps underhanded, election strategies. Still, the Department of Justice has sued to block certification of the Alaska Senate race if votes cast for the other Dan Sullivan cost the Republican candidate the race.
Updated
The Trump prosecutor trying to stop California ballots from being counted
Since he took office last year, Bill Essayli, southern California’s highest-ranking federal prosecutor, has wielded his office to help advance Trump’s policies, including on immigration and transgender rights.
Now, he’s using that same authority to try and block tens of thousands of California votes from being counted in the upcoming midterm elections. Specifically, Essayli has sued to make the state aside ballots from 20,000 voters who the Department of Justice has branded “likely noncitizens”.
Experts in constitutional law said that it was an extraordinary step for a nominally independent DoJ to seek to disqualify so many ballots in the name of fighting alleged noncitizen voter fraud that, despite Trump’s insistence, has proven vanishingly rare.
My colleague Sam Levin has the story here:
Related: The pro-Trump prosecutor trying to stop California ballots from being counted
Updated
RFK Jr faces heavy criticism over anti-Arab remarks on campaign trail
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won major awards in science or literature.
Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim, in polling.
“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce science, they don’t win the Nobel prize, they don’t win the Fields prize, they don’t win the Wolf prize, they don’t produce literature,” Kennedy said.
A factcheck published on Tuesday by the Associated Press showed that Arabs have won, or been shortlisted, for all those awards in recent years.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Kennedy’s Islamophobic remarks “a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry”, and the US healthcare advocacy organization Protect Our Care condemned his “wildly racist tirade”.
Hillary Scholten, a Democratic congresswoman representing west Michigan, who declined to endorse El-Sayed this summer, said Kennedy’s comments were “disgraceful and have no place in public service”.
In a statement posted to her Facebook page late Tuesday, Scholten said: “As secretary of health and human services, he has a responsibility to serve all Americans, not use his position to demean entire communities with bigoted and demonstrably false claims”.”
She added: “The last I checked, Secretary Kennedy has neither a medical degree nor a Nobel peace prize, and his rhetoric has undermined public confidence in health science. Maybe he should sit this one out.”
Other Trump administration officials have tried to paint El-Sayed as a supporter of Islamic radicalism, including the president himself, who at a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday called the Democrat “a jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists”.
Related: RFK Jr assailed over ‘wildly racist tirade’ about Arabs at Michigan campaign stop
Updated
Flavio Bolsonaro lands in Miami, having fled to US following Brazilian election defeat
Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro who recently lost the race for his father’s former office, has landed in Miami, apparently taking shelter under the aegis of the Trump administration after fleeing his home country.
The younger Bolsonaro had been ordered to turn over his passport following his election defeat in connection with a criminal investigation over money laundering. Instead, Reuters and other outlets have reported that the defeated candidate and his family fled to Argentina overland before flying to the US via Ecaudor.
He has so far refused to officially concede the race to the victorious left-wing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Trump has said that Brazilian election appeared “rigged,” but gave little indication he would seek to get involved in disputing the results.
Though Trump did not outright endorse Flavio Bolsonaro, his father Jair was a close ideological ally of Trump’s in Latin America. After Brazil launched a criminal prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly attempting a coup to restore him to power after his 2022 election loss, Trump slapped tariffs on the country in retaliation.
And there is little love between Trump and Lula, who has accused Trump of trying to meddle in Brazil’s election in Bolsonaro’s favor.
Updated
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski backs Democrat in Alaska governor’s race
Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, has broken with her party to endorse the Democrat in her state’s gubernatorial contest.
Murkowski, a moderate Republican who is no stranger to breaking with Trump, made her surprise endorsement to local news station KTUU. She told the outlet that she felt the three Republicans contesting Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins in the ranked-choice election lacked the bipartisanship needed for the job, calling them overly partisan.
She said that Kreiss-Tomkins, by contrast, is “a young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now, a freshness of energy”. She described him as a “a commonsense guy who has a known ability to be working together”.
Updated
Trump bound for Ohio, and Vance for North Carolina, with less than a week until the midterms
Donald Trump will return to Ohio on Wednesday to campaign for Republicans in the state, as the GOP looks to hold on to the seat currently occupied by Senator Jon Husted. Husted’s opponent, Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic senator from the state, has a decent lead in the polls with less than a week remaining until election day.
Up until now, Trump has made a habit of praising Husted’s physique (his butt, especially) on the campaign trail. We’ll see if he keeps that up today.
JD Vance, perhaps Trump’s busiest surrogate on the campaign trial, will continue a cross-country air campaign by heading east to North Carolina, where he’ll back Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, who is trailing in the polls to Democratic former governor Roy Cooper.
Updated
Obama to campaign in Georgia alongside Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms
Former president Barack Obama will travel to Georgia tonight to campaign alongside top Democrats in the state, including incumbent senator Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta now seeking the Georgia governor’s office.
Obama has been increasingly active on the campaign trail as the midterms race nears its climax. The former president recently joined rallies in Ohio and Michigan, two states where Democrats are looking to win out closely contested Senate races, before setting his sights on Georgia.
