At Florida rally, Trump praises Blacks for Trump, founded by former member of violent cult
Early in his remarks to supporters in Daytona Beach, Florida on Friday, Donald Trump recounted what he cast as very real and not at all imaginary conversations with one Black friend and one Jewish friend in Michigan who asked his advice on whether they should vote for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers in the Senate race there.
The president began by making the wildly false, bigoted claim that “Abdul’s a jihadist”.
He then said: “I have a friend, he’s Jewish. He said, ‘What do you think I should do in Michigan?’ I said, ‘Are you stupid?’ He’s not voting for Abdul. I have another friend, he’s black. He said, ‘What do you recommend?’ I said, ‘I recommend you go Republican’. He said, ‘Okay, that’s what I’m going to do’”.
“Now if you’re Black or if you’re Jewish and you vote for Abdul, you’re not smart,” Trump said, pressing on the Republican attempt to peel Blacj and Jewish voters in Michigan away from El-Sayed. “I’m being nice. You’re not smart”
Moments later, the president spotted some supporters in the crowd he recognized.
“Oh, I have my friends over here, Blacks for Trump. I love these guys,” Trump said of the group founded by Maurice Symonette, also known as Michael the Black Man, a former member of a violent cult who posts anti-Semitic screeds and racist conspiracy theories online, and yet has been a featured member of the audience at Trump campaign events since 2016.
Symonette was known as Maurice Woodside until 1992, when the Black supremacist cult leader he followed, Yahweh ben Yahweh, was jailed for leading a conspiracy to murder 14 white people in initiation rites. Woodside was among the Miami-based Nation of Yahweh cult members charged in two of the murders, but he was acquitted.
After the trial, he reinvented himself as Michael the Black Man, a pirate radio preacher who delivered broadsides against gays and Democrats. His online sermons and writings suggest that he still sees himself as a follower of the cult leader, who died in 2007.
Symonette was interviewed before the rally on Friday by the pro-Trump network Real America’s Voice.
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Abdul el Sayed resists efforts from Haley Steven's to corner him on Israel
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has rejected a demand from his defeated primary rival, congresswoman Haley Stevens, that he apologize for criticism of US military aid to Israel two days before they were scheduled to campaign together in Detroit.
On Friday evening, El-Sayed rejected the demand from Stevens, whose fiancé campaigned this week for El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, at a Republican Jewish Coalition event, where he called the Democratic nominee’s criticism of Israel “100% disqualifying to be a United States senator”.
“Our campaign is and has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: Skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor,” El-Sayed said in a statement in which he noted that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent heavily to defeat him in the primary.
“That focus is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens. Now the stakes are even higher-defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy,” El-Sayed continued.
“That should be the priority for all of us right now,” he added. “So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let’s all focus on the task at hand: that’s beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All.”
The candidate was responding to a lengthy statement from Stevens, in which she repeated a demand she first made on CNN, that she expected El-Sayed to effectively denounce himself for antisemitism and racism.
To assuage the fears of Black and Jewish voters who supported her in the primary, Stevens said, El-Sayed had to take down a tongue-in-cheek ad produced by his campaign to air on rightwing cable news channels that includes a clip of Tucker Carlson saying he would not vote for Rogers, and condemn what she called an antisemitic ad made by an outside group founded by commentator Cenk Uygur, which blames US aid to Israel for high food prices.
El-Sayed’s campaign already said that the ad posted online by Uygur -who was identified in Stevens’s statement as the uncle of streamer Hasan Piker – was “not affiliated in any way” with him or his candidacy.
The ad, which shows a fictional couple in a supermarket saying that they have to save money on groceries to pay “for killing Palestinians”, was not even made in support of El-Sayed, but repurposed from one originally produced in 2024 for Uygur’s own, short-lived presidential campaign.
Despite that history, Stevens argued that Uygur’s ad was inspired by El-Sayed’s rhetoric about Israel and insisted that he apologize for that too.
Uygur’s ad, Stevens wrote, “did not invent its argument; it dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, health care, and child care.”
“The standard here is simple,” she continued. “If those words are wrong when a Political Action Committee supporting his campaign says them, then they are equally wrong when Abdul says them, and Abdul has said them from the start. I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well. Abdul promises to get money out of politics. He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford.”
The congresswoman’s statement did not go down well with many Democratic activists.
