The U.S.-Ukraine alliance is careening toward a possible breaking point, with Moscow strengthened by President Donald Trump’s recent rejection of new Russia sanctions and Kyiv undermined by disruptions in satellite support for its drones during the war.
Trump is meanwhile hoping $5,000 checks can boost Republican turnout in November’s midterm elections — but even some of his devoted fans doubt the government will pay them. The offering has become a go-to tactic for Trump when he faces a political jam.
A federal judge on Monday questioned the Trump administration’s claims about its efforts to redevelop a historic Washington golf course, challenging its contention that a recent tree-cutting spree was not an indication that work was moving forward on the project, which is temporarily blocked by a court order.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has denied slowing down Ukraine’s satellite internet service in remarks to reporters on Tuesday and pushed responsibility to Elon Musk’s Starlink company.
“We haven’t pulled anything back,” Hegseth said before adding that “there are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to.”
He offered no elaboration on what terms of service Ukraine needed to comply to but said that “Starlink has the option to make those decisions.”
Starlink is the civilian version of SpaceX’s satellite internet service and is controlled by Musk while Starshield is the military-grade version.
Last week, Musk, a Trump ally, intimated in comments on social media that Ukraine was using Starshield and, thus, questions about the service should be directed to the Pentagon.
David Crowley was joined by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin for the rally on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on the first day of early voting in the battleground state.
Crowley and his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, urged supporters to cast their absentee ballots in person during the two-week early voting period. About 96,000 fewer absentee ballots have been requested by mail this year compared with 2022.
Crowley blames the drop on attacks against the U.S. Postal Service made by the Trump administration.
“A lot of people are reluctant to actually mail in their ballot,” he says.
Gavin Denning, a 19-year-old sophomore at UW, voted on Tuesday before attending the Crowley event. He says the chance to vote in person before Election Day is a “great opportunity” that he was glad to take advantage of.
Trump says he can’t discuss what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about at their meeting on Monday.
“I can’t do that now,” Trump said when asked about the meeting on Tuesday.
While the Pentagon wouldn’t confirm the meeting, Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office, told the AP the meeting was warm and that Hegseth thanked Israel on behalf of Americans for hosting U.S. troops.
Spielman also said they discussed offensive and defensive capabilities regarding threats in the region.
The meeting comes as Trump has signaled a willingness to resume hostilities with Iran following the U.S. midterm elections.
Van Orden said in a debate Tuesday that the war, which he supports, is “making it exponentially harder for Republicans to keep the House and Senate.”
Van Orden is a retired Navy SEAL who spent 26 years on active duty before being elected to Congress in 2022. Democrats are targeting his western Wisconsin swing district this year with political activist Rebecca Cooke, repeating the 2024 election Cooke narrowly lost.
Van Orden says, given his military background, “I know about war,” and he believes the U.S.’s stated intention of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is justified. He says Cooke is unwilling to ever go to war, even when it’s necessary.
Cooke, a part-time waitress and former small business owner, says she believes in diplomacy and economic sanctions first.
But Van Orden says diplomacy and sanctions didn’t work in Iran.
“They only respond to this horrible thing that is war,” he said.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he would endorse Vice President JD Vance if Vance runs to succeed him.
“I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it. You know, who would believe that?” Trump said of Vance, who was standing behind him.
He called Vance “a very talented person” and “a very good person,” but said it was too soon to talk about the future.
“It’s early, very early right now. We have to get through the midterms. We’ll see how it goes,” he said.
Vance told journalist Mark Halperin in an interview that he still hasn’t decided about running, but if he does, he expects Trump would back him.
Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio, is pushing back against an unattributed ad circulating online that features her long-estranged mother calling her “a liar” and insinuating she has mental health issues.
The ad began circulating overnight Tuesday, two weeks before Election Day.
Ohio’s former public health director is in a tight race with Republican billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. His campaign did not address whether it knew who produced and paid for the spot, but said Acton has “some serious problems with the truth.”
Acton and her brother blamed the ad on the Ramaswamy campaign, accusing them of “a despicable low” by turning sexual abuse she endured as a child into a political talking point.
The U.S. president is upping the pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a deal with his country’s Russian invaders after relations between the two men soured again.
“We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”
He says if that doesn’t happen, “I think it’s going to be a very bad thing.”
He also claimed Europe is growing weary of the conflict, though European countries have been trying to offset any scaling back of U.S. supplies.
The president says he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Stephen Hubbard, who is the first American known to be convicted of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.
“Just stick with me … I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said about a potential deal to free Hubbard, who was sentenced in Russia to nearly seven years in prison in 2024.
He confirmed the administration has been “focused” on Hubbard, saying, “It’s time to have Mr. Hubbard back.”
The U.S. president left the door open to backing far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, a potential front-runner in next spring’s presidential election.
“Well, I don’t know her. I haven’t met her,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about a potential endorsement.
