President Donald Trump took his midterm campaign blitz to Texas, where Senate candidate Ken Paxton is locked in a tight race against Democrat James Talarico. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined Trump to show off a newly arrived oil tanker filled with Venezuelan crude to be processed in Texas refineries.
The Iran war has emerged as an unforced liability for a president who promised to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars. Republican strategists privately acknowledge it’s severely damaging party efforts to retain control of Congress as gasoline price hikes drive up costs across the economy.
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Trump concludes second Texas rally
This one, in Lubbock, stretched more than 100 minutes.
The themes Trump hit echoed much of what he said at his Texas rally earlier Tuesday, as well as on the campaign trail for much of this month.
Next, Trump is off to Chillicothe, Ohio, on Wednesday.
Trump says he’s ending restrictions on methane emissions from oil drilling
The president says that his administration is “terminating” the Biden-era rule that aimed to cut planet-warming emissions of methane from oil and gas drilling.
Trump says the change would save companies and consumers billions of dollars and unlock 210 million barrels of oil. That’s equivalent to about 10 days of U.S. petroleum consumption.
The move aims to encourage more domestic drilling as Trump faces criticism over high fuel prices amid the war in Iran.
Trump said that Biden’s plan “crushed the small operators” with crippling regulations.
“I’m officially terminating Biden’s expensive and unnecessary methane regulations to save consumers and energy producers $45 billion in costs,” Trump said.
Scientists estimate that methane is responsible for about a third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump hauls Rubio up to the campaign stage again
Once again, the secretary of state didn’t look eager to speak before the rally crowd, and once again, he kept his remarks brief.
“Get up here, Marco,” Trump implored Rubio, who had made a rare trip with the president as he campaigned in Texas.
Trump brought Rubio up on stage at his previous rally earlier Tuesday.
Once he reached the lectern, Rubio told the enthusiastic crowd that “our enemies are weaker and our country is stronger and our people are safer because Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States.”
Then he — again — swiftly exited the stage.
Trump urges people to accept data centers in their communities
Trump also urged data center owners to pay people in the communities where they want to build.
And he urged people to accept data centers when they come to town.
“Don’t turn them down because somebody else is going to take them, and you’ll be very unhappy in the long run,” Trump said while campaigning for Republicans in Texas, where GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has paused new data center construction.
Data center developers will “pay a fortune” to individuals and governments, he said.
“And once you do that, everyone’s going to be saying, ‘We want data,’” Trump said.
Trump again flirts with Cruz for Supreme Court
Campaigning in Texas, the president said he would pick the state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz, to be his next nominee for the Supreme Court.
He’s floated that idea before. And Trump has also joked previously that Cruz would be confirmed unanimously, even among Democrats, because — as he said on Tuesday — “they hate the guy and they want to get rid of him.”
“I’d get 100% of the vote, and he would be a Supreme Court justice, and he’d do a great job,” Trump said of Cruz, who got a standing ovation from the audience in Lubbock.
Cruz has made it clear he does not want to be nominated by Trump, telling conservative host Sean Hannity on his podcast last month that his answer is “not just no, but hell no.”
Federal prosecutor says the US government seeks to ‘safeguard’ California election
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli argued that the Justice Department’s demands would not significantly disrupt the ongoing election.
“We have not asked to void any ballots,” he said. Instead, the government was seeking to “work with” California officials to “safeguard” the election, he said, arguing the state has an obligation to investigate before counting those voters’ ballots.
Lawyers for California and Los Angeles County said the federal government has not specified how or when it obtained the voter file, leaving open the possibility the list is inaccurate or outdated.
California officials have previously warned that complying with the Trump administration’s demands could disenfranchise legitimate voters, delay election certification and cause general uncertainty in the election results.
Judge hears arguments on whether California should count thousands of ballots disputed by US
A federal judge in Los Angeles has heard arguments over whether the Department of Justice can bar California from counting the ballots of some 20,000 people until it can confirm they are U.S. citizens.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge David O. Carter comes amid voting in the midterm election.
Noncitizen voting has been a key focus of Trump’s administration, though available data indicates the illegal practice is exceedingly rare.
The administration sued election officials in heavily Democratic California in mid-October, accusing them of failing to meet a 48-hour deadline to review its list of 20,000 names on the state’s voter rolls it alleges are likely noncitizens.
Hundreds of thousands of California’s 23 million voters have already cast mail-in ballots.
State Department says it will give US visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family
A senior State Department official says that they will be granted U.S. visas after Bolsonaro 's weekend loss to incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a hotly contested race that bucked a trend of conservative electoral results in Latin America.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to visa privacy laws. The official did not say if Bolsonaro had already left Brazil or if he and his family were en route to the U.S.
Bolsonaro’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas, had publicly encouraged him to leave Brazil if he lost the election.
Bolsonaro has touted his relationship with Trump, and he also visited the White House in May.
The family connections go deeper: Eduardo Bolsonaro was convicted in absentia in June of illegally lobbying the Trump administration and sentenced to four years in prison. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest.
Bolsonaro had been under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in Brazil. He'd also been ordered to surrender his passport.
Trump did not offer a full-throated endorsement of Bolsonaro in Sunday’s runoff election against Lula, as he has with some other right-of-center candidates in Latin America. But he suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that Brazil’s election was “rigged.”
—-By Matthew Lee and Mauricio Savarese
FEC filing website is down
The Federal Election Commission website that accepts electronic campaign finance filings is offline.
The system went down on Monday.
“We are continuing to investigate this issue,” the FEC website said on Tuesday.
