President Donald Trump on Tuesday traveled to Alaska ahead of crucial midterm elections — attempting to bolster a Republican incumbent senator in another sign of GOP fears about retaining control of Congress after Election Day on Nov. 3.
Meanwhile, Trump’s ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, resigned on Tuesday after allegations of improper conduct but insisted she’ll “vigorously defend” herself. The administration asked her to leave her post as she faces allegations of improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens. Guilfoyle called the allegations false.
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And the Supreme Court, siding with the Trump administration, agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
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After nearly 90 minutes, Trump wrapped up his campaign event in Wasilla with his usual Trump dance to “YMCA.”
His remarks included his usual rally fare — attacks on Democrats, boasts about his record — and some surprises, such as a pardon of two Alaskans accused of violating the Clean Air Act.
The Federal Communications Commission vote concerns an additional $162 million to be invested in expanding high-speed internet access in Alaska.
Trump made the comment shortly before welcoming the commission chair, Brendan Carr, on stage.
Carr said he was committed to working with Alaska’s Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan to work toward “getting every single person in Alaska connected to high-speed internet.”
Trump also brought to the stage Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick touted a gas line project that the Trump administration supports. Burgum said Trump could get the Alaska Permanent Fund to “double” due to his policies.
The permanent fund is Alaska’s nest egg. It is seeded with oil revenue and grows through investments.
In a surprise, the president announced he was pardoning two men who had been accused of tampering with federally mandated monitoring devices on certain vehicles.
The men that received pardons from Trump on Tuesday were Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming. They had pleaded guilty in 2022 of violating the Clean Air Act.
Czubak and Fleming had been co-owners of Arm Rippin Toys, Inc., an Anchorage vehicle shop. Federal prosecutors said they had removed systems in vehicles that were meant to reduce pollutants being emitted from them.
A third person who was convicted of similar charges, Mackenzie “Mac” Spurlock of Wasilla, was pardoned earlier this year.
Czubak and Fleming’s pardons had not been posted on the Justice Department’s website as of Tuesday night.
The president announced what he claimed was “one of the biggest deals ever made” — that Taiwan will purchase gas from a natural gas project in Alaska that Sullivan is touting in his reelection campaign.
There was no immediate confirmation from Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own. There were no immediate further details from the White House.
“Taiwan has just agreed to buy 30% of the gas coming off the pipeline for the next 20 years,” Trump said. “That guarantees success. It’s one of the biggest commitments in history for anything. It’s one of the biggest deals ever made.”
Taiwan has also agreed to invest more than $4 billion in the project, Trump said. The president had similarly touted a $54 billion investment from South Korea in the Alaska pipeline, although South Korean officials had initially said the country needed to assess the project’s viability before actually committing to it.
The Georgia senator said on the debate stage that he doesn’t “rule out any judicial reform” but added that the focus on Capitol Hill “should be a binding code of ethics for Supreme Court justices.”
The Democratic incumbent was responding to a question about a proposal, backed by some progressives, to add new seats to the nine-member high court.
Ossoff said the bigger issue is voters’ being “rightly offended” by stories of justices receiving “lavish gifts from people who have business before the court” or “a record of ideological or partisan advocacy.”
It’s a theme the president has returned to since the state began using the method for general elections in 2022.
He called ranked voting a “scam,” though supporters of the system say it can lead to more moderate candidates and candidates that need to build broad coalitions to win support.
He said he told the U.S. attorney to make sure there was “no cheating” in the election.
Alaska voters in November will be asked for the second time whether to repeal the state’s unique system of open primaries and ranked vote general elections. Voters narrowly rejected an effort to overturn the system in 2024.
The president flew to Alaska to stump for the Republican incumbent, but his rally was barely underway before he began bashing another Dan Sullivan, this one from the small fishing community of Petersburg.
The Sullivan in Petersburg — not the senator — has said he is running out of patriotism and wasn’t encouraged to step in by any Democrat.
But Republicans have said his presence on the November ballot is clearly an attempt to confuse conservative voters and make them vote for the wrong Sullivan. The Petersburg Sullivan is a Republican but is listed on the ballot with no party affiliation, in what elections officials said was an attempt to reduce potential confusion.
“They found a guy named Dan Sullivan, they put him up to get things a little confused,” Trump said.
Protesters have become a fixture of the president’s campaign rallies as of late, and Alaska was no exception.
About 10 minutes into the event, one protester stood up and started yelling. The person was promptly drowned out by chants of “USA!”
“Sounds like a spoiled child,” Trump remarked when he noticed the protester. As he was escorted out, Trump added: “He’s now got the displeasure of going home to his mother and father who both voted for me, by the way.”
The congressman first got elected to the House in 2022 echoing Trump’s falsehoods that his 2020 presidential loss in Georgia and nationally was rigged.
Under questioning from a debate panelist and Ossoff himself, Collins did not alter his stance.
