Senator Chris Van Hollen has released a statement in response to the Senate’s vote failing to pass his resolution requiring the state department report on increasing violence in the West Bank:
“The U.S. Government – including this Administration – has said time and again that our number one priority abroad is ensuring the safety and security of American citizens. And yet, as we’ve seen violence rise in the West Bank, nine American citizens have been killed in recent years, and they have received no justice and no accountability. Their families – and the American people – deserve answers on their deaths. But today Republicans denied them that. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people have also borne the toll of this violence day in and day out. They too deserve justice and accountability. But again, Republicans blocked that today. While I was pleased that so many of my Democratic colleagues joined this effort, it’s clear the United States must do more. It is our responsibility to ensure recipients of U.S. taxpayer dollars act in line with our laws and our values – this resolution was an opportunity to shed light on a reality that flies in the face of that principle.”
In an executive order today, Donald Trump called for “artificial intelligence” to be renamed “super intelligence”.
“The terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the limitless opportunities they create for the American people,” the order reads. “Accordingly, the term ‘Super Intelligence’ more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.”
The order directs “executive departments and agencies to use the term in “official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch.”
The US Senate on Tuesday evening rejected along mostly party lines a Democratic resolution that would have forced the state department to report to Congress on violence in the occupied West Bank, including the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers or security forces over the last few years.
The resolution, led by the Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, would have given the state department 30 days to report to Congress on those deaths and on wider human rights conditions in the territory, including Israel’s detention of Palestinian children.
The resolution failed to advance by a vote of 47 to 51. Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, joined Republicans in voting against the resolution, while Kentucky Republican Rand Paul voted in favor.
TSA officers will no longer be allowed to sit at airport checkpoints.
The Transportation Security Administration confirmed the decision in a statement: This welcome change reinforces both our security posture and our commitment to hospitality by having these officers on their feet and alert. All officers must meet fitness for duty requirements to be capable of performing their vital national security function.“
The TSA workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100, criticzed the move, saying it showed “disregard for workers’ rights and safety” and that the chairs TSA workers used while checking IDs “serve as basic ergonomic and safety support for officers that stand and walk on hard surfaces all day.”
Legal immigration from 45 Muslim-majority countries fell 96% since 2024, according to a new analysis from the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank. The White House’s “Rapid Response” account shared the analysis in a social media post today.
“During his campaign in 2016, President Trump repeatedly proposed an outright ban on Muslims entering the United States. He then claimed that this policy idea morphed into the travel ban to avoid potential constitutional problems,” the report states. “During his 2024 campaign, he said he would bring back an even stricter ban than the one in his first term. He has succeeded.”
Citing state department data, the Cato report states that, “Monthly immigrant visa issuances and permanent lawful refugee admissions fell from 21,096 in December 2024 to 808 in February 2026.”
Last week, CNN reported that the Trump administration plans to accept 17,500 refugees in fiscal year 2027, the vast majority of them white South Africans, citing a copy of the report to Congress. Earlier this year, the administration raised the cap for South African refugees, setting a limit of 17,500 refugees from the country.
“The United States anticipates that Afrikaners from South Africa will fully assimilate into the United States in a manner that preserves taxpayer resources for U.S. citizens and does not anticipate other countries resettling Afrikaners,” the report states.
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Donald Trump has agreed to stop fighting in court the disbursement of E Jean Carroll’s $5m verdict in her 2023 sexual abuse and defamation civil trial against him, a procedural development as these funds were already distributed to her.
While the decision does not change anything about Carroll’s receipt of the payout, its revelation effectively means that Trump will no longer oppose the monetary outcome he had long fought.
This decision was revealed Tuesday by the United States court of appeals for the second circuit.
Responding to Donald Trump’s announcement that AI CEOs had signed a “morally binding” voluntary agreement today, California representative Ro Khanna said “We are a nation of laws, not pinky promises.”
In a social media post, the California Democrat added, “Trump let Xi walk away without a binding treaty on AI. And now he’s doing free PR for AI CEOs,” referring to the meetings Trump has held with Chinese president Xi Jinping and tech company executives this week.
Donald Trump will begin “a 32-day tour” ahead of the midterm elections. The president said he has been asked to speak at campaign events across the country, including at stops in Texas and Ohio this week.
“Just so you understand, they all want me to go. I’m one person. They all want me to go campaign,” he said.
Pete Hegseth will reportedly announce additional 10% cuts to the number of generals and admirals serving in the military at an address at Quantico scheduled for tomorrow.
The Associated Press reports that Pentagon officials have confirmed the cuts, saying Hegseth will direct all military services to double the 10% reduction that he ordered last spring, for a 20% total decrease to be completed by 1 January.
Hegseth, who heads the department of defense, and Donald Trump have already fired or forced to retire more than two dozen military leaders since January 2025.
