A Democratic congressional candidate's harrowing account of an attack on the campaign trail drew horrified reactions online from journalists and politicians.

Bernadette Greene-Placentia, who is challenging Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, told the Phoenix New Times in a story published Wednesday that she was struck over the head and raped while repairing campaign signs in August.

Greene-Placentia, a longtime long-haul trucker, said she was attacked shortly after 2 a.m. as she crossed a parking lot to fix a damaged sign, something she had done regularly all summer. She said she blacked out and woke up to find a man on top of her. A second man then approached, she said, and walked away after she kicked at him. She told the New Times she remembers only fragments of the attack and its aftermath.

She reported the assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office more than two weeks later, according to the New Times. A sheriff’s office spokesperson declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

"I felt a gut punch reading this article," wrote former Iowa congresswoman Abby Finkenauer in a post on X. "This is horrific and Bernadette is a warrior for speaking out. I hope someone who knows something comes forward and these monsters are caught. Bernadette deserves justice & every candidate deserves safety."

"Beyond horrific," reacted author and activist Charlotte Clymer. "No words."

"There are no words," echoed journalist Olivia Messer.

"This is horrifying," said The Bulwark immigration reporter Adrian Carrasquillo.

"How indescribably horrific," blasted British member of parliament Adam Jogee. "I hope which ever sick b— did this lose their liberty and freedom for the rest of their lives. The authorities should lock them up and throw the key away."

"This horrific violence is shocking, appalling, and completely unacceptable," decried Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. "My heart breaks for Bernadette and I stand with her."

"This is horrifying and every woman's worst nightmare," Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) weighed in. "Women should be safe whether they're at school, at work, or in their neighborhood. We have a lot of work to do as a country to end rape culture, protect victims, and hold perpetrators accountable."

Mary Trump has spent a decade studying her uncle's psychology, but Natalie Harp's relationship with him stands apart from anything she's seen.

The president's niece, a trained clinical psychologist, told host Joanna Coles on Wednesday's episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" that devoted White House aide Natalie Harp has "the qualities of a stalker" and that Trump has welcomed it.

"Natalie Harp is a different type entirely. There's something seriously wrong with her," Mary Trump said. "I think there's something psychologically wrong with her. She needs help. She has the qualities of a stalker. And it's the only case I've ever seen in which the stalking victim has welcomed being stalked."

Coles had asked about a remark attributed to Trump in which he said of Harp, "She'll never leave me. The others will leave me." Coles wondered whether that reflected a fear of abandonment, given how Trump treated his own father after Fred Trump developed Alzheimer's.

"Every single relationship Donald has is transactional," Mary Trump responded, pointing to "cracks in the inner circle," including press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "There are limits when people are sycophantic enablers. Even they have limits to the amount they are willing to be humiliated or have their lives in danger," she said.

Harp, she argued, is filling a void. "I think that is in part because Donald is not getting the attention he needs because nobody cares about him," she said. "Which makes sense, because he doesn't care about anybody, and she's willing to fill that role. And it is inappropriate. It's wrong. I think he's taking advantage. But nobody seems to have a problem with it."

She added that the double standard was glaring. "If a Democratic president, an 81-year-old Democratic president, was hanging out with a 35-year-old woman and spending more time with her than he did with anybody else in his family, I'm pretty sure there would be a problem," she said.

Coles also asked about Harp's friend, far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has flown with the president. "I think she's just very skilled at inserting herself. I find her vile," Mary Trump said, adding that any woman hoping to last around her uncle has to meet one more requirement. "If you're a woman who wants to stay in Donald's good graces, you have to be subservient."

President Donald Trump could slip back into the Oval Office in 2028 through an untested constitutional loophole, a former Watergate prosecutor said.

Jill Wine-Banks, who served as an assistant special prosecutor during Watergate, took up the question in a Wednesday episode of the "Sisters In Law" podcast alongside former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade.

A listener wrote in that her husband was convinced Trump could run for vice president in 2028 and take over the top job if the president on the winning ticket resigned. She said she thought he could not.

"Of course, I don't have a definitive answer because this is a case of first impression," Wine-Banks said. "But if you read the language of...the Constitution, you cannot be elected more than twice to the office of president. It doesn't say you can't serve as president. So this would be a very tricky way around."

The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, states that "no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." It says nothing about a two-term president reaching the office through the line of succession.

Wine-Banks also took a jab at Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. "If Donald Trump were correct, he already has won the election three times, but we know that's not true," she said.

"So, in my opinion, you know what I have to say, your husband has a point here and that it could happen," she continued.

Still, she questioned whether the plan would hold up in practice. "Would the person elected actually be willing to give up the presidency that he had just fought for and won? I don't know, but it is possible," Wine-Banks said.

She also wondered whether the resigning president would then be appointed vice president and confirmed, calling the scenario "hard to imagine, but these things are possible."

Many legal scholars see a roadblock elsewhere in the Constitution. The 12th Amendment says "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President." Those scholars argued the clause keeps a two-term president off the ticket entirely, though Wine-Banks did not address it on the show.

Trump has repeatedly teased a third term despite the constitutional limit, keeping the question alive among critics and supporters alike.

Two of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees are headed in very different directions, and one legal analyst can't stop watching.

Legal AF host Michael Popok said in a Wednesday episode of the "Unprecedented" podcast with constitutional scholar Lisa Graves that Justice Neil Gorsuch has moved sharply to the right while Justice Amy Coney Barrett is shaping up as the court's new center as the 2026-2027 term opens.

Popok said he once held out hope for Gorsuch, but that has evaporated.

"I've given up, Gorsuch having moved so far to the right and joined as a troika Alito and Thomas in ways that even shocked me," Popok said. "I had hope for him in the first 5 years or so. That hope is now lost."

He offered no such grace to Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"Kavanaugh I had no hope for from day one, and that's been proven correct," Popok said.

Barrett, on the other hand, has become the justice he watches most closely, which he likened to "a train wreck you can't look away from."

Popok argued that justices often "start becoming their own justices" as they get further away from their confirmation fights, pointing to past Republican picks like David Souter and Harry Blackmun who drifted toward the middle.

"I don't expect her to go that far away from her roots," Popok said. "But I do watch her to see...how much of the center of the court she will end up representing, more than even Roberts."

Graves agreed that Barrett is "in some ways appearing as a swing vote," though she cautioned that the court's middle ground has shifted with its majority.

"To the extent that the right has moved so far over the middle, the middle is pretty far on the right," Graves said.

Graves reserved her highest praise for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, calling her "brilliant" and the liberal justice "most willing to just say precisely how dangerous what this majority is doing."

She also took aim at Justice Samuel Alito, arguing he has "an agenda" and is "at the peak of his power."

The pair went on to make the case for expanding the court, with Popok floating a future in which Jackson leads it as chief justice.

