marco rubio

President Donald Trump has begun to dole out PAC cash to midterm campaigns, but to some of his conservative allies, it still is not enough, with one prominent Fox News host pleading with him to double his efforts.

On Monday morning, the Washington Post released a report detailing the new midterm ad blitz that the GOP has launched in September, as poll after poll shows Democrats with a major growing lead over them across numerous key races. According to the report, advertising records show that Trump's main super PAC, MAGA Inc., and other PACs tied to him have dished out $130 million in new spending on midterm campaigns since the start of the month, following major concerns that the president would hoard his massive $400 million fundraising war chest.

“For the party, it’s a relief,” Jason Shepherd, a longtime GOP strategist in Georgia, told the Post, adding that the infusion of cash "could prove powerful enough to undo some of that [Democratic] progress, through advertisements, campaign mailers, and door-knocking."

While many in the party might be feeling a wave of relief, others are still pleading for more, including Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Responding to a post from the outlet about the new report, the Ingraham Angle host suggested that the president ought to do a lot more.

"They should double that number," Ingraham wrote in a post to her official account.

"The flood began Sept. 5 when the president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., reported spending $10 million in Texas to support Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general locked in a competitive Senate race," the report detailed. "On Saturday, Trump’s super PAC reported spending another $5 million on the race. The money for advertising arrives with less than 50 days until the midterm elections, and Republicans at risk of losing their narrow majorities in both chambers. For months, Democrats have had a head start on reaching voters, blanketing the airwaves to introduce their candidates and attack GOP opponents. Democratic candidates have consistently outraised their opponents, and polls have Democrats in position to retake the House and potentially the Senate."

This is not the first time that Ingraham has used her various platforms to plead with Trump to take the midterms more seriously. During an August edition of her Fox News program, she said that, "I think there are a number of states that Republicans better get their act together," and that, "Iowa is one of them." This came in response to a comment from American Majority PAC CEO Ned Ryun, who worried that the GOP was "kind of whistling past the graveyard on some of these Senate seats that they thought were safe."

The State Department is busting President Donald Trump's bubble with it's new move to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.

The Washington Sun reported Monday that the U.S. government is quietly admitting that sending supplies through the Strait of Hormuz is currently too risky and unreliable. It's happening after weeks of Trump repeatedly claiming the U.S. fully controls the waterway and that it is open for business.

The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait needs regular shipments of supplies, and that cargo typically moves through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Due to the war between the U.S. and Iran, the latter is threatening to strike any ship it hasn't authorized. So, ships aren't moving through unless they've worked something out with Iran.

“The security situation in the region remains fluid and subject to sudden escalation,” the department said in a notice to vendors. It was posted on a government contracting website.

According to the report, the State Department said standard shipping routes are currently unreliable or unavailable because of rapidly changing regional security risks. So it hired another company for $26,908 to move the embassy’s freight through an unspecified alternative route instead.

The Sun noted that the statement is "undercutting President Donald Trump’s assertions that the strait is open and under U.S. control."

Indeed, Trump has stated either publicly or on Truth Social that the Strait is perfectly safe.

“We have total control over the Strait… The Strait is open," he said on Aug. 17, according to a White House fact sheet.

Two days later, according to the same fact sheet, Trump claimed, “Right now, the Strait is open. A lot of boats are coming through. People aren’t reporting that … The naval blockade has been extremely effective.”

Aug. 26, he said, “The Strait is open. We take a lot of ships through the Strait now … It’s a very functioning Strait. A lot of oil is pouring out.”

On Aug. 27, Trump claimed, "The Strait of Hormuz is open. We have control, and we have the blockade. Iran is not getting anything; nothing is going through."

As recently as Sept. 9, Trump was promising the country before his Dallas convention, “We’ll win it. We’re winning it. We control the Hormuz Strait.”

Traffic remains well below normal transit levels, and carriers are treating the route as hazardous. In a statement released on Sept. 16, the global Danish shipping and logistics company Maersk announced that it has suspended or rerouted some Gulf shipping. They're also adding emergency freight charges and said that they too will have alternative routing plans for cargo bound for Kuwait and other Gulf states.