Federal prosecutors have charged a Venezuelan delivery driver shot by ICE agents in Texas this month with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was shot by federal immigration officers after a traffic stop in Texas on 20 September.
As my colleague Emiliano Tahui Gomez reports, Garcés Pérez has spent the past nine days in detention with a bullet lodged in his back, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rapidly removed him from a hospital in Austin where he had been taken on Sunday after the shooting.
In the court filing, federal prosecutors accused Garcés Pérez of striking an officer with his side mirror while trying to drive away. The charge echoes similar claims federal immigration officers have made about immigrans and anti-ICE protesters, including Minnesota mother Renee Good, “weaponizing their vehicles”.
JD Vance and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are speaking at the conclusion of the Make America Healthy Again summit in Washington.
“We’re never, ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us, ‘Trust the experts,” Kennedy said, speaking about the potential of AI chat bots at the beginning of his address, to a round of applause from the crowd.
“If somebody tells you, masks work, trust the experts, AI may tell you otherwise. If somebody tells you social distancing works, trust the experts, AI may correct that. And if somebody tells you that a vaccine will correct transmission and infection, oh you need to take it to protect your grandmother, AI may say, it actually doesn’t do that. So it really has the capacity to dominate us, to free us from medical tyranny.”
Vance and Kennedy spent the majority of the rest of their “fireside chat” discussing unfounded claims that undocumented immigrants are draining federal agencies, including the healthcare sector, of resources. Here’s my colleague Melody Schreiber with more on those claims:
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Donald Trump has shared a copy of the document AI executives signed during a White House meeting today on Truth Social.
In a social media post, Trump attached a copy of the one-page document, called the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence,” a term the president favors to artificial intelligence.
Signed by Google’s Sundar Pichai, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, xAI’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, the agreement states “we believe every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely.”
The agreement asks AI companies to commit to four layers of internal controls and audits: 1) “implement robust internal controls”, 2) “empower an internal team” to audit those controls, 3) “partner with an independent external auditor” and 4) “designate an independent committee of the board of directors”.
It adds that “the participating companies will meet regularly to establish standards and best practices”.
The United States has withdrawn from a leading international anti-corruption watchdog.
The Council of Europe said today that the Trump administration has decided to leave the Group of States against Corruption, a European-led anti-corruption monitoring body established in 1999. The United States joined in 2000. Only Russia and Belarus have previously left the group.
The Associated Press reports that a US official confirmed the United States had submitted its withdrawal on Monday.
The news of the United States’ withdrawal comes a week after
“The United States has participated in GRECO since 2000 and has been a valuable contributor to its work and to the exchange of experience and good practice in preventing and combating corruption,” the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe said in a statement. “GRECO remains open to resuming cooperation with the United States in the future in support of shared efforts to prevent corruption, strengthen integrity and uphold the rule of law.”
The decision was announced a week after another European organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation, reported that the United States has declined to allow its members to observe November’s midterm elections.
Russell Brand, the English comedian who’s awaiting trial next month over multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault, joked about touching agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins while moderating a panel at the Make America Healthy Again summit in Washington today.
After Brand was late arriving to the panel, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz said Brand had been hugging Rollins.
“She initiated that contact, to be clear,” Brand said.
Brand was slated to moderate a panel on reforming the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services featuring Oz and Chris Klomp, head of the department of health and human services. Klomp, who’s undergoing Senate confirmation hearings to be deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was replaced on short notice by Dan Brillman, director of Medicaid.
In April, Brand – who is facing charges over allegations made against him by six women – said he had “exploitative” consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl at the height of his fame during an appearance on the YouTube show of the former-Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly.
Trump says AI leaders signed 'morally binding' agreement
Donald Trump announced that the heads of the largest US tech and AI companies had signed onto a “morally binding” agreement to put controls on artificial intelligence. Trump did not give further details on the controls, but he suggested that the deal would allow the companies to largely “self-police” their products and technology.
“It’s almost like a Constitution in a way, and the biggest people in the world signed that and I signed it as president and it really is a form of protection,” Trump said.
Trump made the remarks after holding a luncheon with tech leaders including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other top industry executives. Earlier in the day, Trump declared that he would sign an executive order renaming artificial intelligence to “superintelligence”.
Trump has repeatedly rejected calls for stronger regulation on the AI industry amid growing public discontent and concerns over the technology as a threat to public safety. The tech industry, which has largely aligned itself with the Trump administration, has lobbied against strict regulatory oversight while arguing that it would stifle the economy.
Several reporters were denied entry to the Make America Healthy Again summit in Washington today.
In a social media post, New York Times health reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg shared a photo of herself after being “denied a press credential due to ‘limited space,’” she wrote.