“If I was actually trying to harm Abdul’s campaign, Tommy Vietor, a former Obama staffer, and cohost of Pod Save America, posted in response to Stevens, “it would look a lot like the PR roll out we’ve seen from Haley that started with CNN, then her husband’s bizarre tirade, and now this crazy, hyper online, conspiratorial statement about a TV ad Abdul obviously hates!”
“I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing,” Michigan lawmaker Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Democratic primary, told CNN. “This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes.”
McMorrow’s husband, Ray Wert, posted a link to a detailed explanation of why “a vote for Mike Rogers is NOT a vote for Jewish safety”, including that the Republican refused to denounce far-right antisemites on his own campaign, and is financially supported by “one of the country’s leading financiers of Christian nationalism”.
Rogers has relentlessly repeated the lie that El-Sayed, the Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants, “publicly supported” the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In fact, El-Sayed signed an open letter in support of Egypt’s fledgling democracy in 2012, that made no mention of the Islamist group at all.
Leah Greenberg, a founder of the grassroots group Indivisible, was more blunt, accusing Stevens of taking part in a covert attempt to sabotage El-Sayed’s campaign. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here”, she wrote on social media, “but if you supported Stevens and you don’t want to be associated with one of the most disgraceful, bigoted ratfucking attempts in recent political history I encourage you to let her know that this must stop immediately”.
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Top federal prosecutor in Alaska confirms civil and criminal investigations into Senate race featuring two Dan Sullivans
Speaking at a news conference in Anchorage on Friday, the top federal prosecutor in Alaska, Michael Heyman, confirmed the existence of both a criminal investigation and a civil investigation into an alleged scheme by Democrats to confuse voters by putting a candidate on the ballot for US Senate who has the same name as the Republican incumbent, senator Dan Sullivan.
“The civil lawsuit is publicly faced, and is focused on preserving the ballots,” Heyman said, referring to a Department of Justice suit filed last week, and amended on Friday, asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction that would block Alaska from certifying its Senate election result if Sullivan loses to his Democratic challenger, Mary Peltola and votes cast for another candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan could theoretically change the outcome.
Since Alaska uses a system of ranked-choice voting, any voters who want to keep the incumbent senator Sullivan in office, have the option of ranking him and Daniel J. Sullivan first and second on their ballots, in either order, to be sure that their votes do not help elect Peltola.
Heyman would not say what potential crimes authorities are looking into, but cited reporting by the New York Times that Peltola’s campaign, and national Democrats, allegedly “orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy to recruit and prop up Daniel J. Sullivan as a sham candidate, and we are taking that extremely seriously.”
“When credible information comes out, we are committed to pursuing that information to deceive voters and we will act on it. We are acting on it intensely and swiftly,” Heyman said.
“This new information has resulted in a significant surge of law enforcement assets to Alaska,” he added. “As we speak, law enforcement around the country are taking investigative steps with respect to a criminal investigation on these matters.”
The FBI special-agent-in-charge of the bureau’s Anchorage office, Matthew Schlegel, also asked the public to aid the investigation by submitting information to a tips line.
At a campaign event in Juneau on Thursday night, Peltola denied that she knew anything about the effort to put him on the ballot. “I just want to clear the air. I knew nothing about any other candidates on the ballot except for me and the incumbent. That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters. I know I can beat Dan Sullivan,” she said, according to Alaska Public Media.
In response to a question from a reporter, who noted that “legal experts have really dismissed the basis for this case,” and described the civil lawsuit as “frivolous”, Heyman said he would not “litigate that case before the media”.
When another reporter asked “what types of crimes might be alleged,” Heyman said he would not go into specifics, but noted “conspiracy theories and election integrity” have been “been widely spoken about”.
While even some Democrats have described the effort to stack the ballot with Dan Sullivans as unethical, it is not clearly illegal. Alaska’s state’s supreme court has already ruled that it was legal for Daniel J. Sullivan to appear on the ballot.
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California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, welcomed the federal appeals court ruling rejecting a Department of Justice demand that ballots sent to about 20,000 people the federal government suggests might not be citizens be set aside.
“Trump and his administration just lost for the third time this week in their desperate and dangerous attempts to meddle in the California election process with voting already underway and just days before Election Day,” Newsom said in a statement.
“These attacks on our democracy are serious, and the full force of our state is defending our democracy right now. We will continue to fight them on their illegal power grabs every step of the way, and deliver a free and fair election just as we’ve always done.”