President Donald Trump could wind up being the "best witness" against himself in a massive new lawsuit against his recent press ban, with one legal scholar highlighting on MS NOW his relentless public attacks against the media as key evidence.

Last week, Trump abruptly announced on Truth Social that he was banning MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House, dubiously accusing them of intentionally spreading lies about him. This pronouncement quickly became reality as reporters from those outlets gradually had their access revoked when they tried to show up for work.

The fallout from this ban was swift and damning, with numerous other news outlets condemning the decision and offering support for the three targeted outlets. On Monday, the typically Trump-friendly Fox News Washington Bureau Chief and White House Pool Chief Bryan Boughton announced that the entire pool would not be covering presidential events in response to the ban, amounting to a boycott of the White House by the major news networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

Later on in the day, James Sample, a legal analyst and law professor at Hofstra University, appeared on MS NOW to discuss the new lawsuit brought against the White House by the network, alongside CNN and Politico. As he noted, Trump-friendly federal appeals court judge and leading potential Supreme Court nominee Neomi Rao laid out the case against the president's various media bans while serving on the panel considering the Associated Press's ban after it refused to go along with Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

"When the white house opens its facilities to the press, generally, as it does in the Brady Briefing Room, it cannot exclude journalists based on viewpoint," Rao said, as quoted by Sample.

From this legal point of view, Sample argued that Trump himself would be the networks' "absolute witness number one," given his many past statements attacking the press.

"And to that point, you know who the plaintiffs' best witness is? You know who MS Now and CNN and Politico have as their absolute witness number one? The President of the United States," Sample said. "Because every time he speaks, every time he posts, he makes the case stronger that this is nothing other than viewpoint discrimination. When he says, quote, 'because they're fake news, purposely negative stories, I don't have to let them into my ' — Freudian slip — into the People's House. He thinks it's his. It's not."

Host Katy Tur, in response, pressed Sample about why Trump's authority to block certain reporters from the White House would be different, considering that he can decide who follows him on Air Force One and into the East Room.

"Because there is an area that is set aside for general access for media purposes," Sample explained. "So he can decide that he wants to sit down with Sean Hannity and not with Katy Tur, but he cannot decide that the networks he likes can have access to the briefing room, can have access to the white house staff, can have access to the White House grounds, and those he does not like cannot because he doesn't like them."

President Donald Trump is using Pentagon funds that Congress never appropriated, crafting its own memo to skirt the law.

Normally, the Pentagon buys things from companies: weapons, equipment, supplies and services. Semafor reported on Monday that now, the Department of Defense is investing taxpayer money in companies and receiving a piece of ownership in return. It's similar to how a private investor might buy stock in a business.

What's more, the White House is helping them figure out the legal barriers.

"The White House budget office responded with a previously unreported legal opinion, reviewed by Semafor, that provides a crucial look at how the Trump administration justified one of its most controversial deployments of taxpayer money in the private sector," said the report.

For example, the Pentagon made a deal involving rare-earth-minerals company MP Materials. It would ensure that the military had a $400 million equity ownership investment in the company. They also gave the company a $150 million loan along with other forms of support.

Congress appropriates funds. Their one job, as outlined in the Constitution, is to hold the purse strings, and Congress is fairly specific about what the money will fund. The law is meant to block presidents from spending taxpayer dollars on whatever they want, such as a ballroom or a large triumphal arch.

The White House thinks it found wiggle room around that. Prior to the minerals deal, the Pentagon asked the White House for help, and the budget office issued its memo saying that the Pentagon is allowed to spend the funds because it's addressing a "national security threat." It's the same demand Trump is making about the ballroom and now the triumphal arch.

The memo, penned by OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta, uses the Defense Production Act, a 2017 law, and the president’s constitutional powers to justify it's control.

Famously, Trump told an audience in July 2019, "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president."

According to the Trump administration, the United States relies too heavily on China for critical minerals used in chips and other technology. So the administration is seeking to quickly establish its own U.S. supply chains propped up by the government.

A spokesperson for Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Semafor that he wants Congress to pass a law approving spending from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital however it sees fit.

Wicker “believes that an appropriately scoped equity investment authority is important for continued positive work in restoring a free market for critical minerals,” the spokesperson said. “But he also believes the department must regularize the process surrounding equity-based deals and increase its transparency with the Congress to render this approach sustainable over the long term.”

