Trump travels to Texas to support Ken Paxton as another state official endorses James Talarico – live | US midterm elections 2026
Tom Phillips, chief justice of Texas supreme court, endorses James Talarico in Senate race
Tom Phillips, a longtime chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a staunch Republican, endorsed Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race on Monday.
In an op-ed published in the Austin American-Statesman, Phillips, a Republican who served as the state’s chief justice from 1988 to 2004, said that he believed that Talarico would be a better representative of Texas in the Senate, and more willing to engage in productive bipartisanship.
By contrast, he said, Paxton would be a Trump acolyte who would enable the president’s excesses and self-dealing, steering the Republican Party away from the ideals Phillips believes it should embody, such as limited government and free enterprise.
He also felt that Paxton’s history of scandal would cast a shadow over his Senate tenure, regardless of his future conduct.
“However exemplary his future conduct might be, Paxton’s longstanding reputation will embarrass Texas in ways our state simply cannot afford,” Phillips wrote. “While I, like many Republicans, do not agree with all of Talarico’s past statements or current positions, I am confident that he would serve this great state with dignity and honor.”
Phillips said he believed there were still Republican candidates on the ticket who were worthy of serving. Paxton just wasn’t one of them.
“Thus, while I enthusiastically support the statewide Republican judicial candidates and many Republican candidates for other statewide offices, my choice for United States Senator must be James Talarico,” Phillips wrote.
Key events
Trump administration boat strikes continue with attack in Eastern Pacific
Another US strike on a purported drug-smuggling vessel in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday killed 5 people, according to the US military.
The strikes is just the latest in dozens of similar attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed more than 240 people, and that the Trump administration has claimed are targeting drug traffickers, branded “narcoterrorists” by the president. But they’ve been widely criticized as illegal extrajudicial killings, and the administration has not furnished evidence that all of those killed are connected to the drug trade.
Read more about the latest strike here.
DoJ asks Washington state not to count ballots from possible noncitizens
The US justice department has asked Washington state not to count any mail ballots received from more than 400 residents who it says may not be US citizens, Reuters reports, opening a new front in the Trump administration’s push to expand control of election administration ahead of next Tuesday’s midterms.
The letter, which resembled a request earlier this month that California not count any ballots received from around 20,000 alleged noncitizens, marked an escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure on state election officials over alleged noncitizen voting.
Multiple state audits and independent studies have found that voter fraud, including voting by noncitizens, is extremely rare and has not affected election outcomes.
The pressure campaign is a rare intervention by the Justice Department in the voting process in the weeks before an election. Donald Trump’s Republican party is locked in a tight battle to retain slim majorities in both chambers of the US Congress, and centrist Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s campaign to hold onto her southwest Washington seat is one of 10 key races that could decide control of the US House of Representatives.
In the letter, dated 26 October, the top federal prosecutors in Seattle and Spokane asked Washington secretary of state Steve Hobbs, the state’s top elections official, to determine whether the more than 400 people were in fact US citizens and to not count their ballots until their citizenship was determined. The letter said the justice department would seek “emergency relief” if the state could not take those actions by noon local time tomorrow.
There were 5 million registered voters in Washington state as of 2024, according to the secretary of state’s office.
In a statement, Hobbs said his office would only respond to requests that follow due process.
“The timing of this request — one week before the General Election — is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” Hobbs said.
A justice department spokesperson said: “With his [Hobbs’] help, we can ensure that only American citizens vote in Washington’s elections.“
In its letter to Washington state officials, the justice department acknowledged that some of the individuals flagged as possible noncitizens may have since naturalized, but it did not say how many.
Federal law enforcement agents searched a home in suburban Los Angeles early today as part of an investigation into Eric Swalwell, who resigned from Congress amid a wave of sexual misconduct allegations, a law enforcement official and two people familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press.
Agents searched the Beverly Hills home of wealthy developer and Swalwell donor Stephen Cloobeck, where the Democratic ex-congressman spent time before resigning from office in April, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Swalwell has denied criminal wrongdoing.