The website for searching already-filed reports remains online, a spokesperson said. He declined to elaborate on the outage.
Trump calls Rubio to the stage
The secretary of state and potential 2028 presidential candidate made his debut on the campaign trail after Trump goaded him to come to the microphone.
Rubio paused as he took the stage, taking in cheers from the crowd and putting his hand on his heart.
“It’s an honor to work for the greatest country in the world for the greatest president in the history of the United States of America. We love Texas,” Rubio said, keeping his remarks brief.
Trump had repeatedly prodded Rubio to join him at the microphone after mentioning his name, which drew cheers from the crowd.
“Marco! Marco! Come up,” Trump said.
Trump suggests making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state
The president took the stage at a venue in Corpus Christi and said to the crowd, “See that little ship out there? It’s got 1 million barrels of oil on it from Venezuela.”
He recounted to the crowd the U.S. operation in Venezuela earlier this year that captured former leader Nicolás Maduro and said, “To the victor belongs the spoils.”
Trump then suggested Venezuela could become part of the U.S. and said, “Let’s make it the 51st state.”
Tennessee US House candidate admits to a ‘past indiscretion’ after sexting report
The Nashville Scene reports that state Sen. Brent Taylor sent unsolicited nude photos as recently as 2021. Taylor, who is in his 50s and married, characterized his behavior as “youthful indiscretions,” the alternative newspaper reported.
“I’m willing to acknowledge my past indiscretion,” Taylor said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The frustrating part is that my wife now has to relive this nonsense we’ve already worked through years ago together and moved on from.”
Taylor is running with Trump’s endorsement to represent Tennessee’s 9th District. He faces Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson, who gained national prominence when he was expelled from the Tennessee House for protesting in support of gun control measures and then reelected by voters.
US and Iran clash over U.N. nuclear chief’s demand that Tehran open nuclear facilities for inspection
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, challenged Iran at the start of a U.N. Security Council meeting to “seize the opportunity” to answer questions about its nuclear safeguards program raised more than five years ago — and give the IAEA access to all nuclear sites, including those damaged in U.S.-Israeli military attacks in 2025 and 2026.
Iran’s U.N. Deputy Ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi responded with an attack on the council for its silence after the attacks, and on the U.S. and Israel for their “wars of aggression against Iran.” He kept repeating that Iran’s nuclear program and facilities are peaceful.
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz called Iran a “brutal dictatorship” that “shamelessly massacred 40,000 of its own citizens just this year.”
“We’ve heard tireless allegations against the United States,” he said. “What we have not heard today is an explanation for Iran’s continued failure to satisfy its safeguard obligations.”
Democratic candidate for Senate from Iowa faces criticism for new ad on transgender issues
Josh Turek, a Democratic state representative seeking Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat, recently released a television advertisement outlining his positions on transgender issues that has drawn swift backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates.
In the video, Turek is talking directly to the camera and says he opposes “males competing in female sports” and “taxpayers paying for sex changes.”
“It’s time to stop the nonsense from both extremes and focus on lowering costs for Iowans,” Turek says.
Turek is up against Republican Ashley Hinson. The new advertisement is among several his campaign is running in the final week and follows Republican attacks on the issue, including from a political group backed by billionaire Elon Musk.
An Iowa-based LGBTQ+ rights group denounced Turek’s ad on Monday. Max Mowitz, executive director of One Iowa Action, said in a statement that it buys into the “harmful and immoral” characterization of transgender women “as dangerous or unworthy of medically necessary care.”
Volunteers to deploy across Native American reservations on Election Day
The effort will support voters who historically have faced obstacles to casting their ballot.
The roughly 250 volunteers will watch for delays in opening polling stations or early closures, internet outages or malfunctioning voting equipment. They will be in eight states, including Alaska and Michigan, both of which have competitive U.S. House and Senate races.
“Native Americans are poised to be incredibly powerful this upcoming election,” said Jacqueline De León, the senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, which has filed several lawsuits over the years to increase Native American voter access.
De León also notes that mail ballots from remote areas might take longer to reach election offices, but that doesn’t mean those voters should be suspected of voter fraud.
US military says 5 killed by strike on alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific
The U.S. military attacked a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, killing five people, as the Trump administration continues its campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.
The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 240 in more than 70 strikes. The Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in September 2025.
As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes and that “intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking.”
The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a small boat in the water before it was enveloped by an explosion.
Trump offers a qualified answer to whether he’ll accept US election results
“I will if they are honest,” Trump said before departing for Texas to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
His administration has repeatedly raised concerns about the vote in the run-up to Election Day.
The administration on Monday asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges registered to vote without U.S. citizenship, less than two weeks after making a similar demand in California.
Last month, the Supreme Court blocked an administration effort to have the U.S. Postal Service screen mail ballots.
US and Cuban officials engage in shouting match during UN debate
Ahead of the UN’s annual vote condemning the U.S. embargo on Cuba, representatives from Washington and Havana exchanged barbs on the floor of the General Assembly.
In a stunning break from diplomatic decorum, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez walked up to the podium while U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz was speaking about what he called the communist government’s corruption.
“You are a liar!” Rodríguez yelled.
Waltz responded, “You understand who you’re dealing with? This is America. Back up.”
Political ad spending in the midterm elections has set a record
With spending on campaign ads now reaching $11.21 billion, the 2025-2026 midterms have become the most expensive ever, according to AdImpact, which tracks media spending.
A week out from Election Day, total spending and reservations have topped the $11.20 billion spent in the 2023-2024 period, which included the presidential contest.
The latest figure has not been adjusted for inflation.