During his previous stop in Ohio, Obama made a jab at Trump for redecorating the White House to look like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory”. The remark appeared to get under Trump’s skin, prompting him to respond, and has somehow drawn the restaurant chain into the battle for control of Congress.
In Georgia, Ossoff, who is facing a Senate challenge from Republican House representative Mike Collins, holds a comfortable lead in the polls. Increasingly, the Gerogia Democrat has been seen as a potential contender for the Democrats’ nomination in the 2028 presidential election.
The race is much tighter for Bottoms, who is vying to flip Georgia’s governor’s office red.
Updated
Flávio Bolsonaro, defeated rightwing Brazilian presidential candidate, expected to arrive in Miami
Flávio Bolsonaro, the rightwing Brazilian presidential candidate who lost the country’s election to leftwing incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to arrive in Miami on Wednesday after fleeing Brazil, Reuters reported.
According to the outlet, Bolsonaro and his family – after crossing by land into Argentina, and from there departing to Ecuador – took a flight bound for the US, where the Trump administration’s state department plans to grant them visas.
Flávio Bolsonaro is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the Trump-allied former leader of Brazil who was arrested and handed a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup to overturn the result of his own 2022 election defeat to Lula. After his election defeat by Lula over the weekend, and before fleeing to the US, he had been ordered to turn over his passports in connection with a criminal investigation.
Trump did not outright endorse the younger Bolsonaro this time around. But he has publicly sparred with Lula frequently in his second term, including imposing tariffs on Brazil in response to its criminal prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro. And Trump has boasted about his role as an apparent kingmaker in Latin America, where Brazil is one of the few holdouts still controlled by leftwing governments as rightwing leaders are ascendent through the region.
Throughout his re-election campaign, Lula accused the Trump administration of trying to interfere with the vote, and of having colonial ambitions in Brazil.
Updated
The US Federal Reserve is expected to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday during its last rate-setting meeting before the midterm elections, keeping rates at one of the highest pre-election levels seen in over 20 years.
Last month, Fed officials raised rates for the first time since 2023, citing rising inflation. Inflation has hovered for years above the Fed’s target rate of 2%, and for most of this year, the annualized inflation rate has remained above 3%.
The move infuriated Donald Trump, who said that “interest rates in the United States should be 1% or less”.
Though inflation rose higher in September, going from 3.4% in August to 3.7%, a pause would signal the central bank is taking a wait-and-see approach ahead of the midterms next week.
Interest rates determine the cost of interest for loans, including for credit cards, mortgage and some savings accounts. During times of high inflation, raising rates can slow price increases.
Multiple Fed leaders have suggested in recent weeks that the central bank has room for a pause, even if most Fed economists are predicting one more rate hike before the end of the year.
“The hikes do not need to come at consecutive meetings, but they should be in place in an acceptable period of time,” Fed governor Christopher Waller said earlier this month.
Related: Fed set to hold interest rates steady in last decision before midterms
Federal judge rules Trump-appointed US prosecutor in Los Angeles isn't legally serving
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
A federal judge has ruled that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top US prosecutor in Los Angeles.
Essayli was disqualified from overseeing two criminal prosecutions. The order, however, will not immediately go into effect, and the Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it intends to appeal.
The ruling was part of a long-running legal battle challenging the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep Essayli in office despite not being confirmed by the US Senate.
Essayli, a former Republican state lawmaker and ally of Donald Trump, became an interim US attorney in April 2025, but he was not formally nominated by the president, which allowed him to lead the office without going through the standard confirmation process.
After Essayli’s “interim” appointment ended last July, the Trump administration gave him an “acting” title, then kept him on as a “first assistant” after a judge ruled he was unlawfully serving as US attorney.
But in August, a federal appellate court ruled against a Nevada justice department leader in a similar case, and the judge overseeing Essayli’s case cited that higher court’s ruling on Tuesday, issuing another order saying he was still acting unlawfully.
Michael Seabright, the federal judge, said Essayli was illegally serving, even with a “special attorney” and “first assistant” designation by the Trump administration, and the judge said he could no longer participate in or supervise two ongoing prosecutions where the attorneys had challenged his position.
“We respectfully disagree with the court’s order,” Essayli said in a statement on Tuesday. “The President and the Attorney General have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
Read the full story here:
Related: Federal judge disqualifies Trump-appointed prosecutor for ‘unlawfully serving’ in role
In other developments:
-
Faced with widespread voter discontent over the spike in oil prices since he attacked Iran, Donald Trump staged his rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday alongside a vast oil tanker, the Angerona, which the president said had just arrived from Venezuela bearing a personal gift for him: a million barrels of oil.
-
A senior state department official told the Associated Press that the US will “will issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States”.
-
In his remarks to supporters in Lubbock, Texas, Trump attacked James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate, for having shown compassion for transgender children who demonstrated for their rights at the Texas state capitol in 2023.
-
Trump lied that “our gasoline prices are lower than when Barack Hussein Obama – our oil prices, gasoline, lower than they were with Obama”.
Updated
