President Donald Trump focused on law and order at a rally for the GOP candidate for Senate in North Carolina, blaming Democrats for what he said are soft-on-crime policies.
U.S. stock indexes rose sharply this morning after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in a bid to rein in rising inflation.
In early trading, the S&P 500 soared 1.2% while the Nasdaq Composite surged 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 450 points, or 0.9%. The Russell 2000 index, which tracks small and midsize companies, rose 1.5%.
The jump in stocks also came alongside a rally in bonds, sending their yields lower, as the price of oil declined for a second straight day. U.S. crude oil briefly fell below $100 per barrel for the first time since Sept. 11, and Brent crude fell to as low as $101 after hitting $109 just two days earlier.
There was also positive economic news in the latest jobless claims report, which showed that filings for unemployment claims declined to the lowest level since July. However, this data could be an outlier because last week was a short holiday week.
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Nearly the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate is demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provide Congress with a full accounting of the cost of the Iran war along with related budget requests, as frustration grows that the Pentagon is not being forthcoming about the conflict and its fiscal impact.
Forty-six Democratic senators sent a letter to Hegseth earlier today demanding a detailed breakdown of the cost of military operations against Iran. The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to double down on his call for federal regulation of AI in a speech this afternoon Pittsburgh.
“I’ve called on the federal government to step up and regulate the AI industry — just like they do for nearly every other industry that significantly impacts our lives,” he’s slated to say in a keynote speech at the AI Horizons 2026 Summit, according to excerpts obtained by NBC News.
The governor, a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, is expected to fault House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other members of Congress for being “content to do nothing, instead blaming others for their lack of leadership or saying they don’t have the expertise to act.”
Shapiro is expected to criticize Johnson for sending the House home early this week for a recess that will stretch past the midterm elections rather than addressing the warnings of companies on the dangers of accelerating AI development. He’ll also say the Trump administration needs to focus on the issue.
“It’s time for the Trump Administration to stop alienating our allies, starting wars, and damaging our credibility in the eyes of the world” and “start leading the conversation on how we can mobilize countries around the world to join us in responsibly regulating AI,” he’ll say.
Shapiro will call on Trump to address AI risks during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits the U.S. next week.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., released an advertisement directly criticizing Trump’s immigration policy, an unusual break with the president in a district the congresswoman easily won in 2024.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” she said in the ad, pointing to detentions of people without criminal records.
She urged the president to “be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy.”
“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she said. “You can be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I’m not talking about giving them amnesty. I’m talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land.”
The ad marks a rare instance of a Republican in a red district directly condemning one of the president’s most prominent policies of his second term. Trump’s immigration policies have sparked outrage among Democrats, but it was relatively uncommon for Republicans to break with the president so publicly and explicitly.
NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the ad.
Salazar won her district in 2024 by about 20 points. Her district voted for Trump by about 15 points, according to The Downballot, which details presidential election margins by current congressional district lines.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have a homecoming of sorts today when he delivers the keynote address at a conference hosted by an anti-vaccine group he co-founded a decade ago.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Sept. 10. Smiley N. Pool / The Dallas Morning News via Getty
Kennedy took a leave of absence in 2023 from his role as chairman of Children’s Health Defense to run for president, then formally resigned the next year, after Trump tapped him to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Today’s speech marks the first time Kennedy has been publicly associated with the organization since then.
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A federal immigration officer wanted on assault charges for shooting and wounding a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis was arrested there yesterday, eight months after a confrontation that became a flashpoint over Trump’s deportation sweeps.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro was taken into custody by agents of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in downtown Minneapolis and was booked into the Hennepin County jail on his outstanding arrest warrant, the agency said.
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Karl Rove, a top administration official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he would vote for a Democrat in Texas for just the second time in his life.
Rove announced he would vote against Bo French, a GOP candidate for Texas railroad commissioner, an office that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. Instead, Rove said he would support French’s opponent Jon Rosenthal, pointing to French’s racist post targeting students at the University of Texas and calling it “raw, uncut bigotry.”
French had posted a picture of non-white students celebrating the school’s football victory, writing, “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Many of the students in the picture appeared to be of South Asian descent. The post went viral, and several Republicans condemned French and called on him to delete the post.
In the op-ed, Rove detailed other times French made “bigoted comments” and warned about the direction of the Republican party.
“The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas,” Rove wrote. “Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a ‘heritage America’ composed of white descendants of the original European settlers. There are ‘just asking questions’ Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.”
Rove continued, saying, “These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it,” adding that he would “have no part of it.”
“The GOP’s stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start,” Rove said, referring to the railroad commissioner race.
Two students self-identified themselves to NBC News as being in the picture posted by French. One of the student expressed concerns over French potentially being elected into a position of power.
“Whenever a person in a position of power is saying this, it makes it seem like it’s OK to say,” the student, Rahul Kodali, said.
Texas’ U.S. senators, both Republicans, also condemned French’s post, with Sen. John Cornyn, saying in a post to X, “We should all condemn this bigotry directed at our fellow Texans or we will soon find ourselves a minority party.”
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023 on yesterday in a move aimed at slowing inflation. NBC’s Brian Cheung joins “Today” to break down how the 0.25% hike will impact credit cards, mortgages and the cost of food and gas.
Human rights experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body say they have found “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran, including on a school in the southern city of Minab.
The international fact-finding mission on Iran says the findings center on a pair of airstrikes that killed at least 178 civilians, including women and children.
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Trump leaned heavily into law and order as he worked to build support for the Republican candidate in a North Carolina race that could decide which party controls the Senate for the back half of his second term.
Speaking at an airport rally last night, Trump said Democrats coddle criminals, peppering his hourlong speech with graphic details of violent crimes that he said are an outgrowth of Democratic policies.
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Most American adults think artificial intelligence is going to do more good than harm in education, according to this month’s NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
A majority of Americans say schools that prohibit the use of AI better prepare students for the future. Andrea Ellen Reed for NBC News
And a growing share of U.S. adults believe schools that shun the technology will better help students grow than schools that embrace it.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is endorsing Democrat Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota’s Senate race.
Flanagan, the state’s lieutenant governor, is facing former sportscaster Michele Tafoya in November in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Tina Smith.
“In a time of deep economic instability for working families, we must look to leaders that understand their pain and who are steadfast in their commitment to fight the rampant greed causing it. That is why I am proud to endorse Lt. Gov. of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan for U.S. Senate,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement provided first to NBC News.
Ocasio-Cortez has thrown her support behind a handful of progressive candidates this cycle as she positions herself for a potential run for president or Senate in 2028.
Flanagan has also been endorsed by a handful of other prominent progressives, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Reps. Ilhan Omar, Maxwell Frost and Pramila Jayapal.
NBC News