Washington Post reporter Paige W. Cunningham was similarly denied entry. “I too was told there isn’t enough space. I’m outside if anyone wants to come chat,” she wrote in a social media post.
Liz Essley White, a health reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was allowed inside the summit shared on social media that, “A security guard first said he needed to escort me everywhere but now has given up I guess.”
She added, “A number of reporters denied credentials despite empty press seats.”
My colleague Melody Schreiber was allowed into the summit and her full report is here:
Donald Trump is thinking about creating a 10-person committee to oversee the AI sector. The president described his plan to reporters after meeting with tech company leaders this afternoon.
He added that tech executives had signed a “morally binding” agreement during the meeting.
“I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters.
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Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, told reporters tech companies agreed to establish “robust” internal controls and multiple layers of auditing during a meeting with Donald Trump today.
Zuckerberg added that Meta’s board of directors would commit to reviewing reports from auditors.
Reacting to the decision, attorney general Todd Blanche has just said on X:
Now for the second time, SCOTUS just granted our stay in conducting all third-country removals of illegal aliens. Again, this is entirely lawful and a critical tool for immigration enforcement. Unlike the lower court, SCOTUS waited to hear from both sides before making the decision.
To be clear, the supreme court majority has decided to allow the deportations to resume pending the final outcome of the litigation, i.e. while it hears arguments and then decides whether or not the policy is lawful.
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Democrat Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, and 24 other senators have introduced a resolution demanding that the US government do a human rights assessment of the conduct of the government of Israel in the occupied West Bank, after the “absolutely outrageous” killings of nine American citizens in the last four years, “either by violent Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces”.
“We’ve seen no accountability, no justice,” Van Hollen says in a video shared on social media, where he also calls for the immediate release of the American citizens wrongfully detained there.
Accusing the Israeli government of “gross violations of human rights”, he highlights its treatment of Palestinian people:
Imagine, if we can’t get the Israeli government to ensure accountability and justice when American citizens are killed, imagine the situation for Palestinians, who do not hold an American passport. Who are killed with impunity, whose houses and cars are burned, whose places of worship are burned, and you have the government of Israel trying to push them all off their lands in what is clearly a policy of ethnic cleansing.
Supreme court allows Trump to resume deporting people to third countries for now while justices weigh policy
The supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to resume deporting people to countries other than their own without offering them the chance to show the harms they may face, bolstering a tool Donald Trump has used for rapid expulsions as part of his immigration crackdown.
The justices granted the DOJ’s request to halt Boston-based US district judge Brian Murphy’s ruling that the Department of Homeland Security’s policy to remove migrants to so-called third countries is unlawful, while the administration appeals the matter to the supreme court. They also agreed to hear arguments in the dispute in December, with a formal ruling on policy to follow.
Its three liberal justices dissented from the decision.
Federal attorneys said the lower-court decision forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries.
The justices previously allowed the deportation flights, a core Trump administration policy, to temporarily continue when the case came before them last year. In another win for the administration, the supreme court subsequently lifted limits the judge had imposed to protect a group of men from being sent to South Sudan.
More than 25,000 people have been deported to 29 countries under the policy implemented last year, according to a tally by human rights groups, with the vast majority going to Mexico.
The administration has also carried out third-country deportations to politically unstable South Sudan, which the US state department urges Americans to avoid due to the risks of crime, kidnapping and armed conflict, as well as Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, the Central African Republic, and other nations.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr laid out an expansive vision for collecting, sharing and analyzing US health information at a Maha event hosted by a close ally and outspoken anti-vaccine activist.
Medical and lifestyle data, from doctor’s visits to exercise, should be connected and shared with the government and independent researchers, where it can be searched by AI – including potential links between vaccines and health outcomes including autism and mortality, suggested Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine skeptic.
“We need to use America’s health data to determine whether the food we eat, the chemicals we encounter, the vaccines that we’re administering, the other environmental and lifestyle exposures are contributing in one way or another to the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said at an event with the Maha Institute on Monday, with about two dozen people tuning into the live stream.
The Maha Institute is headed by Mark Gorton, who called himself “the boldest anti-vaxxer in the anti-vax conference” two weeks ago. The institute was co-founded by Tony Lyons, whose publishing house gave $4m to Kennedy through various Maha foundations with funding from political contributions and health-related corporations, according to reporting by the New York Times.
Kennedy has focused on pulling together data from all of the agencies he oversees, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Read the full report here:
Trump speaks after meeting with AI company executives
Speaking after a meeting with several AI company executives, Donald Trump said that there “was a lot of commonality in this room”.
A reminder that some of those at today’s meeting include Open AI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
When it comes to further guardrails on development, the president said that “tremendous self-regulation” should be the path forward, compared with the calls that there should be greater congressional oversight.