A former prosecutor ripped apart the Trump Justice Department's claim that its new civil rights lawyers rank among the nation's finest.

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang, a former Miami-Dade prosecutor, picked through the records of new hires in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division on Wednesday's episode of "The Katie Phang Show," drawing on a New York Times report. The division is run by Harmeet Dhillon, President Donald Trump's pick to lead it.

Phang first played a June clip of Dhillon addressing the division’s staffing crunch. “Three-quarters of the lawyers in the department quit,” Dhillon said. “We’ve now hired back over 100 lawyers... I am proud to say that I’ve attracted the best and brightest to the Civil Rights Division.”

Phang then ran through the hires, starting with Barry Arrington, acting chief of the division's new Second Amendment unit and, per the Times, a high-profile opponent of the theory of evolution and same-sex marriage.

David Michael Levin, one of two DOJ lawyers who approached a Minneapolis polling place during Minnesota's August primary, twice hacked into the Lee County, Florida, election system in 2015 and 2016. He pleaded to two misdemeanors and served 20 days in jail. A Florida judge also ordered him in August to pay more than $200,000 after finding fraudulent misrepresentation and civil conspiracy.

"But sure, Harmeet, best and brightest, right?" Phang said.

David Vandenberg, a former El Paso prosecutor now working in elections litigation, faces animal neglect charges and a lawsuit from a mother who accused him of sideswiping her car with her two children inside, flashing his badge and fleeing. Asked by the Times whether he should have been hired, his former supervisor first said no, then amended it to "hell no."

Khalil Quinan, who Phang confirmed came from her old Miami-Dade office, stepped aside from a high-profile murder prosecution after a judge found he had viewed and shared files marked as privileged attorney-client communications.

For Phang, the hires mark a stunning fall for an office she once saw as the peak of a prosecutor's career. "It was the brass ring for many of us," she said. "Normally it's just an embarrassment of riches, but now it's just embarrassment."

She warned that division lawyers turning up at the polling places should alarm voters ahead of November's midterms. "Yes, you should be concerned that these are the lawyers from the Civil Rights Division that are meddling," she said.

"The fish rots from the head down," Phang said. "How far they have fallen."

A prominent economist warned that fears of election interference under President Donald Trump pose a serious threat to America's economy.

Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist who hosts "Platypus Economics," told Molly Jong-Fast in a Wednesday episode of "Fast Politics" that the biggest risks aren't in the latest GDP or jobs numbers but in slower damage that will grow "like a slow-burning cancer, destroying a beautiful living organism."

"What is America's position in the world? Are we a trusted partner? Do we believe in the rule of law anymore? Are contracts enforced and enforceable?" Wolfers asked. He questioned whether businesses are shifting toward competing "at Mar-a-Lago, each competing for favors from the White House" instead of on price and quality.

Wolfers said "serious friends" have told him they're "deeply worried about potential interference with the next election."

"The day we become not a democracy is the day we lose the power to kick out bad politicians," he said. "And the day that bad politicians can cement their power, that's an enormously important economic question."

He said he checks himself for alarmism but is increasingly convinced the country is facing "a once-in-a-lifetime attack."

Wolfers offered one hopeful sign. Last month's unanimous Federal Reserve vote to raise rates, which included Trump-appointed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, suggested the institution is still acting on data, he said. "The most important part of that sentence is, we looked at the data," Wolfers said. "So that's the institution holding."

But he warned that the Fed's next decision, set for October 28, lands just days before the midterms, and that waiting to "escape the president's ire" would not be apolitical. "That's not being apolitical, that's serving the White House's goals," he said.

Wolfers named tariffs, the war in Iran and the largest budget deficit outside a war or recession in U.S. history as the three biggest threats facing American families, noting that "unlike any other moment in my life, all of the threats are coming from inside the house."

He also said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has burned his credibility with bluster and misread the bond market. "Scotty, you're not the market. You're the borrower," Wolfers said.

President Donald Trump appeared to concede ahead of Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize announcement that he wouldn’t win, calling the perceived snub a “great discredit” to the Nobel committee while attacking former President Barack Obama, the 2009 recipient.

Celebrating the rollout of Trump Accounts, Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office whether he had “any regrets about how” he’d used his “time behind that desk” ahead of the Nobel committee’s reveal this Friday.

Trump, who indicated that he was unaware that the award was scheduled to be announced this Friday, did not directly answer the question, but instead recalled how Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado — the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient — unofficially gifted Trump the coveted award.

“I settled eight wars, another one is coming, I got all the hostages back, I did things that nobody else has ever done — I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you the facts. No president probably has settled any wars — I settled eight wars! And big ones! Big ones. Saved millions and millions of lives,” Trump said.

“So I don't know what their decision's going to be, they have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me, but I... whether I get it or not, after far more... I think it would be a great discredit to them. And I'm not saying that out of scorn, I'm saying that, when you settle eight wars... if you look at the Nobel Prize, Obama got it, and he didn't do anything! He still doesn't know what he got it for! He got it when he got elected right at the beginning!"

MS NOW's Jen Psaki was stupefied at new reporting that Trump advisers James Blair and Chris LaCivita went overseas to back a pro-Russia party in the Balkans — but even more so at the excuse Trump's super PAC gave to justify it all.

"Where were they this weekend?" said Psaki. "With just a month left until the midterms, where were they? They were thousands of miles away from the U.S. in the Republic of Srpska, a self-governing region within the countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina." And while there, Psaki said, they were paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars each ... to help a Putin-aligned political party acquire more power. That's what they pay for."

This party is hardcore servants of the Kremlin, Psaki noted: "the leader of that political party visited Putin at the Kremlin himself just last week. At the meeting, he expressed support for Russia's war with ukraine and villainized the West for causing all of their problems. That's what two of Trump's top political advisors were up to this weekend, and elections less than a month away, helping that guy get more political power and reportedly earning hundreds of thousands of dollars each for their trouble."

What made it even crazier, though, she said, is how MAGA Inc., the top Trump super PAC, responded to the bad press.

"As if this story could just could even get more tone-deaf, a spokesperson for the MAGA Inc. super PAC declined to comment on Blair and LaCivita's trip to the Balkans, but he did say that while they were overseas, the two 'remained fully engaged in the PAC's midterm efforts,'" said Psaki, quoting The New York Times, adding that the spokesperson said "that even while they were reportedly in the Balkans, the two even hosted a team call on Saturday to go over survey data for the midterms. Again, as if the ability of these two MAGA advisors to participate in their political zoom calls while they were in the Balkans was the major concern here."

By contrast, Psaki added, "I, for one, am just a tad bit more alarmed about the hundreds of thousands of dollars they raked in, working on behalf of a Kremlin stooge, right? I mean, this wasn't just any race. This was a race to prop up a pro-Putin political party that actively opposes the West. And just a reminder, guys, we are the West. So that's not a great look."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen said he could not believe what he was reading in Kimberly Guilfoyle's newly revealed text messages.