“You know, the 2020 election, everybody’s seen my views on that — they know my views on that,” he said. “There was a lot of doubt in that election. Yes, Joe Biden was the president.”
But Collins still never said Biden was duly elected. And she shifted quickly into repeating his argument that the Biden presidency was a failure — and responsible for ongoing inflation.
“I didn’t hear an answer to the question,” Ossoff replied.
Nearly an hour behind schedule, the president took the stage just after 4:20 p.m. local time in Wasilla.
The rally is being held at a local hockey arena. On the rink, there are seats where the ice would otherwise be. Many in the crowd are waving American flags and “Make America Great Again” caps.
“I have zero interest in running for president. I’m not running for president.”
That’s how the 39-year-old Democrat answered the first question of his second Senate debate against Republican challenger Mike Collins.
Ossoff has gained a national following and become the most prolific fundraiser of any Senate nominee in 2026. His aggressive broadsides against Trump and his second administration, clipped by his staffers into viral online videos, have produced chatter about a possible White House bid.
But Ossoff answered Tuesday night a specific question about his presidential ambitions and whether he’d pledge to serve a full second Senate term of six years if he defeats Collins.
“Yes, I will,” Ossoff stated.
Collins was not convinced.
“He is running,” the congressman said.
Republican Sen. Collins said in Maine’s third Senate debate on Tuesday that she voted to end the war after a 60-day waiting period, siding with Democrats nine times.
She said she would like to see an end to the war and an agreement for Iran to stop pursuing the enrichment of uranium and long-range ballistic missiles.
“I agree that the president did not have a good plan” for the war, Collins said, but there were not the votes to end it in the Senate.
Democrat Troy Jackson, who is challenging Collins in one of the country’s most competitive Senate races, said that the lack of votes means “we probably ought to have Democrats in charge of the U.S. Senate so that we have the votes to stop this war, to hold Donald Trump in check.”
“Let’s just get out,” Jackson said.
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is again accusing his main challenger in his reelection bid of being aligned with national Democrats that are resistant to expanded oil and gas development in the state amid environmental concerns.
Sullivan, speaking at a rally Tuesday, insisted Democrat Mary Peltola would represent a step back in the state’s efforts to produce more of its resources.
But Peltola has repeated her support of the large Willow oil project, greenlit during the Biden administration, and taken credit for helping get it approved while she was in the U.S. House. She also has said she isn’t beholden to national Democrats and would put “Alaska first.”
Sullivan was one of several speakers at a rally being headlined by Trump in Wasilla. Trump has yet to take the stage.
Bernadette Wilson is one of three Republicans, along with Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Kreiss-Tomkins finished first in the August open primary, followed by another Democrat who withdrew from the general election.
Wilson finished third in the primary but was first among Republicans. She had 10% of the vote.
Alaska has ranked choice general elections, and Republican party leaders have urged their voters to rank GOP candidates and leave the Democratic candidates blank. Some Republicans see that as the best shot at winning the governor’s race.
Trump, meanwhile, has railed against ranked voting and criticized the other Republicans in the race, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor, a former state attorney general.
Alaska last elected a Democratic governor in 1998.
Current Gov. Mike Dunleavy is barred from seeking a third straight term.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Uzbekistan and India next week on a trip intended to promote greater security and investment ties with Central and South Asia.
The State Department said Tuesday that Rubio would attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the “C5” — a group that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — in Samarkand and then travel to Mumbai from Oct. 17 to 22.
Rubio will “highlight how strategic cooperation through this diplomatic platform promotes a more peaceful and prosperous future for the United States and the countries of Central Asia,” the department said.
In Mumbai, Rubio will headline a commercial event with major U.S. and Indian investors being promoted by U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.
Rubio’s trip was announced as tensions in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine have mounted in recent days without overt direct involvement from the top U.S. diplomat, who last week visited Iceland, Greece and Portugal.
Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said when he was asked where President Donald Trump should hold a rally, he suggested the Matanuska-Susitna valley region.
Sullivan told reporters that if the GOP can turn out voters in the conservative region that includes Wasilla, “we’re going to win.”
Sullivan spoke before the start of the rally that Trump is headlining in support of him and Rep. Nick Begich. The region is known for its conservative politics.
Sullivan is seeking a third term and a strong challenge from Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. He wore jeans and a blue Marines cap.
Vice President JD Vance rallied on behalf of Sullivan and Begich last week in Fairbanks.
The fines Tuesday on America’s second-biggest bank amount to the third-largest in the department’s history.
Treasury said Bank of America also reached an $11.6 million settlement with the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control over “apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs, including on Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism.”
The Louisiana Secretary of State’s office said its election division in Baton Rouge evacuated Tuesday after an employee opened a package containing white powder.
The substance has not been identified, and law enforcement is investigating the incident, the secretary of state’s office said. No one was injured.
The elections division is expected to reopen tomorrow, said secretary of state spokesperson Trey Williams.