On the topic of datacenters, Trump insisted that the structures – which are used to house thousands of energy-intensive servers for tech companies – “are going to be very popular”.
This, despite frequent polling which shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not approve of more datacenter construction in their communities.
“The areas with datacenters have become very rich,” Trump claimed, without citing any evidence. “People have become very rich. Their taxes have gone down, not up, and a lot of good things have happened.”
In fact, several areas that are the site of datacenter development have raised concerns about water quality, noise pollution and potential impact on their electricity bills.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
Jack Smith faced Senate lawmakers on the judiciary committee for a contentious hearing that saw a number of Republicans accuse the former special prosecutor of perjury, and conducting a political witch-hunt against Donald Trump when he secured two indictments against the president that were later dismissed when he took office. Many GOP lawmakers hurled insults and accusations, with little evidence, at Smith. The former special counsel stood by his findings, and said that his investigations found “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump engaged in criminal activity. He also fended off allegations about the legality of procuring call toll records – and explained several times what these are and aren’t – outlined the persistent attacks he and former colleagues have faced from lawmakers and the president in the years since he prosecuted Trump and defended himself against the accusations that his work was politically motivated. Democrats, meanwhile, blasted their colleagues for peddling “the Big Lie” and called the hearing a “farce”.
In Washington, Trump said the US ‘can’t stifle’ AI as he unveiled a new tool to streamline federal government information. The president made his views on any guardrails on AI development clear again, after previously branding the calls as a “hoax”. Also today, Trump met with several AI company CEOs at the White House, alongside Republican House speaker Mike Johnson.
Trump also used the opportunity – now a little more than a month away from the midterm elections – to repeat his claim that the war with Iran will be over “very soon”. This despite another week of stalled negotiations between Washington and Tehran via mediators. “They’re failing very badly,” the president said. “They will not have a nuclear weapon. And oil prices are going to be tumbling down, just like they were before.” He again referred to the conflict as a “little excursion”. A reminder the war is now in its seventh month, and has caused a global energy crisis that has seen the average price of a gallon of gas increase by a dollar.
A Republican senator blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress. Mike Lee, of Utah, objected when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent. The bill, co-written with the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, would have banned the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress, including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, unless lawmakers explicitly approved it.
Jack Smith’s hearing before the Senate judiciary committee has now ended. We’ll bring you a recap shortly.
Smith pushed back against a number of Josh Hawley’s accusations, including the process the former special prosecutor went about to get records from the National Archives, which included text messages between White House officials and 44 members of Congress
“That was a request for White House phones,” Smith said, noting that these happened to have contacts with members of Congress in it. “It was also inaccurate to state that our indictment happened on 2 October. We indicted that case in August [2023],” Smith said, noting that he and his team and consulted with the Public Integrity Section of the justice department, who “ultimately concurred” that they had “followed the election year sensitivities policy”.
Hawley accuses Smith of attempting to 'interfere' with presidential election through Trump investigations
Josh Hawley – a Republican senator and fierce Trump ally – launched into his critiques of Smith from the jump.
“Your investigation, so-called, your prosecution, so-called, was nothing other than an attempt to interfere politically in a presidential election in the United States of America,” Hawley said, repeating many right-wing conspiracies about Smith’s motivations. “You twice indicted a presidential candidate.”
When Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican senator from North Carolina, asked Smith about whether there was anything he would have changed in the way he handled his investigations into Donald Trump, the former special prosecutor said that he learned, throughout his inquiries, that if he only stuck to confining his comments to the courtoom “people can unfairly malign your team and unfairly malign you and your case”.
He added:
There are things being put out daily that are patently untrue … I’m not advocating that prosecutors in the future start going on the internet every day responding to comments … I do agree that prosecutors in the future need to learn to be able to communicate to the outside world because I believe strongly we did our investigation the right way, but I limited myself in who I talked to about that.
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Jack Smith tells Darline Graham her brother would have 'likely' been a witness in the case against Trump
Republican senator Darline Graham, the sister of late senator Lindsey Graham, used her time questioning Jack Smith to accuse the former special counsel of adding “stress” to her brother’s life through subpoenas.
The South Carolina senator, appointed to replace her brother who died in July, told Smith that he should be “ashamed” of himself and that it made her “sick” to think that Smith’s subpoenas of Lindsey Graham’s phone records would have stressed him out.
“Do you really believe that Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in his possession?” Darline Graham asked.
But Smith responded, saying Lindsey Graham was “a patriot” and was not the target of his investigation.
“He likely would have been a witness in our case,” Smith added.
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Cory Booker rails against Republicans 'gaslighting' public by perpetuating lie that Trump won 2020 election
Back at the hearing, Democratic senator Cory Booker accused Republicans of “a farce”, levelling that they were “gaslighting” the public by “continuing to perpetuate the big lie in America that Donald Trump was somehow cheated out of the 2020 election.”