Eisen, who served in the Obama White House and later as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, appeared on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" on Wednesday to discuss a Wall Street Journal report on Guilfoyle's Signal messages, which The Journal reports show her asking Trump donor Eric Deters to send her $100,000 to pay off her American Express debt. Guilfoyle is the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

"It's one of the worst things that I have ever seen with respect to a U.S. ambassador," Eisen told Cooper. "It stinks to high heaven."

Eisen said the messages raise serious questions about whether there was a quid pro quo involving Guilfoyle while she was a nominee, noting that nominees are covered by a federal bribery statute.

"I'm not saying that there was bribery here. Bribery is tough to prove, Ambassador Guilfoyle denies it, but these texts are like nothing I've ever seen," he said. "It's not just that there seems to be an exchange of cash for access, but Anderson, text after text saying it's private."

Eisen pointed to messages urging secrecy around the money, including one he described as a suggestion to send it to American Express because "it won't show." He said that kind of language points to a consciousness of wrongdoing.

Cooper noted that Guilfoyle has not been accused of any crime or investigated, and asked whether it mattered that a $100,000 payment to her credit card was apparently never made.

Eisen said that if it were determined there was "a wrongful agreement," it would raise "a very serious set of questions," though he acknowledged the legal bar has been raised considerably, a shift he said he disagrees with.

He added that this isn't the first controversy for Guilfoyle, citing questions about whether she has been too close to an energy company and a lobbyist in Greece. If Congress changes hands, he said, the matter would likely become part of a congressional investigation.

"Often when you see these kinds of allegations and an investigation begins, questions arise about what else may have gone on," Eisen said. "I have never seen anything like these Signal messages... But there are some of the most serious questions that I've seen about a sitting United States ambassador. I can't believe my eyes."

Guilfoyle has denied any wrongdoing.

President Donald Trump boasted about his crowd size and how he "filled up" the arena at his rally in San Antonio, Texas on Wednesday night — only for C-SPAN to pan the camera and reveal large numbers of empty seats in the upper rows.

"The fake news will take a picture of two empty seats, and they'll say Trump did not fill up — who the hell fills an arena like this for a midterm?" said Trump, gesturing around.

As the camera swept over the arena, Trump seemed to acknowledge the fact that many of the seats in the upper rows were empty, but had an excuse for it.

"What they do is that the upper rows, you'll see 'em, they sort of migrate downward," said Trump. "We max out every thing you've ever seen, there's never been anything like it."

Trump has long made obsessing over his crowd size a fixture of his speeches, going as far back as when he and members of his administration tried to inflate the number of people who attended his first inauguration.

Former MLB superstar Roger Clemens fact-checked President Donald Trump during his Texas rally Wednesday night.

Trump traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to stump for Republicans like Tano Tijerina in his race against Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), whom Trump attacked for what he considered to be a "disloyal act" by not becoming a Republican after Trump pardoned him. At the rally, Trump invited Clemens on stage to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, because Clemens had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame.

In typical Trump fashion, the president also rattled off a fact about Clemens that the former big league pitcher was quick to correct.

"Roger, how come you hit more batters than anybody in history?" Trump said. "And when he hit you, it hurt because it was a fastball at 99 [miles per hour] coming at your head. So, Roger had some problems."

Clemens corrected Trump's claims when he stepped to the microphone.

"Well, I'm stunned," Clemens said. "... This supersedes anything that I've done in my playing career."

"And the way he talked about all my stats, I guess he could be my agent. I could come out of retirement again," Clemens added. "But I don't think that I lead Major League Baseball in hit batters, Mr. President. And besides that, when you go inside, it's the hitter's job to get out of the way."

According to Baseball-Reference, the pitcher with the most hit batters in MLB history is Gus Weyhing, with 277 over 14 seasons of playing time. Clemens is 15th on the all-time list with 159 hit batters in 24 seasons.

Critics erupted online Wednesday after an older MAGA rallygoer yanked a protester's hair during President Donald Trump's San Antonio rally.

Trump came to San Antonio to campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton and Carlos De La Cruz, who's running to represent Texas' 35th Congressional District. He was speaking at Freeman Coliseum when multiple protesters heckled him and drew a sharp reaction from the crowd.

After interrupting Trump's speech, one of the protesters appeared to head for the exit, but an older Trump supporter in a red MAGA hat ran up behind him, grabbed him, and started pulling at his hair, shocking even the people around him. The scene was captured by C-SPAN's coverage of the event and circulated online.

"Wow Trump gets heckled in Texas and the protester gets assaulted by a member of the crowd," MeidasTouch digital editor Acyn Torabi reacted in a post on X, sharing the clip.

"Bunch of snowflakes," blasted journalist Zaid Jilani, turning a common MAGA slur for liberals back at them. "Heckling is as American as apple pie."

"As expected, Trump doesn't even offer lip service to the principle of free speech," lamented author and activist Hemant Mehta. "He doesn't ask if the person is okay after being attacked by a MAGA thug."

PatriotTakes, an account that monitors right-wing violence and extremism, shared the video with the label, "MAGA violence."

"MAGA people are banshees and savages," slammed Army veteran and media personality Bruce Crossing.

"The guy who grabbed him committed assault," decried disability advocate James Tate. "Laws do exist at MAGA rally's, right?"

"For what it's worth, the vast majority of the MAGA folks in the vicinity of the assault immediately realize that's a big no no," offered political strategist Doug Landry.

According to a post by Texas journalist Adam Schwager, another group of protesters was kicked out of the event, and "as they were handcuffed and escorted out one woman threw a full cup of water on one of the men." Schwager reported that four protesters were removed from Trump's rally in San Antonio.

For months, Republicans found reassurance in a large fundraising lead over Democrats. According to a Bulwark report, that lead is eroding as Democratic money pours in.

House Majority PAC and its affiliated groups raised $230 million from July through September, the most they've ever collected in a single quarter. Senate Majority PAC and its allies reported a record third quarter as well, at $202 million. Campaign staffers working on top Senate races say their candidates are also on pace for record quarters, with official numbers due October 15, and 314 Action, which backs candidates with science backgrounds, says it has brought in $25 million this cycle.

Even the debt-burdened Democratic National Committee is seeing movement. A DNC official said September was the committee's strongest month of the cycle for large donors, with six times the number of six-figure givers as in September 2018. Nearly half of the 84 people who gave at least five figures hadn't donated since 2024 or before. The DNC is still digging out of debt and trails the Republican National Committee badly in cash.

The shift also undercuts Trump adviser James Blair, who said in April that House Majority PAC's $272 million ad reservation was a bluff Democrats couldn't pay for. An HMP official now says the group can afford all of it.

"People are giving right now," said Democratic strategist Mike Nellis.

