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 the legal challenge was a necessary step to avoid confusing voters in the closely watched midterm race.
Also, President Donald 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.
Here's the latest:
Lawler pulls from Trump playbook with McDonald’s stop
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.
Trump and first lady to host trick-or-treating at the White House on Thursday
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.
Hegseth will attend Southeast Asia defense ministers' meeting
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.
Democrats outspending Republicans as ad spending in the Kansas Senate race nears $91M
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.
Democrat Annie Andrews gets bipartisan endorsements in South Carolina Senate race
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.
Trump heads to Mississippi as the two parties prepare for final sprint ahead of Election Day
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.
Conservative group sends mailer with Susan Collins at a Biden bill signing
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.
Trump returning to South Carolina with Senate race appearing to tighten
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.
Judge rules Maurene Comey, daughter of ex-FBI director, was unlawfully fired by Trump administration
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.
Rubio to host G20 foreign ministers as global tensions complicate US relations with allies
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.”
6 citizens sue Trump, saying media ban deprives them of news as audience stakeholders
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.
Thune scrambles to save his Senate majority as voters voice concern over Iran war and gas prices
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he wouldn’t be offended if some Republicans didn’t want to campaign with him. He knows he’s taken intense criticism from the party’s base — and from President Trump — for his chamber’s inability to pass voter legislation this year.
But Republican candidates in marquee Senate races have welcomed Thune’s help as he’s traveled around the country in the weeks before the midterm elections, scrambling to save his majority.
That includes Rep. Ashley Hinson in this deep red corner of Iowa, a state Republicans couldn’t have envisioned hosting a tossup race a year ago. Hinson is locked in a tight contest against Democrat Josh Turek to replace retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
The stakes for Thune and his party are enormous in Iowa and in several other traditionally Republican states as voters voice frustration with Trump, his war in Iran and high gasoline and grocery prices.
Thousands of observers expected to descend on polling places to monitor voting on Election Day
Democrats and outside watchdogs are planning a massive presence at the polls on Election Day driven by concerns that President Trump will further leverage the vast resources of the federal government to interfere with a midterm that could hobble his final two years in office.
They won’t be the only ones there. A sprawling election protection effort on the left that’s expected to deploy tens of thousands of monitors will be met by the largest-ever monitoring program by the Justice Department and still more observers from Republican-aligned groups. The result could be unlike anything seen at the polls in modern times.
Trump escalates anti-Muslim attacks against El-Sayed in Michigan, drawing Arab American rebuke
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.
Trump called El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists” and would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.” He also repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drawing a comparison between stopping El-Sayed from entering the Senate chamber and the passengers who fought back against the hijackers aboard United Flight 93.
El-Sayed, who would become the nation’s first Muslim senator if elected, has called attacks on his loyalty to the country “shameful” and repeatedly denied any ties to extremist groups. The Republican president’s remarks were condemned by Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president’s outreach to Arab American voters in 2024.
“The president’s statements are out of line,” he said in a phone interview. “They are crossing a red line. They are racist.”
Blanche says Trump isn’t trying to meddle with Alaska election results by suing over Senate race
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Trump administration’s lawsuit 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.
President Donald Trump, who said Friday that he was “the one that said do it,” is not trying to overturn state election results “in any way, shape or form” on the cusp of the Nov. 3 election, Blanche told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We wish that we didn’t have to do this. We hope for a resolution that works,” Blanche said.
Republicans fear that a second candidate on the ballot who is named Dan Sullivan — a retired teacher and school administrator from the tiny fishing community of Petersburg — could siphon away votes from the senator and tip the outcome in favor of Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.