Messages seeking comment were left for Swalwell’s attorney and for a lawyer who represented Cloobeck in another matter.
Cloobeck, the founder of the Diamond Resorts International timeshare company, told the New York Post in April that he cut ties with Swalwell as accusations against him mounted.
“I am no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women,” Cloobeck told the newspaper. “I support women’s rights.”
Today’s search is the latest escalation in the federal investigation of Swalwell – one of several probes begun after a woman came forward with allegations that he sexually assaulted her twice, including when she worked for him.
The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.
More on this story here:
Trump’s cuts have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers, experts warn
Gabrielle Canon
Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter.
From the start of his second term, the president has taken aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), slashing staff levels, canceling contracts and grants, and shutting down databases and research laboratories. The agency that has long been considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting, has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025.
The National Weather Service, which is housed within Noaa, has also taken a hit. Weather stations have had to delay data collection and cut operating hours, with hundreds of meteorological and other technical positions still vacant across its 122 forecast offices.
The effects have already been felt at Noaa, where a chaotic and volatile environment has sent morale plummeting, increased burnout and hampered vital work. While capacity has quietly unravelled, a large-scale disaster will quickly expose the most dangerous gaps.
“The system has not really been tested since all the cuts happened,” said Tom Di Liberto, a former Noaa climate scientist who now works as the media director of Climate Central.
That test could soon be coming.
This year’s super El Niño, a climate phenomenon characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface temperatures, has the ability to fuel extreme weather events around the world. It’s already climbing off the charts and is expected to strengthen through the northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter.
Along with dangerous spikes in temperature, El Niño will supercharge storms in parts of the American west, raise sea levels in California by up to a foot, and set the stage for debris flows, landslides and flash floods.
“Whether we as a country can handle the kind of coast-to-coast extremes that could potentially happen this winter is a big question,” Di Liberto said.
Read the full report here:
In the latest episode of our Stateside podcast, Carter Sherman speaks to Julian Borger, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, about how historic elections in Serbia, Brazil, Israel and the United States could reshape the political world order in just 10 days – and why the upcoming US midterm elections are the biggest test for global democracy.
Trump refers to oil tanker he’ll show off in Texas as a personal “gift” from Venezuela
Before heading to Texas, Trump spoke in blunt terms about the US’s relationship with Venezuela, describing a massive shipment of oil he’ll show off at a campaign stop as a personal gift from a subdued country.
“We took over Venezuela, very successfully,” Trump said. “And they’ve sent me as a gift, a boatload of a million barrels of oil, and I’m giving that to the United States of America.”
The Trump administration deposed Venezuela’s former leader, Nicólas Maduro, in January, dragging the autocrat off to a Brooklyn jail after a nighttime incursion into the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. His US-friendly successor, Delcy Rodriguez, who took power with Trump’s backing, has since brokered deals with the Trump administration that would see Venezuela oil revenues funneled into US coffers.
The oil shipment from Venezuela is part of Trump’s efforts to tamp down voters’ outrage over soaring gas prices due to the war in Iran.
“We’re going to accept a million barrels of oil, and I’m going to give it to you people to use it the way you want,” Trump said.“Oil prices are going to be dropping very sharply, very soon.”
Trump says he’ll respect election results ‘if they’re honest’
Pressed on the tarmac en route to a pair of Texas campaign events on whether he would accept the election results of the 2026 midterm elections, President Trump gave a familiar reply: “I will, if they’re honest.”
He also said he would be open to working with, and potentially making deals, with a Democratic majority if Republicans were to lose control of Congress.
“I hope that won’t be the case, but if it is, that’s happened before with many presidents,” Trump told reporters. “You have strong veto, and you end up working out deals.”
Trump-appointed CDC deputy director to resign after six months on the job
Jessica Glenza
The deputy director and chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will resign after six months on the job, according to an agency email obtained by the Guardian.