California has criticized the Trump administration for suggesting, without evidence, that thousands of registered voters are not US citizens, four months after a similar claim, that nearly 16,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada, turned out to be untrue.
In the Nevada case, the Department of Homeland Security vastly reduced the number of noncitizens it claimed were registered to vote, sending state election officials a list of 185 people it believed were not citizens. Nevada officials investigated the list and found that all 185 voters were in fact citizens.
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Appeals court shoots down Department of Justice request to sequester ballots in California
A federal appeals court blocked a request from the Department of Justice to require California to set aside the votes of 20,000 people it said could have been noncitizens who were illegally sent ballots by the state.
The appeals court upheld an earlier ruling from a district court judge, who found that such an action could throw California’s election system into chaos with days before the midterm, as well as disenfranchise lawful voters, the Associated Press reported.
It's Friday afternoon. Here's what you need to get caught up on:
Trump canceled — then uncanceled — rallies in Kansas and Iowa. After backing out of two rallies planned over the weekend, the president hastily rescheduled appearances in both states, with back-to-back events now planned on Sunday.
A key elections forecaster predicted Democrats would take control of the House. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan group, shifted 12 seats it previously ranked as going either way to likely Democrat victories. It shifted several others that were considered Republican-leaning to being true toss-ups.
An appeals court rebuked Trump administration’s effort to segregate disputed ballots in California. The administration had contended that up to 20,000 voters in the state could be illegally registered noncitizen voters, and asked for their ballots to be set aside. A judge rebuked that request, saying such a move could wreak havoc on the state’s election system and disenfranchise citizens.
Mary Peltola denied knowing about the alleged recruiting of a candidate with the same name as her opponent. The Alaska Democrat, whose campaign, according to The New York Times, recruited a second Dan Sullivan to join the race against her Republican opponent of the same name, said she had no knowledge of the purported scheme. Peltola faces mounting calls from the Republicans to be disqualified and criminally investigated.
Pope Leo became the first pontiff to vote in an American election. The Holy See said that the American-born pope had cast his ballot in Chicago, where he grew up. The Holy See press office said Leo had “exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so”, including during his time as a missionary in Peru.
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How the "billionaire tax" became a central issue in California's midterm election
One year ago, the idea of a billionaire tax in California was still in its infancy.
It wasn’t yet one of the most contentious ballot measure fights in state history – pitting Democrats against Democrats, drawing national attention from political heavyweights, and netting hundreds of millions of Silicon Valley dollars to fight it. Back then, it was a bold and desperate answer to Donald Trump’s healthcare cuts.
Trump had just signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dictated a trillion dollars of Medicaid, Affordable Care Act and other healthcare funding be cut over the next decade to offset sweeping tax cuts. When the bill goes into effect in January, that could mean more than 3.4m Californians will lose their coverage, including millions of children.
“That’s why we were willing to do something that lots of people said was crazy,” said Dave Regan, the divisive architect of the billionaire tax and president of the healthcare union SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW). “To us, what’s crazy is doing nothing and watching millions of people lose coverage.”
Now, with the midterms less than a week away, California voters will decide on whether to pass the ballot measure known as Proposition 40. The proposal would levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires living in the state as of 1 January 2026, the proceeds of which would fund healthcare programs, along with some education and food assistance.
Read the full story from Dara Kerr here:
Key elections forecaster predicts Democrats take House majority in midterms
The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections forecaster, has moved the races for 12 House seats to lean toward a Democratic victory.
With the shift, the forecaster now predicts that Democrats will take a majority of House seats, as many as 240 in the chamber of 435 representatives. (It has Democrats projected to win in 222 races. Another 18 could go either way.)
Other races that had previously leaned toward the Republicans in previous forecasts have been deemed toss-ups.
The Cook Political Report has continuously shifted seats toward Democrats in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, as Republicans fight an electorate uneasy over the war in Iran and affordability concerns that Donald Trump had vowed to address.
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Affordability and Trump loom over crucial Maine Senate contest
From the outset, the Senate race in Maine has been one of the most closely watched of the 2026 midterm election cycle, a top prize for Democrats who viewed it as one of their best chances to flip a seat in the upper chamber.
