The Latest: Trump to rally in Mississippi as GOP midterm woes mount
President Donald Trump heads Monday to Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm campaign blitz that highlights Republicans’ challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.
The Democratic Senate candidate Trump wants to help defeat, Scott Colom, said he’s going to the president’s rally site, too — creating the rare spectacle of Trump’s staunchest supporters interacting directly with one of the very figures the president surely will denigrate onstage later.
Trump intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday, portraying him as a threat to national security and questioning his loyalty to the United States in remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from a former top Arab American ally, Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump.
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Trump administration’slawsuit to block certification of Alaska’s Senate results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses the race and argued that the legal challenge was a necessary step to avoid confusing voters in the closely watched midterm race.
Here's the latest:
The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute Comey for what it calls disclosing classified information, employing the unusual maneuver of bypassing a grand jury — a move Comey’s lawyers say makes the case legally invalid.
The allegations from the Justice Department came in documents unsealed Monday in federal court in Washington.
It would be the third criminal case that the Justice Department has brought against the longtime critic and foe of Trump since the Republican president’s return to the White House last year.
Dan J. Sullivan says he mistakenly marked himself as an independent when he voted in the August primary.
The retired teacher earlier this year filed to run as a Republican against the GOP incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan.
He cited “brain fog” from months of the campaign in listing himself as independent on his absentee ballot envelope. He said he’s “pretty sure” he marked himself as a Republican when he voted early for next week’s general election.
The ballot lists him as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. The senator is listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block certification of the race if the incumbent loses, citing potential confusion with the other Sullivan.
The race is headlined by the incumbent and Democrat Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative.
He lost the Republican special Senate primary to Darline Graham, but the U.S. House member says it’s time for his party to rally around her as their general election nominee.
Fry told reporters ahead of his 3rd Annual Freedom Fry on Monday in Myrtle Beach that South Carolina has “never had a more strange, radical leftist nominee” for the Senate than Democrat Annie Andrews, expressing confidence that Graham would win despite the race appearing to tighten.
Some conservatives have criticized the selection of Graham as their nominee, mounting a write-in campaign for Rep. Ralph Norman, who lost the special Senate primary runoff.
Trump urged Graham to run in the special GOP primary after the death of her brother Lindsey Graham earlier this year, and later this week will make his third trip to stump for her in the state since August.
Hundreds of people gathered for the rally inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in Topeka.
It was the vice president’s second visit to Kansas to help boost GOP candidates, particularly U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, who’s in a tossup race with Democrat Adam Hamilton.
A small group of labor union members stood along a street leading toward the entrance of the steel fabricating plant holding signs that promoted Hamilton’s support for unions.
A few of the attendees had “Stop Schumer” signs, a reference to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who stands to become majority leader if Democrats take control of the chamber.
The hotly contested race in Kansas, where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 1932, has buoyed the party’s hopes.
The president suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that the reelection of his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was “rigged.”
“Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump told reporters before flying to Mississippi for a rally.
He added, “I thought it had a very bad look, the way it was tabulated.”
In a runoff election on Sunday, Lula beat Flávio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally who had emphasized his alliance with the U.S. president in making his appeals to voters.
Bolsonaro has rejected the results. Trump didn’t go that far, but said they “looked like another rigged election, frankly.”
The president’s offer was made in a post on social media and isn’t even confined to the current election. He said he’d award the bounty for evidence of prior fraud, too, and highlighted the offer while talking to reporters.
Voter fraud happens but is far too rare to swing national elections. Trump has long insisted there must be an enormous amount of fraud to explain his electoral setbacks. His party is facing another tough election this time.
Trump’s marshaled the vast resources of the federal government behind his quest to prove massive fraud, but come up empty. The new bounty is reminiscent of ones offered by Trump supporters after the 2020 election. They could never find enough fraud to explain Trump’s loss in that one.