Dr Jennifer Shuford was appointed by Donald Trump in April as part of a four-person senior leadership team.
The appointments were meant to stabilize the agency after the previous CDC director, Susan Monarez, left less than a month into the job – publicly describing the directives of the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, as “unscientific”.
“I am leaving to spend more time with my family,” Shuford said in a statement, sent via email by the CDC director, Dr Erica Schwartz. “I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC. It has been an amazing experience, and I will be forever grateful for it.”
Shuford is expected to leave her post on 12 November, after the midterm elections.
The deputy director was appointed as part of a four-person team in April, alongside Schwartz and two other top leaders. Shuford’s appointment was cheered by public health leaders, such as Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), who would have known her work as Texas health commissioner.
In the time since Shuford has worked at the agency, Kennedy has made significant changes that undermine vaccine trust and access. In just a few recent examples: Kennedy fired all 17 of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel members and replaced them with ideologically aligned appointees, slow-walked death updates to the agency’s measles dashboard, and forced the CDC to publicly contradict scientific consensus on vaccines and autism – a change the Autism Science Foundation said left it “appalled”.
At the same time, the agency has lost one-third of its workforce and 48 distinct measles outbreaks have roiled the US, particularly in Pennsylvania. The overwhelming majority of Americans – including Maha supporters – trust vaccines.
Tom Phillips, chief justice of Texas supreme court, endorses James Talarico in Senate race
Tom Phillips, a longtime chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a staunch Republican, endorsed Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race on Monday.
In an op-ed published in the Austin American-Statesman, Phillips, a Republican who served as the state’s chief justice from 1988 to 2004, said that he believed that Talarico would be a better representative of Texas in the Senate, and more willing to engage in productive bipartisanship.
By contrast, he said, Paxton would be a Trump acolyte who would enable the president’s excesses and self-dealing, steering the Republican Party away from the ideals Phillips believes it should embody, such as limited government and free enterprise.
He also felt that Paxton’s history of scandal would cast a shadow over his Senate tenure, regardless of his future conduct.
“However exemplary his future conduct might be, Paxton’s longstanding reputation will embarrass Texas in ways our state simply cannot afford,” Phillips wrote. “While I, like many Republicans, do not agree with all of Talarico’s past statements or current positions, I am confident that he would serve this great state with dignity and honor.”
Phillips said he believed there were still Republican candidates on the ticket who were worthy of serving. Paxton just wasn’t one of them.
“Thus, while I enthusiastically support the statewide Republican judicial candidates and many Republican candidates for other statewide offices, my choice for United States Senator must be James Talarico,” Phillips wrote.
Speaking to reporters on the tarmac before departing for a campaign event in Michigan, JD Vance responded to a question about President Trump’s remarks branding Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as a “jihadist.”
Vance, who has sparred with the progressive El-Sayed repeatedly on the campaign trail, took a somewhat softer tone. But he didn’t walk away from Trump’s remarks.
Vance said that El-Sayed had identified himself with a segment of Democrats “who seem to align with people who justify violence against the United States of America.”
“I don’t know what’s in the guy’s heart,” Vance said. “I just know he has a lot of weird friends.”
Trump and Rubio descend on Texas to campaign for Paxton, and to tout Venezuelan oil
President Trump is set to headline back-to-back campaign events in Texas on Tuesday, as Republicans look to bolster Senate candidate Ken Paxton in the face of a strong challenge from Democrat James Talarico.
Trump will rally in Corpus Christi this afternoon, then head to Lubbock for an evening event. He’ll be joined on the campaign trail by Secretary of State Marco Rubio – a highly unusual move for the nation’s top diplomat.
Together, the pair are set to flaunt an oil tanked filler with Venezuelan crude bound for Texas refineries, according to officials familiar with the plans.
Trump has frequently touted the oil deal his administration struck with the new, US-backed Venezuelan leadership after deposing its former leader, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this year, as a windfall for the nation. Rubio, a chief architect of Trump’s foreign policy, especially in Latin America, has been deeply involved in those negotiations.