Yet the race in Maine has remained close, even as Democrats have gained ground in far more reliably red states, like Texas, Ohio and Kansas. Incumbent Senator Susan Collins has proved durable, and her challenger, Troy Jackson, has been hindered by a chaotic campaign that saw him anointed as the nominee to replace a scandal-plagued Graham Platner.
As the election draws near, my colleague Shrai Popat finds that the rising cost of living, which Trump has vowed to bring down, may prove the most decisive issue in the race’s final days.
Read Shrai’s full dispatch from Maine here:
Related: ‘The status quo sucks’: affordability and Trump loom over final stretch of Maine’s tight Senate race
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Republican Kansas Senate candidate sued by former patient
Roger Marshall, a physician Republican Senator in Kansas currently fighting an unexpectedly close reelection campaign against a Democratic challenger, has been sued by a former patient who accused him of charing illegally high interest rates on medical debt, the New York Times reported.
An investigation last month by the Times found that, during his time working as an obstetrician, Marshall had hounded more than 700 patients with lawsuits over unpaid medical bills.
The lawsuit contends that the interest rate Marshall charged, 18 percent, was so high as to violate Kansas law. Mr. Marshall’s lawyer defended the fee to the Times as “common practice” in the state.
Marshall’s Senate seat in normally deep-red Kansas has been under threat from Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton, a pastor who some polls have shown could win the race. The possibility of an unexpected Democratic pickup has drawn more attention onto the Kansas race in the final days before the midterm election.
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A working-class Alaskan Native takes on a ‘multimillionaire’ Republican for seat in Congress
As Republicans fight to maintain their narrow majority in Congress, they face a unique challenge in Alaska – not from a Democrat, but from an independent commercial fisher and first-time candidate running to flip the state’s lone House seat.
Bill Hill, who is an Alaska Native and has worked in education and construction, has positioned himself as a working-class candidate who will fight to make life more affordable for people like himself and his family.
Like voters across the country, Alaskans are deeply worried about affordability and the rising cost of basic necessities. Hill counts himself among the voters who have felt squeezed by high fuel prices driven up by Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
“When the spring fuel barge showed up in my home town of Naknek this spring, I went from paying $118 to fill my truck up to over $200,” Hill said. “Our gas went from $6.70 a gallon to almost $9 a gallon.”
Hill’s campaign to unseat the Republican congressman Nick Begich has gained momentum in the final weeks before the 3 November election, as national Democrats line up behind him and ad spending ramps up. The non-partisan Cook Political Report recently shifted the race from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican”, with the district favoring Republicans by six percentage points.
Read the full story on Hill’s campaign from my colleague Michael Sainato:
Related: A working-class Alaskan Native takes on a ‘multimillionaire’ Republican for seat in Congress
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Air Force One flyover for White House Halloween event causes flight delays
A White House flyover by the US presidential airplane as part of a children’s Halloween party yesterday evening delayed dozens of flights and raised concerns among some in the nation’s capital.
The flyover forced a temporary halt to traffic at one of Washington’s main airports and drew concerns from city lawmakers that residents, officials and the airport received only 15 minutes’ notice, the Associated Press reports.
The plane - which is designated Air Force One when Donald Trump is on board - made two lower-than-normal passes around the White House yesterday evening, which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily halt traffic at nearby Reagan Washington National Airport.
Trump was hosting a Halloween party for children when the flyover occurred. The White House posted a video of the flyover on one of its social media accounts, calling it “an epic Air Force One flyover at the White House for the trick-or-treaters!”
The District of Columbia city council said in a social media post that only 15 minutes’ notice was provided before the flyover “to anyone in downtown DC, at the Pentagon, or at National Airport. It startled many, including us.”
Airline officials also said they had less than an hour’s notice before the flyover.
The plane also flew over nearby Washington neighborhoods.
Some people flying to Washington reported that their planes were forced to circle or that they faced delays due to the flyover. FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, said 26% of departing flights and 17% of arriving flights were delayed yesterday — or 202 in total. Most of those delays were tied to the airport disruption.
ICE officer charged with allegedly hitting man with his vehicle in Houston
Local officials in Texas charged an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official this morning with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for striking and running over a man with his vehicle.
The ICE official, Mario Alberto Morales, struck Miguel Parra Hernandez with his 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee on 10 October in Houston.
The Harris County District Attorney, who announced the indictment this morning, alleged Morales weaponized his vehicle against Hernandez during a chase.
Morales struck and ran over both of Hernandez’s legs, leaving him “seriously injured and hospitalized to this day,” said Sean Teare, the Harris County district attorney.
