President Donald Trump is on his way to Kansas in the latest in a series of stops where he’s trying to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
The visits come as Republicans pour money into Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa amid concerns about voter enthusiasm.
Trump won Kansas by 16 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, but now Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces a tough challenge from Democrat Adam
Hamilton.
Earlier Monday, Trump directed the government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, first lady Melania Trump. The order creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue.
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“It’s old, it’s tired, it’s beaten up, it’s useless,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House to campaign in Kansas.
He said the Interior Department has the right to undertake the makeover.
“All they want to do is fix up their property. It’s been allowed to get run down,” Trump said.
The president announced plans on social media on Sunday to close the golf course for 15 months, starting on Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old East Potomac Park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers.
On Monday, Trump said the work would start immediately.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised the prospect of a meeting with the three leaders to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump told reporters on Monday that he “would do” the meeting, which would occur next month in China, but that he expected it would focus on denuclearization efforts.
But asked whether he would be willing to negotiate the end of the war in Ukraine without its leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump appeared to indicate yes, saying: “Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not.”
“I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine,” Trump said.
There may be “one-off, isolated incidents” of people voting illegally, but the federal Justice Department has failed to prove its claim that the state has 20,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote, Democrat Rob Bonta said at a press conference.
His remarks came hours after the federal government announced it arrested 28 people in California, accusing them of crimes including making false statements on a naturalization application and submitting fraudulent voter registrations.
The arrests were “a drop in the bucket” given the state has 23 million registered voters, Bonta said, adding that the state will prevail in the federal government’s lawsuit accusing California of having noncitizens on its voter rolls.
“We are not impressed by their case,” Bonta said. “Our north star is the law and the facts, and they have neither on their side.”
For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is seeking to build opposition for the upcoming annual vote at the U.N. General Assembly condemning America’s decades-long economic embargo against Havana.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., hosted a “Cuba Libre” event Monday with a panel of dissidents and former prisoners from the island country in an effort to highlight the alleged oppressive behavior of the Communist Party government.
“This is the oppression that Havana wants to hide,” Waltz said during the event at the U.N. headquarters.
A few feet away, Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. Ernesto Soberón Guzmán gathered diplomats and allies from around the world to protest what he called a sham event against Cuba.
The order creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue. That panel was set to hold its first meeting Monday.
“Beginning today we will change the reality of women’s health,” Melania Trump said. “Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”
The president, who spoke after his wife, said the order will “promote new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women.” The order is also intended to promote diagnostic technology and improve treatment.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force.
The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials.
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The U.S. is extending the compliance timeframe for a rule that will impose stricter regulations on shipments valued under $800.
The rule change, which was set to go into effect on Thursday, would, among other things, impact Americans who buy their personal medications in Canada, including those drugs not available in the U.S.
The extension will last 90 days, until Jan. 20, 2027. Thereafter, the exemption will be indefinitely suspended, and medications mailed from outside the U.S. will require additional data and a bond guarantee.
The extension gives extra time for compliance, the CBP said Monday, and supports “efforts to identify illegal and unsafe goods before they reach U.S. communities.”
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a news conference Monday that the charges included unlawfully voting as a noncitizen, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and “knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process.”
The charges come after the Justice Department sued the state last week, alleging there are likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots to participate in the November election. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the federal government has failed to prove there are noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
At least eight of the 28 people charged allegedly voted illegally more than once, McCotter said.
“This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections,” he said.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter on Monday walked reporters through how the Trump administration culled a list of 20,000 California voters it believes to be noncitizens.
The administration is currently suing state election officials to prevent them from counting mail ballots from the alleged noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
McCotter said at a news conference that the government started with California’s publicly available voter file, which includes basic but not detailed voter information. Then, it “enriched and cross-referenced” that information with other federal and public data.
Finally, McCotter said, the administration removed from the list anyone for whom citizenship evidence existed in federal databases, and the Department of Homeland Security “manually verified” the rest.
McCotter didn’t explain what he meant by “manually verified,” but acknowledged the Trump administration hadn’t yet proven that the voters were noncitizens.
Since states run elections, federal databases are often an incomplete and outdated source of information about voter eligibility.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday the election climate is holding firm for Democrats as he campaigned for Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a heavily contested Ohio congressional district that’s crucial for majority control of the House.
Jeffries also slapped back at President Trump’s abrupt decision to waive sanctions on Russia and said there will be a bipartisan effort in the House to pursue a new sanctions package the president wouldn’t have the ability to waive.
“It’s shocking, but not surprising, that an American president would do so much to undermine the cause of democracy, freedom and dignity for the Ukrainian people,” Jeffries told The Associated Press after visiting church services in Toledo.
Jeffries, who’s in line to become House speaker if Democrats win back the majority, has traveled to some 50 cities campaigning for Democratic candidates.
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The order, first reported by USA Today, will create a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a task force at the White House focused on the issue.
Melania Trump is expected to speak about prioritizing research and easing taboos around discussions of women’s health issues during a signing ceremony Monday, the White House said.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force. The order doesn’t include specific funding goals.
The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials. “It was abundantly clear that women’s healthcare needs to be modernized, the research gap closed, and further, the need to accelerate the discovery of treatments and cures was glaring,” Melania Trump said in a statement.
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President Trump has a new pitch for Republican candidates: they’re easy on the eyes.
“Look at this beautiful guy,” Trump said at a Saturday rally in Kentucky, referring to U.S. House candidate Ed Gallrein, a former U.S. Navy SEAL with an angular face who stood nearby the stage. “Central casting.”
