A federal judge said the Trump administration has engaged in a “campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” election officials ahead of the midterms.
A federal judge in Florida today dismissed with prejudice a defamation case Trump brought against the Wall Street Journal after they published in 2025 a birthday letter the president sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
The judge in this case, Darrin P. Gayles, wrote in his order, “As President Trump has not plausibly alleged that each Defendant made defamatory statements with actual malice, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed. And because this is President Trump’s second attempt to allege his claims, the Court finds that dismissal with prejudice is appropriate.”
Gayles referenced an earlier defamation case against the Wall Street Journal about the same article, which was dismissed in April.
Virginia and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court Saturday in a last-ditch effort to stop the construction of the triumphal arch planned for Memorial Circle in Washington.
The Trump administration has said it plans to begin construction of the arch next week, on Nov. 5.
“The construction of the Arch will inflict immediate and irreparable harm on the District and Virginia,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb wrote in the lawsuit. “The Arch is slated to be built on a busy traffic circle that abuts the border between the jurisdictions, at the center of a historic viewshed, in a river whose environment the District has a statutory responsibility to protect.”
“Both the construction of the Arch and the completed monument will disrupt the operations of both jurisdictions, impair their ability to carry out their responsibilities under federal and local law, and require the expenditure of substantial resources to mitigate and address those impacts,” they added.
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E. Jean Carroll is urging the Supreme Court to reject President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the $83.3 million judgment a unanimous jury awarded her nearly three years ago, arguing that he repeatedly waived his right to claim presidential immunity by choosing to litigate the case for years without raising the defense.
In a 64-page brief opposing Trump’s petition, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan argues that his defamatory statements about her stemmed from an alleged sexual assault that occurred when he was a private citizen and therefore are not protected by presidential immunity.
Kaplan also argues that Trump should not be allowed to reverse course after initially telling the court that Carroll was free to pursue her lawsuit once he left office and insisting he was not seeking to “escape accountability.”
The brief recounts how Carroll endured thousands of online attacks and threats of death and sexual violence from Trump supporters, which her attorneys say damaged her career and left her fearing for her safety.
“While this President may want this Court’s help, the Presidency does not need it,” Kaplan wrote, arguing there is no reason for the justices to intervene simply to shield Trump from the consequences of his own litigation decisions.
Jason Turkish, Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ fiancé, this morning said he’s not sure whether the congresswoman would appear alongside Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee at a scheduled campaign event Sunday.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know where that stands as of Saturday morning,” Turkish told “Fox & Friends.”
Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed earlier this year, was supposed to appear alongside him tonight for the first time since the August primary.
But divisions between the two former foes over Israel and the war in Gaza erupted earlier this week after Turkish told local news that he planned to vote for the Republican Senate nominee, Mike Rogers. Stevens has said she plans to vote for El-Sayed, but urged his campaign this week to denounce an ad funded by an outside group that Stevens said blamed high costs in the U.S. on Israel.
“Haley has made it clear to anyone who will listen that she remains on Team Dem. That her only ask, small ask, was to say that we not blame all of society’s high costs on one group of people,” Turkish said this morning.
Democratic candidates in 2026 battleground races are directly criticizing Joe Biden’s handling of border security when he was president, seeking to neutralize a political vulnerability and signaling a new path for the party on the thorny issue.
Candidates are throwing the ex-president under the bus on border policy in key states that will decide control of the Senate and some battleground House races across the country.
“I called out Joe Biden for failing us on the border,” Texas’ Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico says in a recent adairing in the closing stretch of his neck-and-neck race against Republican Ken Paxton. He also criticized Biden in July for having “failed us on our southern border” as he rolled out his own border security plan.
He’s not alone.
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NBC News