Teare added that he hopes the indictment “sends a loud and clear message to every ICE officer who feels that they have a free pass to terrorize our streets: the time to stop is now. And if you don’t, you will be held accountable.”
On the morning of 10 October in Houston, ICE officials attempted to stop and arrest two men in a car, including Hernandez. According to Teare, the ICE officers were searching for a man who has seemingly been dead for nine years. The two men fled on foot, with Morales using his vehicle to chase down Hernandez, an undocumented Mexican man with no criminal history and with no deportation order.
Surveillance footage and body camera video released this morning by the Harris County district attorney’s office shows Morales speeding his vehicle towards Hernandez and striking him in a parking lot. Morales then exited the vehicle, while Hernandez can be seen on the ground yelling and crying in pain. According to local officials, Hernandez suffered multiple fractures.
In audio of a 911 call by Morales, also released this morning by county officials, the officer tells the dispatcher in a calm voice that Hernandez “hit my car”.
Morales could face between two to 20 years in prison, officials said.
This is not the first time the Harris County district attorney’s office has expressed frustration with ICE activity on the streets of Houston. Earlier this year, an ICE officer shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, while on his way to work. The district attorney’s office launched an investigation into the shooting of Salgado.
Pope Leo votes in US midterms in first known political ballot for any pontiff
in Rome
Pope Leo has voted in the US midterm elections – the first time a pontiff is known to have cast a ballot in any political election at any time in history.
Leo, who has clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over several issues, submitted his vote by post in Chicago, where he was born, the Vatican said on Friday. Leo became the first American leader of the Catholic church last year after the death of Pope Francis.
The Vatican said Leo “has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so”, including in Peru, where he lived for years as a missionary.
“The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” the statement added.
Leo, who before being elected pope was known as Robert Prevost, reportedly made his request for the mail-in ballot on 3 October, registering at an address in New Lenox, Illinois.
That was 10 days before he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his right lung. The pontiff has gradually been resuming activities since being discharged from hospital on 17 October.
Leo and Trump have clashed over the US president’s harsh immigration polices, with the pontiff describing them as “inhuman”.
Earlier this year, Trump lashed out in response to Leo’s criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran, calling the pontiff “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy”. The US president also said that Leo had only been elected pope because Trump himself was in the White House.
In response to the tirade, Leo said he was “not afraid” of Trump.
In his first key address to the US on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Leo praised the country’s history of welcoming migrants, while urging Americans to live up to the ideals put forward in the declaration, in what was seen a further rebuke to Trump.
In an interview with the US broadcaster in late July, Leo expressed “great love” for his home country and its core principles of freedom, opportunity and welcoming immigrants but qualified that he just “happens to be American”.
Leo will travel to Latin America in November for an 11-day trip covering 10 cities. Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s foreign minister, told reporters at Rome’s foreign press association earlier this week that a papal visit to the US was expected in the “not too distant future”, adding that the outcome of the midterms might influence whether the trip goes ahead in 2027 or later.
Related: Pope Leo votes in US midterms in first known political ballot for any pontiff
Here’s the clip of Donald Trump attacking the appearance of a Reuters reporter and calling him “disgusting” yesterday, after the reporter asked a question about the president’s cancellation of two upcoming campaign events.
A day later, Trump rescheduled the canceled rallies in Kansas and Iowa.
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James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in Texas, attacked his Republican opponent Ken Paxton for cancelling some of his final rallies before the midterm election.
“No one’s going to Ken Paxton’s rallies, so he’s canceling them and hoping Elon Musk will buy his seat for him,” Talarico wrote, referencing the donations Paxton has received from the world’s richest man.
He added: “Texas deserves a Senator that shows up – not one that hides behind a pile of money.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man-turned-Republican Party megadonor, took to X (the social media platform he owns) to allege that a Democratic election victory would turn the US into a “one-party state.”
Musk predicted that, if they win control of the House, Senate, and the Presidency in 2028, Democrats would grant statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, in order to obtain an enduring Senate majority; grant citizenship to all migrants living in the US illegally; and pack the Supreme Court to establish a liberal-leaning court.
“This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word,” Musk wrote. “All that is needed to ensure this doesn’t happen is 51 Republican senators in 2029. That is why you should vote for Republican senators this election. Other reasons are irrelevant compared to this one.”