Democrats aren't celebrating yet. The party's biggest donors have yet to write blockbuster checks, and the overall gap remains wide since Republican donors are likely stepping up too. Veteran fundraiser Rufus Gifford credited strong candidates and a jittery donor base, and said he isn't relaxing.

"No, not even a little bit," Gifford said.

Still, the money is giving Democrats room to maneuver late in the race. They're directing more to digital ads and the DCCC added six candidates to its "Red to Blue" program, in districts Trump carried by an average of 16 points. House Majority PAC pulled ads from California's 48th and Nebraska's 2nd districts, a vote of confidence rather than a funding problem, while buying time for the first time in Florida's 22nd and Ohio's 7th and 10th.

Democrats also argue that Republican spending looks larger than it is, because super PACs pay higher TV rates than campaigns. AdImpact found Republicans outspent Democrats on Texas broadcast ads by 44 percent through September but ran only 8 percent more ads — one possible reason the ad campaign hasn't moved the needle as much as the GOP hoped.

As the political prospects for Republicans worsen ahead of November’s midterm elections, the GOP is increasingly playing defense over its years-long grip on state governments.

That’s particularly true for gubernatorial elections, as Democrats could win a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. Currently, Republicans boast a 26-24 gubernatorial advantage over Democrats.

This November, voters will choose governors in 36 states. Thirteen of those races are considered competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, which ranks the competitiveness of races for governor, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.

Some of this cycle’s most competitive races are in politically divided states such as Nevada and Wisconsin. But Republicans also are playing defense in several deeply conservative states, including Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

Last week, the Cook Political Report moved its ratings of the Florida and Texas governor races from Likely Republican to Leans Republican. That means the GOP candidates are still favored in those states, but “given the grim political environment for the GOP, we can’t rule out the possibility of an upset in one or both contests,” wrote Senate and Governors Editor Jessica Taylor.

Democratic control of more governors’ offices could mean more bipartisan compromise — or gridlock — in state capitols. In Nevada, however, a Democratic governor could initiate a new era of policymaking: Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has vetoed more than 160 bills approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature during his term.

In states such as Alaska, Georgia and Ohio, Democratic governors could deliver new checks on Republican lawmakers who have enjoyed years of legislative control.

The competitive races for state executives come as Democrats seek to rebuild state power after years of Republican dominance in statehouses. In addition to controlling a majority of governor’s offices, the GOP has held a majority of state legislative seats and chambers since 2010.

Democrats’ improving prospects are evidence of the broader political challenges facing Republicans across the country, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

“It’s a rebuke of the Trump model, and especially the Republican Trump model,” he said. “But it’s also something that isn’t uncommon for midterms.”

With total Republican control of Washington, Democrats are benefiting from widespread dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump over the Iran war and the high prices of healthcare, housing, groceries and energy affecting nearly every part of daily life.

Despite winning his previous campaigns by double digits, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is facing a close competition with Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

“Our race is now a toss-up,” the subject line of a Sept. 29 fundraising email from the Abbott campaign reads.

Jones said the Texas Republican Party is still reeling from internal bloodletting after Attorney General Ken Paxton ousted incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in a heated primary contest. Paxton, whose political career has been largely defined by scandal, now trails Democrat James Talarico in most polling in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

To Jones, winning the Texas governor’s race is still a long shot for Democrats, but he said the president is the main reason it’s even competitive this cycle.

“It’s overwhelmingly a national phenomenon,” he said. “It has more to do with Donald Trump’s low approval ratings on both the handling of his job as president and his handling of the economy and just overall low favorability.”

More split governments?

Democratic wins for governor could bring divided government to some reliably conservative states.

While shared rule used to be common in states, most now are dominated by one party that controls both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. Power is split between the parties in only 11 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Last week, Democratic Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand pledged to bring “divided government once again” to Des Moines. Favored to win over Republican Zach Lahn, Sand said split power would bring more balance to state policymaking after years of GOP control.

If Iowa Democrats can prevent the GOP from winning back a legislative supermajority, they would hold more power over lawmaking and gubernatorial appointments than they’ve enjoyed for years.

Democrats flipped two Iowa state Senate seats in special elections last year to break the GOP’s veto-proof supermajority there. Senate Democrats have already used their newly won power by rejecting appointments, including a high-profile nomination for the leader of the state’s Health and Human Services Department.

Democratic wins for governor in November could bring divided power to Alaska, Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Texas. But divided government could vanish in other states.

In Kansas, Republicans are poised to gain even more control as state Senate President Ty Masterson leads in gubernatorial polling over Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher. If elected, Masterson would replace Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, delivering a trifecta of Republican control to Topeka.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, said this election cycle follows a familiar pattern for the party that controls Washington.

“We see this in every midterm: The party in power sometimes takes a beating, and I think that that’s what’s going to happen in this cycle,” he said.

Scott is favored to win reelection next month, which would keep power divided in Montpelier if Democrats continue to control the legislature as expected.

The Republican Governors Association did not comment on the party’s prospects for maintaining its national advantage. In a statement, spokesperson Kollin Crompton said GOP governors and candidates remain focused on lowering taxes, unleashing American energy and keeping communities safe.

“Contrast that with Democrat governors who hurt working families with tax increases and stunt job growth with bureaucratic regulation; the choice in November is clear,” he said. “If Democrats gain control, these states will turn into hellscapes reminiscent of California and Illinois.”

A national move for power

In many states, the power of newly elected governors will largely be shaped by the partisan composition of legislatures.

Republicans have held a grip on state power across the country since 2010, when they won hundreds of legislative seats and picked up control of 20 legislative chambers during the first midterm election of President Barack Obama’s presidency.

Democrats hope to flip 500 seats across the country this cycle. But even with 15 legislative chambers identified as competitive this year, it’s unlikely Democrats will rebuild their legislative ranks to pre-2010 levels, when the party controlled 60 of 99 legislative chambers nationwide (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature).

Republicans currently hold 4,044 state legislative seats, compared with 3,227 for Democrats, according to Katy Owens Hubler, director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Polls have been showing more Democratic enthusiasm,” she said,” but I think it’s likely Republicans will maintain their advantage in terms of absolute numbers of seats.”

Control of legislatures will not only affect state policymaking, but will likely shape the next wave of congressional redistricting, said Will Rusche, vice president of marketing and communications at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats at the state level.

Set off by a White House push to give Republicans more seats in the U.S. House, 10 states have completed mid-decade redistricting — a phenomenon unseen since the 1800s.

Rusche said the outcome of November’s governor and legislative races will play a major role in whether Democrats can win back federal power.

“It all runs through statehouses,” he said. “The majorities we win this year will determine what powers Democrats have, and you know the path to power in Congress and the presidency in 2028 and going forward.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

A member of the audience at President Donald Trump's rally in San Antonio on Wednesday pounced on a protester and pulled his hair, per videos.