This big lie has gone on [long] enough. We have people who are serving at the highest offices in the land that repeat the big lie. We have people running for office in the Republican party that can’t even tell the truth.
And today’s farce – today’s gaslighting – cannot obscure the mountain of evidence and what Americans saw with their own eyes.
A visibly frustrated Booker lamented that this was unfair to Jack Smith and his family, but also to the American people who continue to struggle with problems including high gas prices, lack of health insurance coverage, and childcare costs.
The New Jersey senator ended, addressing Smith:
What do the Republicans in control of Congress do with their closing statement before an election? They carry out the big lie. They persecute prosecutors. They do Trump’s bidding. They choose Trump over truth, corruption and crimes over the constitution, and I’ve had enough of it.
This hearing is a farce. And I’m sorry for what you and your family are enduring as a result.
Utah Republican blocks bill to ban Trump from demolishing Kennedy Center without Congress’s approval
Away from the hearing for a moment, a Republican senator last night blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress.
Mike Lee, of Utah, objected when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent. The bill, co-written with the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, would have banned the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress, including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, unless lawmakers explicitly approved it.
“First, he destroyed its programming, and now, he wants to destroy the building itself,” Merkley wrote in a statement. “All because the law says Trump can’t put his name on the building.” He called the president’s threats “straight out of the authoritarian playbook”.
Murkowski, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds the center, said last week that lawmakers had authorized and funded substantial renovation work, but “what was not authorized is a demolition of the Kennedy Center”.
Here’s Joseph’s report on the latest twist in one of the longest running legal sagas of Trump’s second term:
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Ted Cruz angrily questions Jack Smith, says Javert from Les Mis would look in 'astonishment'
Republican senator Ted Cruz used his time to admonish Jack Smith for weaponizing the justice department to subpoena Republican members of Congress and conservative organizations during his investigation into Trump.
Cruz insinuated that Smith had used his power as the special counsel to target Republicans, asking Smith, “Is it a crime to be a Republican?” Smith replied: “Absolutely not.”
Cruz became increasingly angry with Smith during questioning, speaking over Smith as he tried to answer questions.
“Javert from Les Mis would look at you with astonishment,” Cruz told Smith.
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Jack Smith hearing: Who is Timothy Thibault?
Throughout Smith’s hearing, Republican senators have repeatedly brought up Timothy Thibault, a former FBI agent who was in charge of the Arctic Frost investigation and accused of political bias.
Republican senator Katie Britt asked Smith multiple times to confirm or deny whether Thibault had engaged in political bias, even though Thibault retired from the FBI months before Smith was made special counsel.
Thibault oversaw paperwork to open the election conspiracy case known as Arctic Frost, which has become an increasingly polarizing topic among lawmakers. Thibault was accused of making political statements on social media, which some Republicans have used to point to a larger accusation that the Biden administration weaponized the Justice Department.
Thibault denied accusations that political partisanship impacted his work.
Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, asked Smith about his work with Republicans throughout his investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The former special prosecutor said he found it “very hard” to understand why his probe was considered to be partisan when the “strongest witnesses” were Republicans like Rusty Bowers, a former Arizona state representative, and former vice-president Mike Pence.
“The criminal scheme we investigated was predicated upon Donald Trump preying on party loyalty. He preyed on party loyalty and fear,” Smith said. “The reality is, one of the reasons, our democracy held up. One of the reasons he was not able to take power, even though, he was seeking to do these things is because Republicans stood up.”
Jack Smith’s presence at a February 2024 basketball game briefly became a point of argument between Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Eric Schmitt.
Schmitt accused Smith of attending an Atlanta Hawks v Golden State Warriors game in Atlanta, insinuating he was in the area when prosecutor Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis revealed she had a relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Smith denied he was in Atlanta.
But Smith later said he attended an Iowa Hawkeyes v. Maryland Terrapins game in February 2024 to watch Caitlin Clark.
“You have your teams wrong,” Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told Schmitt after Smith clarified.
“I would just say, for a US senator to have false information, and imply, based on confusion about the name of a team – which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports – and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a ‘dirtbag’ is something that deserves an apology,” Klobuchar said.
Republican senator attacks Smith with accusations of perjury, calling him a 'dirtbag'
Republican senator Eric Schmitt used his time questioning to attack Jack Smith, accusing Smith of potentially committing perjury for denying that he attended a basketball game in Atlanta in February 2024.
Smith said he did not recall attending a basketball game in Atlanta between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks on 3 February 2024. But Schmitt said he had obtained text messages between Smith’s staff that indicated he had attended the game.
“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” Schmitt told Smith.
