Trump heads to Nebraska as supreme court hears first oral arguments of new term – US politics live

A quick reminder that we’ll be hosting a live midterm election Q&A on Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 12pm EDT on the Guardian US site, with a panel of our politics and foreign policy reporters to help readers understand the costs of the war and political consequences for Trump and candidates running in November.

If you have a question about how the war with Iran could shape midterm election results, we’d like to hear from you – and be sure to tune in to our live conversation on 6 October, as reporters may have an answer to your question.

Trump said Ukraine strikes on Russia are driving up oil prices, rather than the Iran war, in social media post. “What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, because Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, ‘Refineries,’ where Russia’s are being blown up by Ukraine, and where ours are being closed up, in Blue States, like California, by the Dumocrats.”

Trump’s post comes as the price of oil rose above $100 a barrel, last month, for the first time since July as the escalating conflict in the Middle East threatens further disruption to global supplies.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was no direct link between the sudden removal of US bombers from a UK airbase and a suspected Iranian plot at ⁠the site last week. “I wouldn’t just directly tie that to ⁠the move that was made,” Rubio told reporters, when asked about the B1 bombers. “The Department of War is constantly reallocating resources where they need to be,“ Rubio added.

Rubio said on Monday that the US has confidence in the security of all its bases. “It’s not unusual to see rotations happen and moving into the different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployment, changing out and new people coming in, in planes coming in, old planes going out,” Rubio said. “So, rules are changing all the time.”

Ahead of taking off for his trip to Alaska today, vice-president JD Vance spoke briefly to supporters where he stressed how competitive the state was ahead of the midterm elections. He urged voters in the Last Frontier to not judge Mary Peltola, the moderate Democrat running to unseat the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan – by “what she’s saying in the final six weeks of the Senate campaign”.

“You’ve got to judge her by what she actually did. And the reality is that she did support a lot of radical Democrat policies,” Vance said, referring to Peltola’s time as the state’s sole congresswoman.

When pressed by a reporter about whether the Trump administration’s so-called “public service announcements” – that have aired in recent weeks – are a good use of taxpayer dollars, Vance defended the advertising spots. “If you look historically, you go back to the Obama administration with the Affordable Care Act. You have the people’s government using tax dollars to advertise about what the govern

New polling from the New York Times/Siena college shows four key Democratic gubernatorial candidates leading in their respective races against Republicans in key red states that have become more competitive in recent weeks.

While we’ve been covering dozens of races that will shape the make-up of Congress, there are a number of races for governor across the country that will be vital – particularly when it comes to the ensuing redistricting battles we expect in the lead up to 2028.

According to the Times/Siena survey, Gina Hinojosa – the Democratic state lawmaker challenging sitting governor Greg Abbott – is leading the Republican incumbent by three points. Meanwhile in Iowa, which has become a source of hope for national Democrats, sees Rob Sand – a moderate who serves as the state auditor – ahead of GOP nominee Zach Lahn by 11 points.

Staying in the midwest, in Ohio the closely watched competition between Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton sees the latter with an edge o

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general chosen by Donald Trump to run as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat, admitted in private that his campaign was being controlled by outside forces in DC.

“I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming – you know – from DC,” Paxton told people at a fundraising event in September, according to an audio recording obtained by Politico. “I don’t control message or what we’re doing,” Paxton added. Paxton has been locked in a competitive race with progressive Democrat James Talarico.

An unnamed attender told Politico that Paxton never explicitly said he was referring to Trump’s team controlling his campaign messaging, but that Paxton’s comments arose during a conversation about the national political environment. The Guardian has asked Paxton’s campaign for comment. Paxton’s campaign adviser Nick Maddux told Politico that, “Campaigns don’t coordinate with Su

As the supreme court hears oral arguments this morning, it’s worth noting that if the justices side with Boulder or decide that the case is not in their jurisdiction, then it would continue in state court.

But if the fossil fuel industry convinces the justices, the decision could apply not only to the Boulder case, but also to the many other climate cases brought by state and local governments around the US that we mentioned earlier.

“The hope of the industry side is that this is going to be the death blow,” said Dennis Fan, the founder and director of the Appellate Litigation Clinic at Columbia Law School who wrote an amicus brief in the case. “The industry is going for the home run, they’re going for the grand slam. They’re thinking, ‘if we win this argument, there will never, ever be climate change litigation again.’”

Boulder officials filed a lawsuit in Colorado court in 2018 arguing that Exxon and Suncor concealed and misrepresented to the public what they knew about the damage th

Donald Trump has, once again, falsely claimed the counting window – the time between voters casting their ballots and the official results of an election being released – is an example of how voting is “corrupt” in the US. He used the first round of Brazil’s general elections, where Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro will now head to a runoff, as the basis for his claims.

“The results came out shortly after the vote closed, on the SAME DAY!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other U. S. Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate. Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!”

My colleague, George Chidi, has been reporting on how the president and his allies could seize on this period – as we wait for states to announce results – to amplify unfounded allegations in a bid to challenge results that don’t go their way. Some states take days – even weeks, in California’s case – to com

Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down as White House press secretary in August, is joining Fox News as an on-air contributor, according to an announcement from the network. Leavitt, 29, the youngest press secretary in White House history, left the administration after the birth of her second child earlier this year.