The stunt also comes at a moment when surging oil prices, an aftershock of the war in Iran, have kneecapped the Republican party going into the midterms, countering Trump’s 2024 election promises to bring down prices.
Those grievances have put states once considered reliably Republican into play for the midterms, and Texas may be chief among them. The state hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in decades, yet recent polling has found a closely contested race between Paxton (a divisive candidate dogged by scandal) and Talarico.
US voters: tell us what issues will decide your vote in the midterm elections?
On 3 November, millions of Americans will vote in midterm elections to decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships in 36 states.
In an October poll by the New York Times/Siena College, Donald Trump’s approval rating sank to 36% with most respondents expressing frustration over his handling of the US economy, cost of living and Iran war.
We’d like to hear from all Americans of voting age about their thoughts on the midterm elections. What are the main issues that will decide your vote and why?
Share your story by filling out the form here.
Shadow from Trump’s Washington arch would land on Arlington Cemetery, Washington Post finds
Since President Trump first proposed the installation of a monumental new arch in Washington, critics have argued it would detract from another important site nearby: Arlington National Cemetery, the nation’s largest military cemetery, which sits just across a nearby bridge.
But a new analysis by The Washington Post has found that the arch would, quite literally, cast a shadow over the hallowed burial ground.
On 284 days out of the year, the arch would block sunlight from portions of the cemetery, its shadow passing over the graves of more than 75,000 people, as well as several notable memorial sites. Those include the eternal flame honoring former president John F. Kennedy and the Military Women’s Memorial.
The shadow would also pass over the grave sites of several Supreme Court Justices, including Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Post found.
Strong early turnout in Israeli election, with Netanyahu’s political future in the balance
Israeli voters are going to the polls today to decide the future of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who president Trump has strongly backed and who worked with him to launch the ongoing war with Iran.
Early turnout in the election, branded by some as the most consequential in Israeli history, was the highest it’s been in decades, according to data released by Israel’s Central Elections Committee.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, faces his first true election test since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the beginning of the war in Gaza. That conflict touched off a wider regional conflict that increasingly drew in the US, culminating in the current US-Israeli war on Iran, which Trump and Netanyahu jointly launched earlier this year.
That war and its economic aftershocks (the soaring price of fuel, in particular) have loomed large over the US midterm election. Today’s election in Israel will help determine the future course of that war, and what Israeli leadership will be working with the US to see it through, as well as implement Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.
Follow along the Israeli election as it unfolds here, with my colleague Yohannes Lowe.
While Donald Trump is heading to Texas, JD Vance, his vice president and a top MAGA campaign surrogate, will be in Howell, Michigan, campaigning for Republicans in the state.
The stop in Michigan is part of a campaign blitz that just yesterday took Vance to Montana and Kansas. The latter of those two states has become the site of an unexpectedly competitive Senate race, with Democrat Adam Hamilton mounting a strong challenge against the Republican incumbent Roger Marshall.
Vance has already made multiple midterm stops in Michigan, where the Senate race between Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, and Mike Rogers, the Republican, has seen some of the fiercest campaigning of this election season.
Vance and El-Sayed have repeatedly sparred over campaign remarks. The vice president has called El-Sayed “very evil,” and El-Sayed, a Muslim who has faced frequent GOP attacks on his faith, has accused Vance of Islamophobia. We’ll see if that back-and-forth continues today.
Three tankers carrying Russian diesel are en route to the United States, with a fourth expected to depart Wednesday, Moscow has said, part of a deal that triggered a fierce Ukrainian and European backlash.
US president Donald Trump this month struck an agreement with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin to ease sanctions in exchange for Moscow releasing diesel onto global markets.
The measure was seen as an attempt to lower fuel prices for American consumers ahead of the US midterm legislative elections on 3 November and drew sharp criticism from Ukraine and its allies.
“At present, three tankers” with Russian fuel are on their way to the United States, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Tuesday.