Schmitt aggressively questioned Smith about whether he violated the DoJ’s Public Integrity Section recommendation by filing a superseeding indictment against president Donald Trump.
At one point, Schmitt asked Smith why he was writing down notes during the hearing. Though, he retracted his question.
Schmitt ended his testimony by telling Smith he was “not a hero” and that he would “go down as a total dirtbag”.
'You make me want to throw up in my mouth': Republican senator scolds Smith
In a testy exchange with Republican senator John Kennedy of Lousiana, Smith fended off an accusation that the former attorney general Merrick Garland consulted with Joe Biden after Smith informed Garland, twice, that he was going to prosecute Trump.
“I have no idea what he did. My job as a prosecutor … was to make an independent decision. And attorney general Garland could have countermanded that decision,” Smith said.
The former special counsel repeated that he obtained call toll records, not phone records, as part of his investigation, and pushed back on Kennedy accusing him of breaking the Speech and Debate Clause of the US constitution.
In closing, Kennedy slammed Smith: “You make me want to throw up in my mouth.” However, the former prosecutor appeared unfazed and did not respond.
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Trump again claims that Iran was will end 'very soon', despite stalled negotiations and just over a month until midterm elections
As is the case with most of Trump’s public appearances at the moment – now just 35 days until the midterm elections – he repeated his claim that the war with Iran will be over “very soon”. This despite another week of stalled negotiations between Washington and Tehran via mediators.
“They’re failing very badly,” the president said. “They will not have a nuclear weapon. And oil prices are going to be tumbling down, just like they were before.”
He again referred to the conflict as a “little excursion”. A reminder the war is now in its seventh month, and has caused a global energy crisis that has seen the average price of a gallon of gas increase by a dollar.
“I think in the years to come, they’ll be writing books and they’ll be writing the history of our country, and they’ll say that’s one of the most important things that we did,” Trump said.
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Trump says we 'can't stifle' AI as he unveils new tool to streamline federal government information
Donald Trump is now speaking at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington DC, where he is unveiling a new AI tool to make it easier to access federal government information.
“They’re always saying it’s too complicated, too complicated. It’s not complicated any more,” the president said.
He also used his time at the podium to make his views on the development of artificial intelligence clear. A reminder that Trump has branded the calls for greater guardrails a “hoax”.
“This is one more example of why I will never stifle the growth of technology that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution,” the president said today. “We can’t stifle it.”
In a back and forth with Durbin, the former special counsel set out exactly what call toll records are – as I set out earlier.
“My office did secure toll records from third parties, third-party telephone companies, in the course of our investigation that were records for members of Congress,” Smith confirmed, and said they “were materially relevant to our investigation”.
Smith said that these records corroborated evidence that Donald Trump and his co-conspirators were seeking to “exploit the violence on January 6 in furtherance of their criminal scheme. They were taking the fact that law enforcement officers had been brutally assaulted at this institution, and using that to seek to delay the proceedings further in violation of the law.”
The former special counsel explained why these records proved useful, despite the fact they didn’t contain any content. For example it allowed investigators to determine how many phones former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump campaign official at the time, had and used to make calls.
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Smith noted, in response to questions from Chuck Grassley, that when he first became special counsel, he did not have a government phone or government computer.
“In the initial days when I was appointed and I was still living in the Netherlands, I did use a personal device and email to communicate with folks in the justice department,” Smith said. “What I did when I got government accounts is made sure, to the best of my ability, that information was forwarded to government accounts, so it would be within the Federal Records Act. I sought at all times to comply with the Federal Records Act, as I expected my attorneys to do as well.”
During his opening remarks, Smith stood by his investigations and his findings, and also noted that his work – and that of his colleagues – is “often weakened by attacks” from lawmakers and officials.
He noted the effort from the Trump administration to vilify career prosecutors and FBI agents “simply because of their unwavering commitment to the fair and impartial administration of justice without regard for any personal costs”.
“I myself have been threatened with jail by the President of the United States,” Smith added.
The former special counsel noted that he would be unable to discuss the contents of his second volume of his report – which focuses on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. This comes as a result of a federal judge’s order, that I mentioned earlier, which bars the release of the specific report.
Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said that his Republican colleagues have “spent months spreading baseless conspiracy theories” about Jack Smith’s investigations “instead of hearing from him directly”.
Durbin has long advocated for the former special counsel to defend his work, despite GOP lawmakers on the panel refusing to invite him to Capitol Hill.
“President Trump’s misconduct was egregious, differing in kind and scale from what we had seen by any president before him,” Durbin said. “Investigating misconduct by government officials requires scrupulous care. Thankfully, Mr Smith, who is here today and will be under oath, and his team of nonpartisan career prosecutors had the necessary experience to tackle this assignment.”