Still, he said he believed she was badly treated and said she was the victim of weaponization. Trump didn’t elaborate, but Le Pen was found guilty twice of embezzling public funds in France.
“She’s the conservative voice,” Trump added.
The president says he’ll be the “arbitrator” of who deserves the reward money for his new anti-fraud initiatives.
“I am going to do something which I think people will like,” Trump said. “I will be the arbitrator of all these decisions.”
The White House earlier Tuesday said the Justice Department will administer the program. Successful whistleblowers can receive up to $30,000, and Trump insisted they will get their money “immediately.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is accusing Iran of using Nazi tactics in the Strait of Hormuz by targeting commercial shipping, which he says is a throwback to World War II.
In an interview with the Indian outlet News1, Rubio said Tuesday that people should pay more attention to what Iran is doing and trying to do to close the strait.
“We have a nation-state that is openly saying, ‘We are targeting commercial vessels; we are trying to kill sailors who have nothing to do with the war; we are trying to sink commercial ships,’” Rubio said. “You haven’t seen that since the second world war. They are doing Nazi U-boat tactics. And that’s what the world should be rallying around and condemning.”
By contrast, he said that U.S. forces in the region are defending commercial shipping and the vast majority of attempted Iranian attacks have been thwarted.
President Donald Trump says he plans to spend more than $400 million on the Nov. 3 midterm elections, a figure that would represent the vast majority of his super PAC, MAGA Inc.
In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump claims already to have spent more than $300 million, “on Advertising, Direct and Indirect Voter Contact, Rallies, Rally Arenas, Telerallies, Get Out the Vote Programs, Election Integrity, and more.”
Trump had boasted early in the year about building a political war chest exceeding $1.5 billion.
However, some Republican strategists had complained late in the summer and early fall that Trump was late to unleash money held in MAGA Inc, his main super PAC, which posted $416 million on hand as of the end of August.
As of Tuesday, Trump’s super PAC and aligned groups had spent $191 million on advertising, the lion’s share and costliest of all their expenses. They had another $65 million booked through Nov. 3, making the ad total $256 million, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm.
After weeks of the U.S.-Ukraine alliance careening toward a possible breaking point, the leaders of Ukraine, Norway and Finland said Tuesday that progress has been renewed to bring an end to the years-long war with Moscow.
“U.S. and European teams have done substantive work on key issues together with Ukraine,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said at a press conference Tuesday.
He added that President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff will be flying to St. Petersburg on Wednesday to meet with Russian leaders and exchange ideas from the Oslo meeting.
“Today was a good day for peace,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said.
Michael Bloomberg is making a major late investment in the midterms, spending about $80 million to help bolster Democrats in the races’ final stretch.
Howard Wolfson, a longtime adviser to the former New York City mayor, said the bulk of the spending — about $50 million — would focus on the House. That includes about $16 million to the House Majority PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing Democrats, and $24 million to the group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The spending was first reported by the New York Times.
Wolfson said Bloomberg has long been a supporter of House Democrats and believes the money will be able to move the needle.
“I think the Democrats are well positioned for a good night, but there’s a big difference between Democratic control of the House at 218 and Democratic control of the house at 230. And the larger the majority the better,” he said.
As for the timing, he said: “Our view is that late giving provides you with more information to make decisions” about where to spend.
The two are announcing a new $25 million effort to incentivize Americans to report cases of fraud.
“This is so big and important, and there’s never been anything like it,” Trump said.
As he kicked off the event, Trump called Vance, who he’s tapped to lead the administration’s anti-fraud efforts, and his task force “JD and the untouchables.”
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, 44, told a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday that she’s currently the youngest woman in the chamber, but she’s excited for Ashley Hinson, 43, to try and change that.
Britt joined Hinson, the congresswoman running to be Iowa’s next senator, for a conversation on how the two Republican moms bring a rare perspective to Congress. Britt and Hinson both have two school-aged children.
“You’ve got a lot of social media stars, but not a lot of statesmen. This woman is a statesman,” Britt said of Hinson. “She takes her intellect, she takes her diligence and she says: ‘How do we actually achieve a result?’ And I do think that’s the mom in us.”
The two talked about the policy priorities they want to continue to work on together, including child care affordability, contraception access and technology guardrails to protect kids online.
Hinson faces Democrat Josh Turek in a competitive – and costly – race to defend retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat.
“You want something done – give it to a busy mom,” Hinson said.
Standing next to leaders from Norway and Finland in Oslo, Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Kyiv is once again receiving early warnings from its partners following recent Russian attacks that occurred without prior notice to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said that this change happened after talks with his American counterparts, including a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier in the day.
“We are thankful that intelligence works now and I’m speaking about early warning, which is very important for our people, for children, adults, civilians, because we can hear when ballistic is coming,” Zelenskyy said. “So we are thankful to American side now that it works.”
They blasted the federal government’s claims of widespread voter fraud at a press conference in Los Angeles Tuesday, a day after the Justice Department charged 28 people as part of a statewide sweep targeting alleged noncitizens who officials say have illegally registered or voted in U.S. elections.