That’s a common refrain from Trump, who owned the Miss Universe beauty pageant and grew his clout on the reality television show “The Apprentice” before entering politics. Aesthetics have long been part of the president’s measuring stick, either as a source of praise or target for ridicule.
Now, Trump is deploying his handsomeness appraisals as he boosts Republican candidates in a midterm election which already includes debates over which candidates are more masculine. The outcome will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress or Trump faces emboldened Democratic opposition in Washington.
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The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov were both asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to use a possible meeting with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to try to negotiate a deal on Ukraine behind Kyiv’s back.
Rubio told reporters in Uzbekistan that “I think there’s been talks of a meeting. I don’t know anything’s been finalized. But the president has been clear he’d like the war in Ukraine and Russia to end.”
Peskov, meanwhile, said separately that while the possibility of such a meeting has been mentioned, “no substantive proposals or agreements neither regarding the meeting itself nor its potential agenda and content have been discussed or put forward by anyone.”
He added that Russia appreciates Washington’s ongoing mediation efforts, but “a final settlement is certainly impossible without the participation of someone from Kyiv who is prepared to take on responsibility.”
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley put aside their political rancor this weekend — at least for one song — during a street fair that had the two candidates dancing near one another.
Lawler hit a little air guitar. Conley was doing a lot of stomping and clapping.
“Great time at the Suffern Street Fair — even found opportunity for a little bipartisan dance off with @CaitforNewYork!” Lawler wrote in a social media video that included a video of the two opponents awkwardly grooving in close proximity. “Even during the heat of a campaign, it’s good to have a little fun.”
The race in New York’s Hudson Valley is considered one of the country’s most competitive contests this fall.
The Democratic congresswoman carried a dull kitchen knife and two pairs of rusty scissors through a county fairgrounds south of Seattle.
She handed them to Beverly Phoenix, who sat hunched over a table in the back of an exhibit hall, volunteering to help neighbors breathe new life into old tools. Now she offered advice to a member of Congress on using a Dremel, a handheld oscillating device, to sharpen the blades.
It was an unassuming campaign stop that reinforced Gluesenkamp Perez’s message of self sufficiency. The owner of an auto repair shop with her husband, Gluesenkamp Perez has positioned herself as someone who can help her party bridge the divide between urban and rural, blue collar and white collar, left and right.
If Democrats are going to take back control of the U.S. House, they need to hold districts like this one in Southwest Washington, which twice elected Gluesenkamp Perez while also supporting Trump in all of his campaigns.
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Chris Martinez feels like Donald Trump has made a fool of him.
The 28-year-old maintenance technician from Casa Grande, Arizona, voted for the Republican president expecting to get a thriving economy and no wars.
Instead, gas prices are so high that Martinez returned one of his vehicles to the lender, he shifted his food shopping to a discount grocer and he has watched as the United States has spent months in conflict with Iran.
“He’s doing nothing for us, to benefit us,” Martinez said. “And it kind of sucks because I got duped and I feel like a dummy.”
As a group, Latinos shifted toward Trump two years ago, helping return him to the White House with a Republican-controlled Congress. Now, many like Martinez are souring on the president and his party, which could upend the balance of power in Washington in the Nov. 3 elections.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to reporters in Uzbekistan and was asked to comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s remarks to NBC, in which he said Washington’s intelligence sharing “was blocked for some period of time and then it was deblocked.”
“I don’t know where he’s getting these things from or why he’s saying these things to the press,” Rubio said. “There’s been no pause.”
Zelenskyy should be focused on “bringing an end to this war,” Rubio said. “That’s what we want everybody to be focused on,” he added.
Rubio stressed that “we want the war to end.” “We see nothing good coming from this war, and we see a lot of downside to it, including the very real risk of escalation” and the conflict “spreading into another country,” he said.
The economic strain is becoming a growing political concern for Republicans in states they’ve long dominated. President Trump is heading to Kansas on Monday and Iowa later in the week, the latest in a series of stops where he’s trying to energize his base in the final weeks before the midterm elections.
The visits come as Republicans pour money into Senate races in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa amid concerns about voter enthusiasm. The anxiety may be especially notable in Kansas — a state Trump won by 16 percentage points against Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024 — as Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces a tough challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton. Democrats haven’t won a Senate election in Kansas in 94 years.
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Trump on Sunday endorsed embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late in his reelection campaign, a coveted boost because of Trump’s popularity but one that the American had withheld for months as the vote neared and the leaders’ strategies in the Middle East diverged.
Trump said in a post on social media that Netanyahu “has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combating the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Israelis are set to vote Oct. 27, in the first national elections since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The absence of an endorsement was a setback for the Likud politician, who had billed his tight ties to the Republican president as a selling point for staying in power.
It was not immediately clear what impact the endorsement would have on what is expected to be a tight race. Trump is still popular in Israel, but many Israelis, including leading commentators, have expressed disappointment over the inconclusive outcome of the Iran war and Trump’s ceasefire proposal.
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Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Donald Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 8-15 by AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reveals that Trump’s standing on the economy has fallen among AAPI adults over the course of his second term.
About one-quarter of AAPI adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president overall. Only about 2 in 10 approve of his performance on the economy, which the vast majority of AAPI adults see as one of the most important issues for the upcoming election.
But although AAPI adults trust Democrats more than Republicans on a wide range of issues, views of the Democratic Party itself are still split.
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