A former Pentagon official cited the Antideficiency Act as “one of the hurdles we thought was going to be insurmountable,” specifically regarding the MP Materials deal.

Another official who specifically worked for the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital warned that “laws can be elastic, but elasticity snaps at some point." They were "surprised that the current team has discovered the authority to do this under the Defense Production Act."

“I think this pushes the boundaries,” the official continued.

After World War II, the U.S. shifted away from overseeing the production of its own military equipment and began outsourcing production to military contractors. In his 1961 parting address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that these companies were becoming too powerful and costing too much.

During Joe Biden's four years in the White House, Donald Trump and MAGA allies relentlessly mocked Biden for his age. But now, 20 months into Trump's second presidency, it is Trump who is being mocked for his age and mental fitness. And according to Daily Beast reporter Leigh Kimmins, White House insiders are privately worried about Trump showing his age and signs of deterioration — both physically and politically.

"President Donald Trump is rapidly turning into a cranky old man, according to White House insiders," Kimmins explains in the Daily Beast. "Issues are mounting for the 80-year-old. His handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, raised the benchmark interest rate, despite Trump's demands for rates of 1 percent or lower, while the Supreme Court blocked the president's attempt to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots, and a federal judge again barred the Kennedy Center from putting his name on the building."

Kimmins adds, "Meanwhile, Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar turned on him and warned that Trump's immigration enforcement has gone 'too far,' saying Hispanic voters who helped elect him 'feel betrayed,' while gasoline has climbed to about $4.48 a gallon — roughly $1.24 higher than a year ago, and diesel has hit a record high amid the energy squeeze."

Worries about Trump's age among White House insiders, Kimmins notes, are coming "as the midterms are less than 43 days away."

"Some advisers say Trump can still be in a good mood, according to Axios," Kimmins reports. "However, others describe a tendency to grow irate quickly. They also say that Trump is beginning to look and act like an octogenarian. In July, Trump's aides described him as even more 'erratic' than usual, according to The New York Times. His struggle to find a 'face-saving' exit from the Iran conflict has reportedly left him increasingly frustrated and, in turn, more prone to abruptly switching up his positions."

Kimmins continues, "In August, aides admitted that their boss had little interest in traveling across the country to prop up weak GOP candidates for the midterms, according to CNN. In early September, Trump hosted an unprecedented midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, expecting candidates to come to him. At the end of the last month, White House insiders told The Wall Street Journal that Trump is more interested in his own legacy than in improving the economy or ending his war with Iran … Aides say Trump fears his presidency will be remembered similarly to 'past occupants of the White House he views as weak, such as Jimmy Carter.'"

President Donald Trump's decoration projects rely heavily on congressional approval for funding, but that appears to be coming to an end.

While Trump claimed he would fully fund his ballroom project through donations, he has failed to secure the financing and has begged Congress for the cash, saying the ballroom is now a military center. The next move is to do the same with an arch, and Politico reported that at least one Republican isn't buying it.

The 25-story arch with a flame atop it will stand between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, blocking the view of the soldiers buried there.

While the arch was once supposed to have an "observation deck," it will now become a "military complex" with "snipers and drones," the president said over the weekend.

The White House ballroom that Trump claims will also be a military complex with a drone pad atop the room is less than four miles from where the arch will be built. The Pentagon and Fort Myer are even closer, and both are protected by a multi-layered air defense network covering the National Capital region. The network involves a national advanced surface-to-air missile system, quick-response helicopters and jets and even short-range mobile air defense systems, according to a 2002 press release about the new defenses in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn't keen on the idea.

“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for — in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters while at the Capitol on Monday.

“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Simpson said.

When he was asked whether Pentagon funds should be funneled into the project, he said it's "something that needs to be debated." However, he added, there are other DoD projects that should take priority.

“I hope if they decide to do it, that they would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it if they’re going to use appropriated dollars to do it,” Simpson said.

Trump has come up with a way to spend funds at the Pentagon that were not allocated by Congress through a special memo from the general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. The memo claims that, thanks to the "Defense Production Act and annual defense legislation from 2017," and Article II of the Constitution, Trump, not Congress, has the ultimate authority on all military spending.