Multiple protesters appeared to heckle Trump during his speech. While one of the protesters, a young man, appeared to head for the exit, an older man wearing a MAGA hat ran up behind him, grabbed him and started to pull his hair.

Other members of the MAGA crowd appeared alarmed, and some seemed to pull the two apart. The protester, who was holding his phone out while he walked through the crowd, briefly turned back to the man who yanked at him before continuing to leave.

MeidasTouch digital video editor Acyn Torabi posted multiple clips from C-SPAN's coverage of the event, and described the scene as the protester getting "assaulted by a member of the crowd."

The MeidasTouch account agreed, writing, "That's assault." MeidasTouch editor Pablo Manriquez chimed in, "MAGA so fragile."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) insists Brett Kavanaugh never lied to her about Roe v. Wade, and an ex-GOP strategist thinks he knows why.

Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt seized on the exchange in a Wednesday episode of "The Warning," a day after Collins faced Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in a debate. The moderator asked Collins whether Kavanaugh, who called Roe "settled law" before his confirmation vote, had lied to her.

"I do not feel that he lied, but I think that he should not have said it was settled law because to me that meant that it would not be overturned," Collins answered. "But to be fair, you cannot ask a nominee how he might vote on some hypothetical future case."

Schmidt said that was the rare moment Collins told the truth.

"And that, for once, from the hand-wringing, letter-writing Susan Collins, is the truth," Schmidt said. "Because she was in on the lie."

He argued Collins and Kavanaugh "had the same fundamental position" and that the senator's "entire public legacy" now rests on ending a right American women would still have if she had lost a race in time.

Schmidt contrasted Collins with Margaret Chase Smith, the Maine Republican senator remembered for standing on principle during a dangerous era. Collins, he said, is the "complete opposite."

"She's a kneeling MAGA sycophant who appeased a fascist for power, who sold out her people, her state, her country, and betrayed her oath, and is addicted to her Senate seat like a junkie in the street," Schmidt said.

He also mocked Collins for touting her success in getting "concrete, pulp, and road salt removed from the tariff list," summing up her pitch as "let them eat rock salt." Jackson made the same point onstage, telling voters, "We can't eat road salt."

Jackson also compared Collins to "an arsonist who helped set the fire, and then she wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put it out," noting she votes with President Donald Trump 96 percent of the time.

"It doesn't matter if she stands with him in public," Schmidt said. "She stands with him in the back room, and everybody knows it."

He added, "Mainers, vote her out."

President Donald Trump repeatedly lashed out at protesters during a chaotic campaign rally in San Antonio on Wednesday, mocking a demonstrator’s weight and accusing others of being paid by “enemies of our nation.”

The president was interrupted multiple times during his speech as protesters were forcefully ejected from the packed venue, drawing boos, obscene gestures, and chants of “USA” from his MAGA supporters.

“Is there anything like a Trump rally? Is there anything? I don’t think so,” Trump told the crowd as he stopped his remarks multiple times to watch protesters being removed.

“Now he’s going back home to mom right now,” Trump mocked. “Because what he doesn’t know is that his mom voted for Trump."

The president briefly stepped away from the podium during the commotion Wednesday evening, turning toward rally-goers behind him as the crowd erupted.

But the interruptions at Trump’s Lone Star State rally didn’t stop there. When another protester was escorted out, Trump took aim at the person’s appearance.

“That guy’s got to lose a lot of weight. Wow," Trump said. He then accused the demonstrators of being paid to disrupt his rally.

“You know, many of these protesters are paid. You know that, right?” Trump told the crowd.

When yet another person was ejected from San Antonio’s Freeman Coliseum, Trump made more disparaging remarks.

“You know I never talk about the looks of a person,” he said. “But those are really bad-looking people you have to see. They are bad-looking people.”

“If there are any more paid protesters, please raise your hand and get the hell out of here!” Trump said.

The Department of Homeland Security obtained tens of millions of unspecified records as part of a sweeping nationwide effort to find voter fraud, according to internal DHS reports, and weighed using undercover agents to investigate voter registration efforts by nonprofit groups.

The reports from May and June by Homeland Security Investigations, a sub-agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, provide updates on its “election integrity” investigations. They are included in a trove of documents obtained by the pro-democracy group Democracy Forward through a records request and released Wednesday.

The HSI reports detail an expansive review of nonprofit organizations involved in voter registration. A June 1 report says 82 “NGOs” — nongovernmental organizations — had been reviewed in Pennsylvania alone. Groups in Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey and Ohio also came under scrutiny.

The June 1 report describes the potential for undercover operations, and refers to efforts across Homeland Security to identify organizations that “may be predatory in nature, particularly those suspected of illegal alien registration and voter encouragement.” Organizations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania remained areas of focus, the report says.

“The objective is to determine potential opportunities to leverage UC (undercover) resources, including the possible deployment of undercover agents (UCAs), to support investigative efforts in the field,” the report says.

Overall, the records offer a window into the Trump administration’s push to root out voter fraud, and especially noncitizen voting, ahead of the midterm elections. While a few months old, they suggest that finding noncitizen voters was an active focus within Homeland Security Investigations, along with identifying any organizations suspected of registering noncitizens to vote.

Noncitizen voting

Noncitizen voting is a rare occurrence, studies have consistently found.

The Justice Department has brought a few dozen cases this year, and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in late September announced indictments against 10 noncitizens over allegations of unlawfully voting. But the census reports 154 million people voted in the 2024 election.

With early voting beginning across many states, Trump’s bid to assert authority over voting has largely failed. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked his plans to use the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail ballots and the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to show proof of citizenship, stalled in Congress.

But Democrats, voting rights groups and some election officials are concerned Trump may take more extreme action in the coming weeks. They have braced for possible federal interference, including the prospect of ICE or other federal agents deploying to the polls (Homeland Security denies any plans to target polling places).

“This trove of ICE documents provides chilling new insights into the breadth and depth of the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to pursue baseless claims of widespread election fraud and assert greater federal control over elections ahead of the 2026 midterms,” Hart Wood, senior oversight counsel at Democracy Forward, said in a statement.

Homeland Security and ICE didn’t respond to questions on Wednesday.

At a news conference last week to announce indictments against alleged noncitizen voters in Minnesota, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the Trump administration would never allow the votes of noncitizens to cancel out the votes of American citizens. He said that only citizens should be electing the country’s leaders.

“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: We will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences, including criminal charges and deportation,” Mullin said.

Nonprofits reviewed, researched

The reports in the records obtained by Democracy Forward describe efforts by HSI to research and review an array of nonprofit groups. In some instances, HSI appeared satisfied after its examination.

The June 1 report notes that research was completed on approximately 41 non-governmental organizations in New Jersey, with “no derogatory information” found. Research on 20 nonprofit funds linked to a Washington, D.C.-based charitable foundation also turned up nothing, the report notes.

But the report also says the Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was “flagged for further investigation.” CAIR is one of the country’s leading Muslim civil rights groups.

Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, CAIR Pennsylvania executive director, in a statement said the organization’s civic engagement programs have expanded over the years and include voter registration efforts that seek to ensure Muslim Americans are empowered to vote and fully engaged in the civic process.

“Our voter registration program follows all applicable voter registration rules and requirements,” Tekelioglu said.

Education Minnesota, an educators union, is named in the June 1 report as one of 22 organizations that HSI was beginning to research at the time. Monica Byron, Education Minnesota’s president, said the organization learned of the investigation on Tuesday because of Democracy Forward.

Byron said the group shares Democracy Forward’s concerns about potential government surveillance of lawful voter registration activities.

“We do not know the details of any investigation into our union, but we will not be deterred in encouraging all eligible members to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming election,” Byron said in a statement.

Tens of millions of records

The HSI reports show that Heather Honey, a DHS official who came to prominence denying President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, obtained 48.4 million records through “independent sources of information.” Additionally, HSI drew upon some 50.6 million records from the Department of Justice.

The exact nature of the records isn’t described, but the DOJ has sued dozens of states for voter records, including sensitive personal information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers. The department hasn’t won any of the lawsuits, but at least 16 states have voluntarily provided the data.

The Supreme Court ruled in September that states can use a powerful Homeland Security program called SAVE to help identify possible noncitizen voters after voting rights groups sued to block its use, alleging that it often relies on inaccurate data and has a track record of wrongly flagging U.S. citizens. The decision’s impact on the midterms is expected to be minimal because most states are already too close to a federal election to conduct mass purges of voters.

But the HSI reports suggest that while the legal fight over SAVE was playing out in the courts, Homeland Security was nevertheless analyzing a vast collection of records for signs of voter fraud.

HSI’s June 1 report says 26,563 records derived from ICE had been prioritized for “downstream vetting,” with a focus on Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Priority states for HSI’s review of Justice Department records included those states, as well as Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas.

The report notes that records were sent to iLab — an apparent reference to HSI’s Innovation Lab — for “secondary enrichment and identification of high-value targets.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

President Donald Trump is running into a big problem as he tries to campaign for midterm candidates, MS NOW's Ari Melber said on Wednesday: a problem that was laid out all too clearly in the classic film "Mean Girls."

"Trump [is] trying to go to red states like Ohio and Nebraska," said Melber. But at the moment, he's in Texas, "where the Republican governor has been avoiding even being seen with Donald Trump at that planned rally. You know it's bad when the Texas governor doesn't want to be seen with Trump in his home state" — after all, he said, Gov. Greg Abbott kept close to Trump in 2020.

"In a telling rebuke to Trump for tonight's rally in San Antonio, Abbott is blowing off that midterm rally and saying he has a scheduling conflict, an excuse so vague and obvious it's kind of a red state version of Trump being turned into Regina George, the once allegedly popular it girl who is later exposed in the story as a toxic mean girl who turns out to be perhaps the worst sin. Unpopular."

"Well, in this pop culture parallel, I can tell you that Governor Abbott would be Karen Smith. Trump would be Regina George as she loses her fiefdom," said Melber.

Trump is currently trying to boost Ken Paxton, the GOP Senate candidate who in polls has been struggling against Democratic opponent James Talarico despite a huge infusion of cash from Republican groups.

And all of this could just be the start, said Melber — since voters, too, are not far behind the abandonment of Trump.

"When it's clear that the queen bee's power is fading, the people may be quick to rise up because they never respected that leader to begin with," said Melber. "You don't need the news to tell you that's what happened to Regina George. But it's a larger parallel throughout our history. It's also what happened to King Louis XVI, which is why we still hear chants of No Kings in this country, maybe No Regina Georges, No Kings, and No More Autocratic Politics."

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White House communications director Steven Cheung unleashed an insult-filled tirade Wednesday after a progressive content account claimed he had unfollowed two of President Donald Trump’s top advisers on social media.

Cheung, who also serves as assistant to the president, lashed out at Headquarters News after the outlet suggested he had distanced himself from Chris LaCivita and James Blair following reports that Trump was considering firing the pair.

“Wrong, you slope-brained retards,” Cheung wrote on X. “I know it sucks to be Kamala-rejects, but the truth is that I unfollow deactivated WH/47 accounts.”

The explosive response came after Headquarters News posted that Cheung had unfollowed LaCivita and Blair after Trump threw them “under the bus” and threatened to “terminate” them.

But the progressive outlet wasn’t going to let Cheung have the last word.

In a mocking response, Headquarters News fired back with a photograph of the White House communications director and a two-word caption: “Slope brain.”

The online feud came amid scrutiny of LaCivita and Blair over their outside consulting work, including a reported trip to the Balkans that caught Trump’s attention.

Cheung’s derogatory term also drew condemnation, including from former Obama campaign staffer Tim Fuller, who blasted the White House official.

“Official White House staffer using an incredibly hurtful word for millions of disabled Americans,” he wrote Wednesday on X. “What an awful group of people running the Administration. Just the meanest and most cruel people.”

A handful of House Republicans are teaming with Democrats to get their colleagues to vow they won't block midterm winners from taking their seats.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) are seeking signatures on a public letter committing House members to honor the results of the November 3 election, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The push comes as Democrats and Republicans critical of President Donald Trump grow uneasy that the outgoing GOP-led Congress might try to keep Democrats from taking power in January, following months of Trump casting doubt on how some states run their elections.

Signers pledge to oppose "any attempt to refuse or delay the seating of any Member-elect" who arrives with a valid certificate from their state. The pair hope to collect enough names to make the very idea of procedural games by the current House a nonstarter.

Gottheimer pointed to his own experience during the Capitol riot. "I was in the House chamber on January 6, when the doors were barricaded," he told The Journal, adding that recent events made the extra step worthwhile.

Bacon, who is retiring at the end of his term, recalled a near-fight several years ago when some Democrats weighed challenging an Iowa Republican whose race was decided by six votes. "We've seen before how this norm can come under strain," he said.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) have also signed on, their offices told The Journal. Both are fighting tight reelection races, and their support would likely give the effort a majority if every House Democrat joins.

The worry isn't coming out of nowhere. Earlier this year, a Heritage Foundation fellow, Scott Yenor, argued in a commentary that GOP leaders don't have to accept state results right away if they doubt them, leaning on the constitutional clause that lets each chamber judge its own members' elections.

"Congress could deny representation to states without voter identification laws," Yenor wrote. Heritage did not comment to The Journal.

The letter is addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Johnson's office did not respond to The Journal's requests for comment.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) walked into a trap at her Senate debate with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson on Tuesday, bragging about how she got road salt exempted from President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, only for Jackson to point out that she's just chipping around the edges at a policy broadly hurting Maine and that "we can't eat road salt."

The moment left MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace astounded — and she was quick to analyze it alongside correspondent John Heilemann.