“Today, people in our communities are being asked whether the very government sworn to protect their rights is now a source of fear,” said Mark Gonzalez, a Democratic state assemblymember.
The Justice Department sued California last week in an attempt to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots in the midterms from people the federal government suspects are noncitizens.
Republican Rep. Bryan Steil said in his only debate Tuesday with Democratic challenger Mitchell Berman that Berman’s campaign against him is “built on a stack of lies.”
“He will say and do anything to get elected,” Steil said.
Steil said despite Berman’s claims, he worked to increase funding for Medicaid in Wisconsin by $1 billion.
Berman, an emergency room nurse, said that was like “putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.”
The southeastern Wisconsin district leans Republican but Democrats are investing in the race hoping to flip the district in a wave year.
Steil hit Berman for claiming he was against taking corporate political action committee money while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which takes PAC money, is running ads in the race.
Berman said Steil hasn’t done enough to lower costs and that “people in our communities are hemorrhaging.”
The New Jersey senator, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and is considering a 2028 bid, will spend Thursday in Alabama and Friday in South Carolina.
South Carolina will host Democrats’ first 2028 presidential primary. Alabama in recent cycles has held a Super Tuesday primary. Black Democrats anchor Democratic electorates in both states.
In Alabama, according to a schedule from a Booker aide, the senator will campaign with U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures and gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones. Figures is running in a district Republicans redrew after the Supreme Court gutted the federal Voting Rights Act. Jones, a former U.S. senator, is trying to upset Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville.
In South Carolina, Booker will campaign with gubernatorial candidate Jermaine Johnson and Senate nominee Dr. Annie Andrews. This marks Booker’s third Alabama trip this year and second to South Carolina.
The billionaire Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate has personally contributed $1 million to Bottoms’ political action committee, according to a Pritzker adviser.
Bottoms has been massively outspent by Republican billionaire Rick Jackson, who has personally put $100 million-plus into his campaign.
Pritzker already contributed $1.2 million to Texas governor candidate Gina Hinojosa. Hinojosa, a Latina, and Bottoms, a Black woman, would break barriers. Texas has never elected a Latina governor. No Black woman has been elected governor in any state.
Black and Hispanic voters will be influential in Democrats’ early presidential primaries.
Quentin Fulks, a former top aide to Pritzker, encouraged him to contribute to Bottoms after having supported Hinojosa. Fulks managed Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s 2022 reelection campaign.
Pritzker angered Congressional Black Caucus members by not backing U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly in Illinois’ U.S. Senate Democratic primary. Pritzker backed his lieutenant governor, Julianna Stratton, who’s also Black. Stratton won.
Senate Democrats’ top campaign spending group is wading into Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race for the first time this year, an aggressive move in a deep-red state that signals a party on the offensive as Republicans look to protect a slim majority.
The Senate Majority PAC will spend $1.2 million on a new television advertisement to boost Scott Colom, a district attorney, in his campaign against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. The ad, first disclosed to The Associated Press, is set to start Wednesday and run through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC has been watching this race closely, and it is clear Colom is running a competitive race that has put Hyde-Smith on her heels,” group spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
With just two weeks to go in the race, it’s unclear what impact the ad will have in a matchup that’s been set since Colom won a March primary. Still, it’s a substantial investment in a race that’s seen only about $8 million in total spending, with Colom outspending Hyde-Smith nearly $4.6 million to $3.2 million, according to AdImpact.
In the 2024 presidential race, Trump won Mississippi by nearly 23 percentage points, and a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in the state since 1982.
Beijing has expressed “firm opposition” to the Trump administration’s sanctions on five Chinese companies connected to a former Google engineer over alleged intellectual property theft.
The move “severely harms the legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese businesses, the country’s commerce ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that Linwei Ding, who founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, had touted his experience with the American tech giant and claimed his company could replicate Google’s super intelligence infrastructure technology.
Ding was charged with stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets from Google while secretly working with two companies based in China. He was later convicted on several counts of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
China’s commerce ministry said its AI development is “the result of long-term cultivation in basic research, continuous innovation investment, and adherence to independent scientific and technological innovation and open cooperation.”
It urged the U.S. to “correct its erroneous practice” and said it would take “necessary measures,” without specifying them.
Barbara Comstock, a former congresswoman from Virginia, said “Trump once again lets loose his anti-Semitic rhetoric” and called it “a bizarre defense of” Roger Marshall, the Kansas senator.
Trump was defending Marshall against Democrats’ ads that criticize the physician for aggressive collection of small medical debts from his patients. Trump quipped that the ads paint Marshall as a “Shylock,” a slur that plays on stereotypes of Jewish people and is derived from William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.”
Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois, noted on social media that “Trump publicly used the antisemitic term again” and predicted “no one on the right” would condemn it.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the president’s use of the word.