A fourth was expected to set off on Wednesday, he added.
George Chidi
Social media feeds are awash with an unprecedented flood of AI-driven disinformation ahead of November’s US midterm elections, according to experts, who warn many posts are likely “slipping through the cracks”.
As tens of millions of Americans prepare to cast their vote, social media companies have scaled back their efforts to protect voters from lies meant to manipulate elections.
While the backlash against Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal prompted social media giants to bolster their trust and safety operations, a counter-backlash from the right over fears of speech restrictions – which intensified after Elon Musk’s takeover of X, formerly Twitter, and the election of Donald Trump in 2024 – has led to significant layoffs from relevant teams.
Artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to launch a disinformation campaign. And platforms are increasingly relying on AI, rather than human intervention, to respond.
“You can run an information operation now with quality that was impossible in 2016 for super, super cheap,” said Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data engineer turned whistleblower and advocate for transparency and accountability in Big Tech. Operatives playing dirty tricks can get around content moderation rules “because you can just keep tweaking the post a little bit each time you create them, and some of them are going to get through”, she said.
President Donald Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio on Tuesday plan to show off a newly arrived oil tanker filled with Venezuelan crude to be processed in Texas refineries, according to a congressional aide and two US officials.
The visit to Port Arthur, Texas, comes on the same day that Trump is campaigning in the state for Republican candidates in the midterms, AP reported.
The president has rallies scheduled in Corpus Christi and Lubbock. Trump is trying to shore up support for US Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who is locked in a tight race with Democratic candidate James Talarico.
It’s not clear whether Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, would take part in any campaign events. But it’s the first time that he’s hitting the road with Trump as the president barnstorms the country.
The two US officials and the congressional aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Rubio’s plans before they were publicly announced.
It’s highly unusual for the nation’s top diplomat to participate in political travel. Rubio’s trip would be the latest example of how Trump’s second presidency has blurred the lines between governing and campaigning. Attorney-general Todd Blanche has already been appearing at rallies alongside Republican candidates.
Rubio previously ran for president in 2016 and is considered a top prospect in 2028. He has not said whether he will run, and his political activities have been limited since becoming secretary of state.
‘I’m still innocent,’ says Comey as Trump calls him a ‘dirty cop’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump has called the former FBI director, James Comey, a “dirty cop”, Reuters reports.
The US justice department is attempting to prosecute Comey for a third time, on the grounds of sharing sensitive national security information in 2016, according to court documents made public on Monday.
The case was revealed in a court document known as a “criminal information” that the justice department said it filed to stop the 10-year statute of limitations on the offense from expiring earlier this month.
The document, filed in Washington federal court, charges Comey with transmitting and conspiring to transmit national defense information. It alleges he shared classified information with a reporter from the New York Times in October 2016.
“I think he’s a dirty cop,” president Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, when asked about Comey. “I don’t know much about it,” he said.
Comey said in a video on Instagram that “they’re back again” and referenced the Justice Department, but did not provide further details. “I’m still innocent,” he added. Comey’s lawyers have already asked a judge to dismiss the case, arguing it is legally improper.
In other developments:
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Donald Trump campaigned in Corinth, Mississippi in support of Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and told the crowd his rallies have “totally changed the dialogue”. “Nobody’s ever campaigned like I have for midterms,” he said.
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A vocal protester then attempted to engage the president in some dialogue, on the subject of his ballroom, and where it might be most appropriately located.
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Trump lashed out in racist terms at his predecessor, Barack Obama, for joking over the weekend that his renovation of the White House, with “gold everywhere”, has “the White House looking like Saddam Hussein open a Cheesecake Factory.”
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Trump told reporters that Obama “doesn’t notice dirt and filth” of the White House before he rehabilitated it. Trump said then that he was “a very clean person” but, “you have to explain that to Obama” because the former president doesn’t understand and is “not smart at all.”
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Trump said that the comeback victory of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, over his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, “looked like another rigged election, frankly.”