Campaigning in the Midwest over the weekend, Obama criticized Trump’s heavy use of gold accents in his White House renovations.
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said, referring to Iraq’s former leader.
Fox Business caught up with Bessent as he left a Cheesecake Factory near the Treasury Department and asked for comment.
“This is the man who built the museum that looks like Darth Vader’s tomb,” Bessent said, referring to Obama’s recently opened presidential center in Chicago.
Bessent added that, “I had a great meal, always have a great meal” and “I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try,” referring to Obama’s summer vacations on the tony Massachusetts island.
Bessent said he had the French dip cheeseburger for lunch.
U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Monday encouraged a few dozen Republicans to talk to their friends and family about voting. The two Republicans made a stop in Coralville, Iowa, which neighbors Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. The area is one of the state’s liberal bastions.
Hinson, the Republican running to be Iowa’s next senator, called this midterm election “the most critical of our lifetime.”
Miller-Meeks, who is seeking reelection in her southeast Iowa district, acknowledged that gas prices are “a little higher than I’d like them to be,” but she said there is no doubt the country is better off now than it was two years ago.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. officials told Venezuela’s interim authorities “weeks and weeks ago” that opposition leader María Corina Machado should be allowed to return to the country as it moves ahead with preparing for elections next year.
Rubio said Monday that the government led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez replied that Machado was free to enter the country. Rubio told reporters that the U.S. had not discouraged Machado from returning to Venezuela with the exception of immediately after the devastating earthquakes that hit the country in August. He said that was because the U.S. believed the priority should be in getting humanitarian and emergency relief into the country.
The vice president campaigned in Belgrade, where a western Montana congressional race also drew Trump to campaign recently.
Vance promoted Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag, in the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District.
He also promoted Republican Kurt Alme in the Senate race, where he is facing two major candidates, Democrat Alani Bankhead and Independent Seth Bodnar, who is backed by top Democrats.
“You have not one but two Democrats on the ballot,” Vance said to the crowd, joking: “Aren’t you blessed with abundance?”
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler manned a McDonald’s drive-thru in New York’s Hudson Valley on Monday, hoping to grease the wheels on some last-minute voters before Election Day.
The move was similar to a political stunt President Donald Trump pulled two years ago, coming as Lawler tries to put some daylight between himself and the president in his battleground district.
It was hard to tell if patrons were lovin’ it, but some appeared to engage in some friendly chatting with the congressman as he handed out lunchtime orders while wearing an apron and visor.
Lawler is locked in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley over his House district in New York City’s northern suburbs.
Thousands of costumed children, accompanied by their parents, are expected to participate.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump will hand out candy to trick-or-treaters during a portion of the Thursday afternoon event on the South Lawn. Ticketholders will include military families, law enforcement families, foster and adoptive families, and the children of administration officials, the White House said.
The Republican president is scheduled earlier Thursday to headline a campaign rally in South Carolina for Sen. Darline Graham.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is heading to an annual meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts as they face tensions with China.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers’ gathering in the Philippines this week, Hegseth will “hold bilateral and multilateral meetings to strengthen deterrence, advance key alliances and partnerships, and expand burden-sharing across the region,” the Pentagon announced Monday.
There are tensions in the region over Chinese claims on the waters of the South China Sea. The key trade route also has claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Hegseth will gather with his regional counterparts as the U.S. has tried for years to focus on the Asia-Pacific as a way to counter China’s growing influence. That effort has been stymied by the conflict in the Middle East and the Trump administration’s stated goal to focus much of its military efforts on the Western Hemisphere.
Incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and Republican groups had spent about $39 million on television and other advertising as of Monday to help Marshall win a second term, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
However, Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton and Democratic groups topped $52 million.
Vice President JD Vance was traveling to Topeka on Monday for a rally to help Marshall.
It’s by far the most expensive campaign in Kansas history, and it’s considered a tossup even though Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932.