(Democrats last controlled the House, Senate, and presidency during the first half of Joe Biden’s term in office.)
Musk was a close partner of Trump during the early days of his second term, heading up the Department of Government Efficiency tasked with cutting wasteful spending in the federal government. Since his highly public falling out with the administration, Musk has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to back Republicans.
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Early voting soars in Senate battlegrounds, outstripping 2022 midterms
Voting stations across the country, and especially in states with tightly-contested Senate seats have seen a steep rise in early voting compared to the 2022 midterm elections, the Associated Press reported.
The outlet’s analysis found that more than 43 million voters have already cast their ballots. By the same time in the 2022 midterm election, 10 million fewer ballots had been cast.
Early voting was up 50% in Texas, where Democrats are hopeful they can sent a Democrat, James Talarico, to the Senate for the first time in decades.
Maine and Michigan, both anticipated as battlegrounds early one, where each party hopes to flip a seat in their favor, have recorded increases above 30%. So, too, has Kansas, where Adam Hamilton, a Democrat, has run an unexpectedly close contest against Republican Roger Marshall.
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Trump campaign appearances in Kansas, Iowa back on after apparent cancelations
Two scheduled campaign appearances by Donald Trump – one in Kansas, another in Iowa – that Trump had initially backed out of are now back on, according to the White House.
“Rallies are BACK ON! President Trump loves his supporters, and in addition to nearly 20 tele-rallies, he will hold back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday,” the White House said in a statement. “No one works harder, fights harder, or loves the American people more than President Donald J. Trump!”
Trump had initially planned to campaign in Kansas on Saturday and Iowa on Sunday. Now, both Trump rallies are slated to happen back-to-back on Sunday.
Republican officials had originally said Trump abandoned plans to attend the rallies to instead focus on remote tele-rallies that would’ve allowed him to reach more states in the final days of the midterms. But a source interviewed by the Associated Press said that the president’s schedule had seen been reconfigured to include both the virtual and in-person rallies planned for Trump.
Trump’s sudden departure from the events in Kansas and Iowa raised eyebrows, appearing like an unexpected retreat from in-person campaigning as Republicans faced a potentially blistering midterm election, and for a president who has famously enjoyed the campaign stage.
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Pollsters in Kansas ran into a problem: Republicans don't want to talk
Pollsters from The Washington Post and George Mason University, seeking to shed light on a closely-watched Senate race in Kansas, found themselves with an issue.
Democrats, the poll found, were overwhelmingly more likely than Republicans to engage with poll-takers on the issue. And while partisan differences in participants’ likelihood to answer polls is common, the scale of the problem was exceptional in Kansas.
Even after tailoring the poll to net more responses from hesitant would-be voters, the poll still received participation from a wide gap of 32 percent of Democrats compared to 12 percent by Republicans.
The poll’s result shows Adam Hamilton, the Democratic candidate for Senate who is leading a surprisingly tight campaign against Republican Roger Marshall, by 52 percent to 43 percent. But the Post felt it necessary to caution that the poll likely overestimates Democrat support.
The results of that poll may temper Democratic optimism for next week’s midterm elections, which has been buoyed by a series of polls showing Democrats leading or closely contesting key races, including some for normally deep-red Senate seats.
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In a series of posts to his personal social media platform this morning, Trump appeared to back Pete Hegseth’s firing of the Pentagon’s top military planner, as well as his referral for prosecution in connection with an alleged leak of information.
Hegseth dismissed Gen Brett Sylvia, a high-ranking army strategist serving on the Pentagon’s joint staff, on Thursday following allegations that he shared classified information.
On Friday, Trump shared a pair of screenshots to Truth Social of conservative commentators applauding Hegseth’s decision and calling for the general’s prosecution.
One of those posts refererred to Sylvia as a “traitor” and said he should be “sent to Leavenworth,” the prison for military personnel convicted in a court-martial.
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Speaking to a Kansas City radio host this morning, Donald Trump said – as he has many times before – that an end to the Iran war is imminent.
The wary, Trump said, “is going to get wrapped up soon,” Trump said in an interview with Kansas City radio host Pete Mundo.
Trump said the conflict’s resolution would require “a guarantee there’ll never be a nuclear weapon” in Iran.