It’s not the first time election workers have received mysterious white substances in the mail. Voting centers and government buildings in six other states received fentanyl-laced letters in 2023, leading election officials to request overdose reversal medication as a precaution.
Election workers nationwide have faced threats, harassment and intimidation since former President Donald Trump and his supporters began spreading false election claims after he lost the 2020 election.
Wisconsin elections officials are preparing guidance for local clerks to help them know what to do if federal law enforcement officials show up at the polls on Election Day.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which oversees elections in the battleground state, released draft guidance on Tuesday that is to be voted on at a commission meeting Thursday.
The memo to the state’s roughly 1,800 local clerks who administer elections tells them what to do if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Department of Homeland Security officials, FBI agents or local law enforcement shows up at the polls.
A hotly contested race for governor tops the Wisconsin ballot this year.
Wisconsin’s chief elections officer Meagan Wolfe says clerks are well trained in how to deal with law enforcement at the polls and “I’m not expecting any problems at our polling places.”
“We expect everything to be in accordance with the law,” she said at a news conference.
The Democratic Georgia senator was at home Tuesday to vote early and urge support for Keisha Lance Bottoms’ campaign for governor.
But Warnock was scheduled to travel out-of-state again immediately. He’s headed to South Carolina, Mississippi and North Carolina in the coming days. He just returned to Georgia from a swing that included Nevada, Ohio and Michigan.
The itinerary includes several states with early 2028 Democratic presidential primaries. South Carolina will lead off Democrats’ calendar. Warnock has not ruled out a White House bid.
Bottoms said Tuesday she had no concerns about Warnock’s jet-setting even as many Georgia Democratic candidates could use his support.
“He can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said. “It speaks to the influence of Georgia that we have a senator who is being asked for and sought after around the country because people know the power of his voice.”
The Georgia Democrat likes when Trump urges voters to think about the midterms as him being on the ballot one more time.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Warnock said Tuesday, standing beside Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Warnock said Trump’s stand-in on the Georgia ballot is Bottoms’ opponent, he said:
“Rick Jackson is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is Rick Jackson.”
Jackson, a billionaire first-time candidate, will appear Friday with Trump in Dalton, Georgia.
At a September rally, Jackson pointed at Trump and said he wanted “to be this guy’s favorite governor.”
But that’s a risky pitch. Trump won Georgia twice. But he lost it in 2020 as an incumbent.
Outgoing Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won in 2018 and 2022 after Trump’s first election. But Republicans have lost every Georgia U.S. Senate race in that same span.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has recalled the top U.S. envoy to Nicaragua for consultations after the Nicaraguan government rejected the Trump administration’s choice to be the new American ambassador to the country.
As ties between Washington and Managua have grown increasingly tense, the State Department said Tuesday that the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua would be returning home for “critical consultations” following Nicaragua’s denial of agrément for President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the new U.S. ambassador. Diplomatic protocol requires a host government to accept, or grant agrément, to an incoming ambassador before they can take up their post.
The government’s “decision demonstrates their complete unwillingness to engage in productive diplomatic dialogue,” the department said in a statement.
“Maintaining open diplomatic channels is the cornerstone of international relations,” it said. It added that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his co-president wife Rosario Murillo had demonstrated “the hypocrisy of their rhetoric of mutual respect and their desire to engage in political theater at the expense of the Nicaraguan people.”
Relations between the U.S. and Nicaragua have soured demonstrably since Trump took office for his second term, notably after the early January U.S. operation to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power.
The Democratic nominee for governor said Tuesday she’d push lawmakers to repeal Georgia’s ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, even if her party doesn’t have full control of the General Assembly.
“This is a life and death issue,” Bottoms said. “It’s impacting not just women who are seeking to terminate pregnancies but women who are suffering miscarriages” because physicians fear criminal penalties, she added.
Republicans control both legislative chambers, and their caucuses still support the law. Democrats have an outside shot at flipping control of the Georgia House in November. Bottoms essentially conceded Republicans would keep a Senate majority, even if Democrats pick up seats and she defeats Rick Jackson.
But she said Democratic gains would put pressure on Republicans in an abortion-rights debate.
“I am not surrendering that we won’t get it done,” she said. “We’re going to keep pushing until we get it done.”
There are questions about whether Democrats should prioritize legislation or oversight of the Trump administration should they take control of the House and Senate in January.
Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat running for reelection to the Senate, said Tuesday that Congress can manage both.
“We urgently need to restore checks and balances,” he said after voting early.
That means “repealing the tariffs that have driven grocery prices to their record highs,” “repealing health care cuts that have doubled health insurance premiums,” and “ending this disastrous war” in Iran.
All three moves would involve Congress asserting its constitutional powers to counter Trump’s aggressive interpretation of executive power.
Ossoff, who has made Trump’s personal business dealings a focus of his reelection campaign, added that Democrats also would “exercise vigorous oversight of the most corrupt presidential administration in history.”