A big part of the gap in spending is tied to Marshall’s lackluster fundraising. Between the state’s August primary and Saturday, Marshall raised about $1.5 million, according to campaign finance reports available online. Hamilton raised $13.7 million.
Two former South Carolina governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges, say that they’re putting aside political differences to back Andrews over GOP Sen. Darline Graham.
Hodges blocked Beasley from a second term in 1998.
Andrews’ campaign says more than 100 Republicans have joined her “Republicans for Annie” coalition. Last week, the son of GOP Rep. Ralph Norman said in an op-ed he was also supporting Andrews in the race that has appeared to tighten in its closing days.
Trump returns to South Carolina on Thursday to campaign with Graham for the second time in the general election.
President Trump heads Monday to Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm campaign blitz that highlights Republicans’ challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.
Mississippi, among the nation’s most reliably Republican states, isn’t where the GOP envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith faces a stiff challenge from Scott Colom, one of many Democratic underdogs that have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s second presidency.
The evening rally with Hyde-Smith will kick off a week that continues to pit Trump against former President Barack Obama, the Democrat he first succeeded in 2017, and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat he defeated in 2024 to return to power. Trump’s itinerary has been taking him to many states he won comfortably in 2024.
It’s rare when Joe Biden is mentioned in a positive way during this year’s midterms. But a mailer from a conservative group supporting Republican Sen. Susan Collins includes photos of her with the former Democratic president as it promotes her ability to work across the aisle.
The mailer, paid for by an organization called One Nation, focuses on Collins’ advocacy for Social Security.
Collins is the rare Republican incumbent running for reelection in a state that regularly supports Democrats for president. She’s running against Democrat Troy Jackson, the former president of the Maine Senate.
Maine has one of the oldest median ages in the country, making Social Security a key issue for many voters in the state.
Jackson and Collins have both pledged to protect the program.
He never campaigned for the late four-term Sen. Lindsey Graham in general elections, but now Trump is returning to South Carolina for a second time since a special primary to stump with Graham’s sister, who’s running to replace him.
Darline Graham won the Republican nomination earlier this year in a special GOP primary set up after her brother’s sudden death.
Trump's political operation says he’ll be with Republican candidates in Rock Hill on Thursday. Just south of Charlotte, the area also provides Trump with an opportunity to address the bruising Senate race in North Carolina.
Trump campaigned last week in Clemson with Darline Graham, who faces Democrat Annie Andrews in South Carolina’s Senate race.
Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was unlawfully fired from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York last year, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Judge Jesse M. Furman said Comey, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for a decade, was illegally fired in July 2025 despite her work on some of the nation’s highest-profile cases and consistently receiving “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike.”
After her firing, Comey sued the Justice Department and others, saying her termination violated the constitutional separation of powers, the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
She asserted that she was fired because she was the daughter of James Comey, a longtime foe of President Trump, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, the judge noted.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Atlanta this week to host foreign ministers from the Group of 20 leading world economies as global unease over the Russia-Ukraine war and the situation with Iran is rising.
The State Department said Monday that Rubio would be in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday for the talks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been invited but not yet confirmed his attendance. The meeting is taking place amid new concerns over the U.S. commitment to Ukraine’s defense but also uncertainty over the Trump administration’s strategy on Iran.
The department said the meeting would focus on “geopolitical crises contributing to global economic shocks, including threats to freedom of navigation, energy and food security, and supply chains.”
In the increasingly bitter legal standoff between President Trump and media outlets whose reporting he dislikes, a new and crucial third party has emerged: citizens who watch and read the news and need it to do their jobs.
A lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of six such citizens — effectively representing the audiences for the news media — argues that it’s not only the rights of news organizations that are violated when Trump bans them from White House premises. Even more fundamentally, the lawsuit argues, such bans violate the public’s right to independent reporting about its president and government.
“The ultimate injury here … is to the democratic public,” says the suit, filed in federal district court in New York against Trump and three key aides, including the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
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