She said at the time that she planned to spend more time with her family and take a role with the Trump-aligned Super Pac Maga Inc. When she announced her pregnancy in December, she became the first sitting White House press secretary to do so. Leavitt is the second Trump White House press secretary to join Fox News.

Kayleigh McEnany joined the network as an on-air contributor after leaving the White House at the end of Trump’s first term. Suzanne Scott, Fox News’s CEO, said in a statement that Leavitt’s “firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape”. Scott said Leavitt will beg

The supreme court will hear the first arguments of its 2026-27 term today at 10am ET. The case was filed by local officials in Boulder, Colorado, against Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil. It focuses on whether states can sue oil companies for the impact of climate change on their communities. The energy companies argue that only federal law can be used to address this issue.

Boulder is one of dozens of local governments that have filed lawsuits against energy companies that demands compensation for past and future harms to the environment. Notably, only eight of the court’s nine justices will hear today’s arguments, after Samuel Alito recused himself from the case after facing calls to step aside due to stock holdings in oil companies.

While Alito does not own stock in Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil, he does have holdings in other oil companies such as ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, according to his disclosures. The group Consumer Watchdog says that means he could indirectly benefit from a

Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington in closed-door meetings, before he heads to Nebraska to campaign with Pete Ricketts. A reminder that Ricketts is the incumbent Republican senator who is facing a competitive re-election race against the independent nominee, Dan Osborn, in November.

The state – which Trump won by more than 20 points in 2024 – is the latest stop on the president’s midterms blitz in the final month until the election. He’s set to deliver remarks at 7pm ET.

And while Trump is in the midwest, his vice-president, JD Vance, will campaign in Fairbanks, Alaska where he’ll stump on behalf of Dan Sullivan, the Republican senator who is fighting for re-election against Mary Peltola, the state’s former Democratic congresswoman.

JD Vance, widely considered to be the Republican frontrunner for the presidential election in 2028, is aligning himself with the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement as some say it is shedding its grassroots supporters in favor of political and corporate interests.

The US vice-president has positioned himself as the inheritor of Make America Great Again (Maga), and attaching himself to Maha, which many in the Trump administration believe helped to win the 2024 election, signals a greater overlap between the two movements as the administration’s popularity plummets amid the war in Iran and rising prices.

More than two-thirds (68%) of rural Maha supporters said that Trump’s health policies have “had a negative effect or no impact on the health of people where they live”, according in a new AP-KFF survey that highlights the disconnect between the sprawling political project and its grassroots support, especially in rural areas that overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election

The US Air Force has pulled its bombers from RAF Fairford following an investigation into an alleged planned terror attack at the base. The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the US, according to a Pentagon official who was not authorised to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on Sunday on condition of anonymity.

A Pentagon spokesperson said: While ⁠operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in ‌real time, we can acknowledge ‌now that all US bombers that were deployed to ‌RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States.

At least 10 B-1 bombers of 12 flew out of Fairford on Sunday, including some that arrived on rotation less than a week ago, underlining the haste of the departure and the apparent significance given by the US to the threat. There was no immediate comment from the UK Ministry of Defence, though the rapid pace of the withdrawal will heighten concerns in the area around the RA

Donald Trump on Sunday named Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, to also serve as the new White House AI czar. Clayton, who leads the US’s 18 intelligence agencies, previously served as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and led the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Clayton said AI was a “gamechanger” but it also posed “a threat”. “When something’s both an opportunity and a threat, you better get your arms around it,” Clayton told lawmakers when asked about AI. CBS News was the first to report that Clayton would be appointed White House AI czar.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump announced that Clayton would lead what the US president called “the Super Intelligence Force (SIF)”. Trump’s post also said the SIF would “coordinate the federal government’s engagement with consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers, and super intelligence companies”

The White House has defended a newly hired press aide who posed for a holiday photograph in 2021 wearing a “Fuck Joe Biden” T-shirt and holding a rifle.

Beni Rae Harmony, the new assistant White House press secretary, revealed on Friday that she was going to work for Donald Trump just days after covering him as a correspondent for Real America’s Voice, a partisan rightwing outlet originally created as a video podcast platform for the president’s former adviser Steve Bannon.

According to a LinkedIn profile, Harmony, 24, previously worked as a producer for the far-right Turning Point USA host Jack Posobiec – and as a press aide “focusing on crisis management” for two far-right Republicans: congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona and former congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida.

In 2021, when Gosar was censured by the US House for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden, Harmony recorded an outraged defense of her

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Donald Trump will be in Nebraska later today, campaigning alongside Republican senator Pete Ricketts, in an attempt to salvage the GOP’s dwindling midterms campaign. The president is headed to Grand Island, located in the solidly conservative south-central part of the state.

It’s part of what Trump says is a 32-day blitz of rallies ahead of 3 November that so far has taken him to ruby-red territory such as Oklahoma and Alabama. On Wednesday, he will make his second stop in two weeks in Texas with a rally in San Antonio.

“The president’s coming to Nebraska to help me campaign, so I can get reelected,” Ricketts, who is running against an independent candidate backed by national Democrats, told the Associated Press last week on Capitol Hill. The administration’s plan to allow more imports of foreign beef has particularly roiled the agriculture-rich state of Nebraska.

Trump wants to lower beef prices for consumers but ranchers have rebelled a

Kaynak: The Guardian · Özgün metin İngilizcedir.