"I was a staffer, and so I'm sure a staffer was involved," said Wallace, noting that congressional staffers have had a bad couple of weeks with the Eric Schmitt incident. "This is a staffer who was told to go find something that Susan Collins was helpful with. And so someone said, I got one, I got one. They ... went to AI [and asked] 'Is there anything that we've made cheaper?' And they found one. They found road salt."

This was obviously going to backfire, said Wallace: "This is ripe for an SNL mockery. People are struggling to put gas in their car. Truckers are struggling to put diesel in their car. People are struggling to buy groceries. They were already more expensive in Maine. And you're going to tell people the road salt is cheaper. What?"

Heilemann agreed, calling it basic campaign malpractice.

"She slipped ... in terms of her political instincts," he said.

Nor was it her only slip, said Heilemann, who noted that the defense of her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was also weak.

Despite all of this, he noted, the race remains highly close, at a moment when Democrats are polling better in red states like Alaska and Ohio. "It's closer than it would be, I think, if Troy Jackson had been the nominee throughout, if he had run in the primary," rather than replace scandal-plagued Graham Platner, he said. "He's the Kamala Harris of this race. He had to come in late."

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MAGA host Benny Johnson is openly celebrating President Donald Trump’s proposed census changes as a way to keep Democrats out of power.

On “The Benny Johnson Show,” the conservative host argued that excluding undocumented immigrants from the population count used to divide House seats would weaken Democrats in Congress and the Electoral College.

“Democrats wouldn’t have a shot in hell of winning a presidential election based on the Electoral College or ever having Congress back again,” Johnson said Wednesday.

He called the proposal “genius” and urged the administration to plow ahead.

“Shove this through. Shove it right down their throats,” he said.

Johnson made his goal clear on X, writing: "President Trump just ENDED Democrats ability to win elections again in one GENIUS move. This is how we win.”

The proposal would exclude noncitizens without green cards from the count used to allocate congressional seats, according to the Population Association of America, which opposes the change.

Political analyst Mark Halperin told Johnson that Trump’s proposal was “one of the most aggressive moves a president can make.”

Johnson predicted Wednesday that Democrats could lose 24 House seats, though he offered no state-by-state calculations to support his argument.

“I bet that all 24 would be Democrat seats,” he said. “Deleted.”

President Donald Trump is presenting himself as out of the loop after a New York Times report revealed that two of his top political operatives took lucrative consulting work for a Russia-aligned government in the Balkans, CNN reported on Wednesday — and is reportedly furious that they have been using their association with the White House for personal profit.

The Times reported that James Blair and Chris LaCivita traveled to Republika Srpska, a self-governing part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, just ahead of local elections there. Each reportedly received several hundred thousand dollars via a Washington law firm that the regional government retained to counsel it on voting issues.

Trump moved to distance himself. On Truth Social, he said he knew nothing about the work and that he'd fire the two "immediately" if there's a conflict.

"They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants," Trump wrote.

But that framing sits uneasily with their roles. Blair quit his White House job in May to run midterm strategy at the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc., which had about $415 million on hand at the end of August. LaCivita, who co-managed Trump's 2024 campaign, advises the group. A CNN reporter said Blair in effect runs Trump's whole political operation from outside the White House.

The disclosure also puts LaCivita's overseas work back in the spotlight. The Times previously reported that his firm collected $1.6 million from Albania's opposition to help former leader Sali Berisha's campaign.

Neither Blair nor LaCivita had publicly responded to Trump's comments.

Trump has been dogged for years by allegations of close ties to Russia, even before the special counsel report detailing Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The president has repeatedly claimed the whole thing was a "hoax," despite it being well-documented and confirmed by multiple lines of evidence.

President Donald Trump demanded payback against Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) on his way to Texas, branding the congressman he pardoned "disloyal and ungrateful."

"To the people of Texas, I am headed your way," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Wednesday promoting Cuellar's Republican challenger, Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina. "We call that payback for a disloyal and ungrateful person, a person whose life has been saved only to go back into the clutches of the people that tried so hard to destroy him."

Trump pardoned Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, in December. The couple had been accused of taking roughly $600,000 in bribes from an oil and gas company tied to Azerbaijan's government and a Mexico City bank, Texas Public Radio reported.

Trump wrote Wednesday that he "made no deal" but expected Cuellar "would have routinely gone over to the Republican Party." Instead, Cuellar filed for reelection as a Democrat, which Trump said many viewed as "a tremendous act of disloyalty."

"Henry Cuellar is a LOSER who, right now, should be serving a longterm jail sentence with his wife in a top level penitentiary," Trump wrote.

The tone marked a reversal from January, when Trump wrote that Cuellar deserved to lose his race but was "not somebody who should be serving a 20 year jail sentence," according to reporting by the Houston Chronicle.

Trump also claimed Cuellar's brother, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar, was indicted "a short time later" on the same charges. But a federal grand jury indicted the sheriff in November, a month before the pardon, on charges of using county resources to run a for-profit COVID-era disinfecting business, according to reporting by the Texas Tribune. He has pleaded not guilty.

Trump traveled to San Antonio Wednesday, his third Texas trip in less than a month ahead of the midterms.

Donald Trump Jr.'s ex-fiancée and ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle pleaded with a wealthy Trump supporter to pay off her six-figure credit card debt.

Guilfoyle pressed Kentucky donor Eric Deters to send $100,000 to her American Express account in July 2025, days before her Senate confirmation hearing, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing hundreds of messages, emails, and letters the paper reviewed.

"Honey please I need you to get this done for me today," she texted Deters on July 3, attaching payment instructions from the card company.

In another Signal message, she assured him the transfer would stay hidden. "It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express," she wrote.

Deters, a former congressional and gubernatorial candidate, had promised Guilfoyle as much as $1 million if she helped him reach the new Trump administration over a tax dispute and a push to extradite a fugitive Ohio surgeon. The messages show she forwarded him notes she sent to then-IRS Commissioner Billy Long.

He ultimately refused to pay the Amex bill. "I can't do this without getting a divorce," he told her.

Guilfoyle also repeatedly urged Deters to keep their arrangement out of writing. "What a nightmare you'll literally cost me my ambassadorship stop writing," she told him in January 2025, after he mentioned money to a producer on her podcast.

Before her move to Greece, Guilfoyle brushed off Deters' questions about her timeline. "I have a lot s— to get done before then and I need to make money," she wrote.

In June 2025, Deters sent her a memo noting he had paid her $300,000 over the years without getting a single favor. "I am not naive or a sucker. I need results," he wrote.

Jesse Binnall, Guilfoyle's attorney, said she disputes the authenticity of the messages but offered no specifics. He told The Journal she "was owed a balance for traveling to and supporting these patriotic events." Deters denied owing her anything.