Durbin went on to accuse the president and many congressional Republicans of attempting to smear Smith and manufacture conspiracies about his team in order “to whitewash the history of the 2020 election, and the January 6 insidious attack on this Capitol building”.
“They decry Mr Smith for following the facts of the law and say nothing, nothing about a president who continued to break the law in an effort to prevent the truth from coming to light,” Durbin added.
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Grassley accuses former special counsel Jack Smith of targeting 'entire Republican party' throughout investigations
Chuck Grassley – the Republican chair of the Senate judiciary committee – is delivering his opening remarks now.
The senator from Iowa alleges that while Smith has claimed his focus was on the January 6 Capitol riots, the former special counsel’s “own conduct contradicts that assertion”.
“When his team subpoenaed records, sometimes the date ranges extended weeks, months, or years before and after January 6,” Grassley said, adding that Smith subpoenaed and obtained information on Republican groups as early as 2019 and as late as 2023.
“You see, that’s what you must do if your case is designed to map out and target the entire Republican Party,” Grassley added.
It’s worth noting that when it comes to the investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Smith legally obtained phone toll records – which were obtained through a grand jury. These records show the date, time, and duration of calls, but not the actual content of the communications.
These are often secured by prosecutors in connection with investigations.
For some context, it’s worth remembering that Smith had a two-volume report of his findings as a result of his criminal investigations – that resulted in two indictments against the president after his first term. The first focused on Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, while the second on the president’s retention of classified documents.
However, in February, a Trump-appointed federal judge permanently barred the justice department from releasing the second volume of Smith’s report.
Aileen Cannon condemned Smith for what she called a “brazen stratagem” of compiling a report even after she had dismissed the case on grounds that he was unlawfully appointed to his role.
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Ahead of Jack Smith’s testimony before lawmakers on the Senate judiciary committee today, the former special prosecutor plans to say that his investigations yielded “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that President was a Republican or a Democrat”, according to a copy of Smith’s opening remarks obtained by MS Now.
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Former special prosecutor Jack Smith set to appear for contentious Capitol Hill hearing
On Capitol Hill today, former special prosecutor Jack Smith will face questions from lawmakers on the Senate judiciary committee at 9am ET.
It’s set to be a showdown after many Republicans have publicly slammed Smith – who led the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s actions ahead of the January 6 insurrection in 2021, efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. A number of GOP lawmakers have sought to investigate Smith’s move to collect call toll records and messages of Republican members of Congress as part of his investigations.
Many on today’s panel – particularly the chair – Chuck Grassley – are expected to grill Smith after accusing him for years of politically motivated scrutiny, and acting on behalf of a “weaponized” justice department under Joe Biden.
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Donald Trump is in Washington today. We’ll hear from the president at 10am ET when he unveils a new AI tool that is designed to make it easier to access information from the federal government. Following this, the president will welcome several AI company CEOs to the White House for a meeting, alongside Republican House speaker Mike Johnson.
A reminder that Trump and many members of his party – including Johnson – have dismissed the idea of guardrails on AI development for fear of losing ground to China.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as we hear from the president later.
Cuba’s top trade official dismissed reports that companies linked to US president Donald Trump had come to Cuba this year to talk business, while calling the US trade embargo the biggest impediment to the roll-out of historic free-market reforms.
Cuban foreign trade and deputy prime minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga said neither he nor any other Cuban official had met with representatives from Trump-tied businesses.
“I have no knowledge of any company directly linked to president Trump having made contact with Cuba,” Perez-Oliva told Reuters.
News organizations ask court to bar White House enforcement of access ban until case is resolved
Three news outlets that Donald Trump banned from White House have asked a federal court to extend his block until the case is resolved.
The media organizations say the administration has “persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban” despite a judge’s restraining order – including selectively barring CNN from White House pool duties.
“The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstitute a complete ban of CNN, MS Now, and POLITICO if allowed the opportunity,” lawyers for CNN, MS Now and Politico wrote in a filing late on Monday.
“Because the ban is an unlawful assault on the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms and will inflict irreparable harm on Plaintiffs and the public if not restrained, this Court should preliminarily enjoin its enforcement pending the resolution of this case,” the filing said.
A two-week temporary restraining order on Trump’s ban of the three organizations, issued by US district judge Timothy Kelly last week, restored the outlets’ White House access, but expires on 8 October.
The preliminary injunction requested in Monday’s filing would extend the White House access until the case is finally resolved.
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Former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith faces Senate hearing over 'abuse of authority' accusations
Former US special counsel Jack Smith will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, fielding questions about his past investigations into president Donald Trump as the Justice Department ramps up scrutiny of his work.
Republican lawmakers, who have repeatedly blasted Smith for what they see as vindictive, politically driven prosecutions of Trump and his allies, will likely allege Smith abused his authority and targeted conservatives in his investigations.