First Lady Melania Trump is rebuffing her husband's war with the media and paving her own path.

In a panel discussion with CNN's Manu Raju, senior reporter Betsy Klein revealed that she's been approved to cover the First Lady in her effort to promote her Fostering the Future Together initiative, which aims to empower children through education and technology, USA Today reported.

Klein, along with others, was ousted from the White House on Saturday when Trump decided to remove CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the press room.

"This is also a very big week for foreign policy," Klein said Monday. "And right now there's not going to be a pool camera traveling with the president. And that is very notable. Now interestingly, we do have one new data point, which is that my credential to cover an event with the First Lady on the sidelines of the United Nations tomorrow has been approved. So, that's sort of an interesting space to watch."

Mrs. Trump will be joined by the first spouses of 57 nations, during which she intends to highlight a new private-sector partnership with tech companies. It will include female company leaders and other C-suite executives whom the first lady hopes can harness their collective power for good. She'll then launch her "Davos for Women" effort, in which she seeks to bring together 3,000 "global leaders, including heads of state and corporate chief executive officers," the report said.

Davos, the invitation-only economic forum held in Switzerland each year, does not ban women, but in past years it hasn't included many women. Roughly 2 percent of attendees at the Davos conference 25 years ago were women. It has increased recently, with 28 percent of attendees being women in 2026, according to APCO.

Raju said he found it notable that Trump posted on Truth Social Monday morning that his justification for the media blackout comes from so-called "fake news." He said that it "is a threat to our national security and must be stopped NOW!"

"But the national security thing he's been citing now on the White House building, the White House ballroom, the arch, this triumphal arch that he wants to build by the Arlington Cemetery — it's national security, he's saying," Raju noticed.

Wall Street Journal politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez referred to the phrase "national security" as a "tagline" the administration is using to justify its demands.

"I think the question is really how convincing is this to the American public as they hear these attacks?" she questioned. "I think, you know, attacks get old over a certain amount of time. And I think there's a lot of questions around how effective that is going to be when people are questioning, why are you doing this in the first."

On Monday, September 14, President Donald Trump suffered a major disappointment when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his push to impose new restrictions on voting by mail. Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), were quick to applaud the ruling. But according to Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the September 14 decision in USPS v. California left important questions unanswered. And the battle over voting rights, she emphasizes in an op-ed for The Guardian, will continue.

"Last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the district court's restraining order on USPS' (the United States' Postal Service) mail-in ballot restrictions is being hailed as a victory for electoral integrity by politicians, political commentators and voting rights advocates alike," Finkelstein writes in The Guardian. "The senator Chuck Schumer, for example, called the decision 'one of the most important cases to protect voting rights before the Supreme Court.' But the unsigned, three-sentence opinion, with only a brief concurrence and a lengthy dissent, is no such thing. The Court based its brief opinion entirely on the timing of the rollout of the new rules, which became effective on 21 August, just weeks away from the midterm elections and only days before several states were scheduled to begin mailing out their ballots."

Finkelstein continues, "California's submission to the Court, joined by 22 states and the District of Columbia, asking the Court to leave the injunction against the rule change in place, made clear that compliance with the rules in advance of the midterms would not only be difficult — it would be impossible without disenfranchising thousands of voters. And that, of course, is the point."

According to Finkelstein, the "court fight" over voting "does not address whether USPS has a right to burden mail-in voting to this degree in the first place." And the Penn law professor notes that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito "increasingly divide up the landscape as a struggle between presidential power on the one hand versus anything that might infringe on that power on the other."

Finkelstein writes, "Whether the issue is the president's right to regulate the mail; his right to remove heads of agencies, including supposedly independent agencies; his right to claim executive privilege over communications with advisers; or even his right to commit crimes with impunity through the vehicle of his official duties, Alito and Thomas, joined frequently by other members of the Court's conservative majority, have increasingly allowed their jurisprudence to be held prisoner by the drive to expand presidential authority … Defenders of voting rights must not relax. While USPS v. California is a temporary political setback for the president and his fellow Republicans, it is not yet a home run for democracy."