Tucker Carlson, whose orbit was approached by Guilfoyle about booking Deters, was blunt when told of the $1 million offer. "This is completely nuts," he told The Journal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised Guilfoyle Wednesday at a press conference in Athens. "Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador," he said.

Last week, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees called on the State Department to review Guilfoyle's conduct following a separate Journal investigation.

North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley has taken his TV commercials off the air as national Republican groups pull back from the race, according to a report published in The News & Observer.

A campaign source told McClatchy the break is brief and reflects a change in which voters the campaign is courting. "We are confident we have the resources to target our late-breaking supporters and win on Election Day," the source said.

But the decision follows weeks of speculation that GOP groups were giving up on Whatley.

The Senate Leadership Fund, the largest Republican super PAC devoted to defending the majority, confirmed last week it's shifting money to Kansas, where Sen. Roger Marshall is losing ground to Democrat Adam Hamilton. Old North Action reportedly pulled a $6.5 million commitment, and Americans for Prosperity Action omitted North Carolina from its announcement of $22 million in ad purchases nationwide. In response, the Democratic super PAC WinSenate withdrew $500,000 in TV ads and about $50,000 in digital spending, according to The Hill.

Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, has trailed Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper in every poll since the two launched campaigns in July 2025, frequently by double digits, and surveys keep showing many voters don't know who Whatley is. Cooper is a longtime fixture of state politics who served as attorney general before being elected governor. Whatley built his career as a lobbyist and Senate staffer before leading the Republican Party in North Carolina and nationally.

The contest was once forecast to be among the most expensive Senate races ever, possibly nearing $1 billion, with Cooper widely expected to face incumbent Thom Tillis. Tillis bowed out following an increasingly fractious relationship with President Donald Trump, who personally selected Whatley as his replacement.

Federal filings show Cooper's campaign has spent over $14 million and Whatley's nearly $8 million. OpenSecrets puts combined fundraising at about $45 million.

President Donald Trump, reportedly humiliated by a war he can't end, has his Pentagon drawing up strike options to use before the midterms.

The White House has directed military planners to prepare attacks on Iranian targets that could be carried out ahead of the November 3 elections, two administration officials told The Atlantic in a report published Wednesday. U.S. Central Command is putting the plans together, though officials said no final decision has been made on how large the strikes would be, what they would hit or whether they'll happen at all.

Trump has been openly angry over how long the conflict has dragged on, now nearing eight months, and people close to him believe he feels "privately humiliated" that he hasn't been able to wrap it up, according to The Atlantic.

Supporters of the plan concede a limited round of strikes wouldn't force Tehran into talks, reopen the Strait of Hormuz or bring down gas prices before voters head to the polls. However, they believe that the plan has a political upside.

A Republican familiar with the discussions said, "It would make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down."

Critics see it differently. Will Walldorf, a Wake Forest University international affairs professor and senior fellow at Defense Priorities, told The Atlantic that "military action has done nothing to drive down oil prices; in fact, it has done the opposite."

"And if this is an attempt to rally the Republican vote, how does that make any sense given how unpopular this war is?" he added.

Trump's own advisers reportedly believe any renewed strikes should wait until after the election. The president himself has floated that timeline, telling Time magazine that "we've been stocking up for the last six months." Last week, he predicted a U.S. victory soon after the vote before adding, "Maybe before the election."

A White House official told The Atlantic that Trump "has all options available at any time," adding that "things will go one of two ways; the easy way or the hard way."

Iran may already be bracing, per The Atlantic. One adviser told the outlet, "Iran is watching the calendar and knows the election is coming."

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) took a swipe at President Donald Trump on Wednesday over the possibility that he could try to pardon himself — warning the move would appear “a little king-like.”

Tillis made the remark during an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “The Arena” after she asked whether he believed Trump could ultimately try to pardon himself.

“Pardoning yourself for offenses that you haven't committed yet sounds a little bit unseemly, seems a little king-like to be honest with you,” Tillis said. “And I would hope he'd use judgment not to do that.”

The North Carolina Republican, who is not seeking reelection, argued that Trump would be building on a precedent set by former President Joe Biden. Tillis went on to accuse Biden of helping “galvanize the concept of prospective get-out-of-jail-free pardons.”

“And then President Trump — you know, we keep on besting each other,” Tillis said.

But Tillis still stopped short of calling on Congress to eliminate the presidential pardon power, although he argued lawmakers should consider additional limits around it.

“I do think, to the extent that we can find ways to create contours around it, I think it’s pretty important,” he said.

The GOP senator concluded that the pardon power has been “exploited” in recent years.

“I don’t think that some of the pardons over the past two administrations have been within the contours of what the Founding Fathers envisioned,” he said.

Two county-level organizers for Georgia Senate candidate Mike Collins have ties to a far-right group started by a former Ku Klux Klan leader, according to a Daily Beast exclusive, adding to the controversies around the Trump-endorsed Republican.

The group, American Patriots USA, was founded by Chester Doles, who once ranked second in the Maryland Klan and later led the neo-Nazi National Alliance. He served time after beating a Black man in 1993. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels the group a white nationalist hate organization. Though Doles says he's left white supremacy behind, the Beast reports he has kept showing up at gatherings of white supremacists, including the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally.

Michael Boggus, who represented Banks County as one of Collins' "convoy captains," formerly ran the group's operations in Georgia and campaigned beside Doles in his 2020 congressional bid. Boggus didn't respond to the Beast. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time that a private conversation changed his view of Doles.

"I cannot stand the Klan," Boggus said then.

Joshua Mote, Collins' captain for Hall County, was a vice president of the group under Doles. A photo obtained by the Beast shows him with Doles and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Last year, Mote posted a video cheering Collins' Senate announcement, and Collins responded with an enthusiastic reply. Separately, Mote was once named as manager of a sheriff candidate's campaign on a white supremacist website, and photos later appeared of that candidate apparently giving a Klan salute.

Mote said the campaign asked him to serve as captain in February and that he left in April after the death of his toddler son. He denied being racist and said the group wasn't a hate group in his roughly eight months there, adding that he and others left once they learned Doles wasn't the reformed Christian he claimed to be.

The links clash with Collins' own past statements. After Doles listed him as a speaker at a 2019 pro-Trump event, Collins branded the group a "hate organization." He's since lauded his convoy captains, named in every county, as the engine of his grassroots effort.

The report adds to a run of controversies. CNN reported in July on antisemitic posts by Collins' son-in-law, which prompted him to scrub all ties on his campaign site, and racist posts by a former intern surfaced in August. Collins himself, meanwhile, landed in hot water for endorsing an antisemitic attack on a reporter.

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who leads Collins handily in current polling averages at press time, responded with a statement on Wednesday. "Another week, another scandal for Mike Collins, who is surrounded at work, at home, and now at his campaign by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and Klan associates," he said. "Tomorrow night on the debate stage the bigot congressman will finally have to answer for his extensive and disqualifying ties to white nationalism."