“Jack Smith must answer for what he did to hundreds of Republican groups and individuals,” Judiciary chair Chuck Grassley said in a statement.
Smith plans to tell senators that he stands by his prosecutions of Trump and will accuse the Trump administration of vilifying him and former members of his team, according to a copy of his opening statement seen by Reuters.
“I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the president or others,” Smith plans to tell lawmakers.
Democrats will likely defend Smith’s investigations as holding Trump and others accountable for unlawful actions and argue Republicans are the ones trying to carry out vindictive justice on behalf of Trump.
Smith, who brought two criminal cases against Trump over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term, has defended his record. In court filings and public testimony, Smith has said his investigations followed Justice Department policy and were not influenced by politics. He has been the constant target of Trump, who has called for Smith’s prosecution.
Trump to host Zuckerberg and Amodei for AI talks later today
Donald Trump will host a meeting today with House speaker Mike Johnson and tech executives like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei to discuss AI, as calls ramp up for more regulation of the fast-developing technology.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI president Greg Brockman are also expected to attend, separate sources familiar with the planning told Reuters.
The gathering will focus on finding a balance between innovation and oversight, Republican Johnson said on Monday, as concerns about rogue AI agents’ potential to harm humans have seeped into the public consciousness, boosting calls for regulation.
Trump has called the fears of AI’s threat to humanity a “hoax.“
Trump to speak at America's 'golden age' event
Donald Trump will give a speech as part of an event celebrating America’s ‘golden age’ at 10am EDT.
The president is set to discuss a new tool, America.gov, which is aimed at improving citizens’ access to federal government services.
Other participants are expected to include SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, US secretary of state Marco Rubio, energy secretary Chris Wright, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman and former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The event takes place on the same day that Trump meets at the White House with House speaker Mike Johnson and artificial intelligence leaders.
Trump denies offering Iran sanctions relief for nuclear concessions
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
President Donald Trump said he has offered Iran nothing to end the war, rejecting media reports that cited US officials saying he was willing to ease sanctions and release frozen funds for “concrete” steps regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
“This is untrue. I offered them NOTHING,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
Axios and CNN both reported, citing unidentified US officials, that Trump was willing to give Iran sanctions relief and free Iranian funds as part of a final deal on the condition that Iran showed “concrete progress” on the nuclear issue.
It comes as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Trump was a “big liar”, citing the president’s statements on nuclear weapons and other issues.
“The enemy (US) knows that Iran is not after nuclear weapons,” spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said. “Their issue with Iran is not its nuclear programme but rather its vastness, which they want to destroy.“
Trump has cited preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb as a key goal of the war, along with ending its ability to attack its neighbours and creating conditions for Iranians to topple their leadership. Iran does not have nuclear weapons and denies it wants to develop them, but argues it has the right to a domestic nuclear energy capacity.
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, in an interview with the CBS show Face the Nation, said Tehran was ready for talks on its nuclear program and other issues, but would not accept “bullying or coercion”.
“Iran is not seeking war, but will defend itself against pressure, threats and attacks,” Pezeshkian said, adding that it had already agreed that “we’re not supposed to develop nuclear weapons”.
US and Iranian officials spoke separately with mediators on Monday as part of a renewed effort to end the seven-month war, according to officials of both countries.
In other developments:
Anthropic will caution investors that artificial intelligence could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity” in its IPO prospectus. As Anthropic prepares for an IPO listing, which could value the AI company at a monumental $2tn, it dedicated almost a third of its prospectus to discussing concerns around AI safety. The news comes as OpenAI has halted the release of its next AI model over safety concerns, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Trump will be on the campaign trail this week – hosting rallies in Durant, Oklahoma, on Thursday, Mobile, Alabama, on Friday and Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday. The first two states are GOP strongholds, and Trump has pushed voters to turn out to the polls and pretend the president was at the top of the ballot this midterm cycle.
Pete Hegseth ordered the defense department to “protect and uphold the reliability of America’s voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors” in a 22 September memo. Hegseth’s order comes as concerns about artificial intelligence are on the rise, but also as the Trump administration has spread misinformation about voter fraud. In July, Trump accused China of interfering in the 2020 election, which he lost.
Andrew Bailey said he is stepping down as one of the FBI’s two deputy directors after just over a year in the role – a short tenure that unfolded as he helped oversee several of Trump’s election‑related investigations. Bailey was appointed in August 2025 to serve alongside Dan Bongino at a moment of sharp tension between the FBI and justice department leadership over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Pope Leo addressed concerns about artificial intelligence and the war in Ukraine during a press conference onboard the papal plane today. Saying that concerns about AI are not “fake news”, the first US pope appeared to criticize Trump, who called concerns about AI a “hoax” during a UN address last week.