Since launching the war in February with hopes for a quick capitulation from Iran’s decimated leadership, Trump has consistently expressed the belief that the war would end, even as fighting has escalated and economic shocks from the conflict have multiplied. On the campaign trail, he has asserted that fighting will end soon after the US midterms, so long as Republicans maintain a majority in Congress.
Recent reporting indicates that the President may be preparing another round of intense military action on Iran, in the event the country’s leadership doesn’t agree to a deal.
Alaska Democrat denies knowing about alleged recruiting of second Dan Sullivan amid scrutiny
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola has denied that she knew anything about an effort to put another candidate on the Alaska ballot with the same name as the Republican incumbent as the Justice Department escalated a criminal investigation with new grand jury subpoenas.
“I just want to clear the air,” she said at the top of a speech in a downtown bar in Juneau, Alaska’s capital.
“I knew nothing about any other candidate on the ballot except for me and the incumbent. That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters.”
Peltola is running against senator Dan Sullivan. A person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony or documents, along with records preservation demands, were issued after The New York Times reported that Peltola’s campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting Dan J Sullivan Jr as part of an alleged effort to confuse voters.
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Members of Congress sent a scathing letter to federal immigration officials this week demanding answers about conditions inside a Texas immigration jail, as detained immigrants on a prolonged hunger strike claim officials are retaliating against them and threatening them with force-feeding.
A group of seven congressional Democrats sent the letter earlier this week to Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, and David Venturella, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director, protesting about the treatment of hunger strikers.
The El Valle detention facility in Raymondville, Texas, detaining men and women, has fallen under scrutiny in recent weeks for allegations of harsh conditions. Detained immigrants on hunger strike say the facility has substandard medical care, undrinkable water and guards that mistreat them.
Some hunger strikers are also protesting against their prolonged detention and are asking for their cases to move more quickly or to be transferred closer to loved ones in other parts of the country.
“It is abundantly clear that DHS continues to demonstrate gross disregard for the health, dignity, personhood, and safety of our communities,” the group of lawmakers, led by the Illinois representative Delia Ramirez, said in their letter to the DHS and ICE. “However, we remain committed to conducting oversight, advocating for our constituents, and pursuing accountability.”
The representatives “unequivocally condemn” conditions reported at the facility.
Related: Congressional Democrats demand answers over ICE treatment of hunger strikers
Trump cancels in-person campaigning for midterms to focus on tele-rallies
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump has cancelled weekend rallies in Iowa and Kansas, instead opting to support Republican candidates with tele-rallies as midterm campaigning reaches its final days ahead of the midterms.
Trump was scheduled to hold in-person rallies on Saturday and Sunday but the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced that he would instead spend a “72-hour sprint” doing rallies by phone rather than in person.
It is a move the RNC said would maximize Trump’s ability to speak to voters nationwide, adding that telerallies are planned for nearly 20 states and more may be announced.
It marks an abrupt shift in Trump’s pledge to push through the final days of the campaign doing rally after rally to galvanize his supporters. As of Thursday, he had done 25 rallies during the month of October, falling short of a goal he had once placed north of 30.
The president travelled to South Carolina yesterday for the second time in a month, a sign of Republican anxiety about Darline Graham’s ability to fend off a robust challenge from Democratic candidate Annie Andrews for a critical US Senate seat.
Voters in South Carolina have not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly three decades. But Andrews, a pediatrician who previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress , is urging voters seeking change to “try something new for once.”
Beyond South Carolina, Republicans are entering the final days of this year’s midterm elections navigating tight contests in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa and Alaska. Both parties are also closely following developments in the Mississippi Senate race, AP reported.
Trump lashed out at a Reuters reporter who asked him why he cancelled the planned appearance at a rally in Kansas on Saturday in support of a embattled Republican senator, Dr Roger Marshall. “You’re sick to ask that question,” the president said.
In other developments:
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Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, confirmed on Thursday that his campaign is no longer airing an attack ad that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr Amy Acton.
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Donald Trump called again for Democrat Mary Peltola to be criminally prosecuted and disqualified from the Alaska Senate race for her campaign allegedly recruiting a man named Dan Sullivan to run against Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.
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Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will campaign on Sunday in Detroit with Haley Stevens, the congresswoman he narrowly defeated to win the Democratic party’s nomination in August.
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Tom Hoyle, who achieved instant viral fame on Thursday by comparing Trump supporters to a cult in a live interview with Fox News before the president’s rally in South Carolina, was removed from the venue by three Secret Service agents.
