Chuck Grassley, oldest sitting US senator, laments dying in office under a Democratic governor
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Chuck Grassley presides over a hearing on men in women’s sports in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Sept. 23, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, lamented the possibility that a Democratic governor could appoint his successor if he were to die in office, according to video of remarks he delivered late last week.
“At 93 years of age, I don’t know how many more groups of Republicans like this I’m going to have a chance to talk to,” Grassley said on Friday during the GOP’s annual Reagan Dinner in West Des Moines. “But I want to take advantage of it. But one of the reasons I’m worried about who’s going to be elected governor — I don’t plan on dying in office — but if I did, I don’t want a Democrat governor choosing my successor.”
Grassley, who celebrated his 93rd birthday on Sept. 17, is currently serving in his eighth term in the Senate — set to expire Jan. 3, 2029.
If Grassley were to die in the next two years, the next governor of Iowa — set to be elected this fall — would make a temporary appointment to fill the seat until the 2028 election.
A late June Fox News poll found Democrat Rob Sand, Iowa’s state auditor, with a 9-point lead over Republican Zach Lahn among registered voters in the state. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted around the same time found a much closer contest with the candidates essentially neck-and-neck among likely voters.
Grassley has not announced whether he will seek a ninth term in the Senate in 2028.
Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks during a demonstration outside of a federal immigration office after a man was fatally shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, on July 14, 2026 in Scarborough, Maine. (Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson appears all but certain to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for Senate in the party’s bid to unseat Republican incumbent Susan Collins this November.
Jackson’s campaign said Monday that “it is turning its full focus toward defeating Senator Susan Collins,” citing a “decisive advantage” during recent county-level caucuses.
Jackson, who comes from a logging family not far from the Quebec border, is a familiar face to Maine voters due to his history of activism and his lengthy background as a state lawmaker in Augusta.
His campaign’s statement also came after an eventful Sunday for Maine politics as four other Democrats dropped out of the running: Dan Kleban, Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah and Jordan Wood.
“We are suspending our campaign tonight. This is the conclusion of the caucuses and letting this process play out,” Wood, the former chief of staff to Katie Porter when she served as a congresswoman representing California, said in a selfie-style video posted to social media on Sunday evening.
“I’m so proud to endorse my friend Troy Jackson. I didn’t know Troy until over a year ago when I decided to run for office for the first time, but he has become a friend, someone I trust, someone that I know represents and will serve all people in Maine,” Wood added.
Shah and Kleban, like Wood, also endorsed Jackson. Bellows did not mention Jackson when suspending her Senate campaign.
Maine Democrats held county-level nomination meetings over the weekend in order to select delegates ahead of their party’s Senate nominating convention set for this coming Saturday, July 25.
While the Maine Democratic Party’s website lists that eight candidates remain in the race to replace Platner, including former primary candidate David Costello and activist Ashley Webb, delegates who expressed support for Jackson received overwhelming support at the nomination meetings and the candidates who withdrew Sunday were previously viewed as Jackson’s main rivals.
Jackson’s campaign said that 481 of 500 county delegates support his candidacy. A total of 601 delegates will participate in the July 25 convention, with the additional 101 delegates being members of the Maine Democratic State Committee.
Just over six weeks ago, Jackson stood in front of a crowd in a Bar Harbor theater to ask Mainers to support his own bid for governor (a race he lost) and to vote for Platner in the Democratic Senate primary.
But after Platner was accused earlier this month of sexual assault by a former girlfriend, an allegation he’s denied, Jackson joined calls for him to exit the race. Platner formally withdrew his candidacy on July 10.
Now, in nearly a week, Maine voters should know for certain whether Jackson will officially be the Democrats’ pick to try to flip the high-profile Senate seat.
Construction continues on a new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House and the East Wing ballroom on Aug. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has formally granted the Trump administration’s request to move forward with construction of the White House East Wing ballroom project as litigation continues, all but guaranteeing the building will be substantially completed before any final judgments and appeals are resolved.
Notably, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three liberal justices in dissenting, writing the ruling is “no victory for the separation of powers” and allows the “likely” infringement on Congress’s power to continue.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to block the construction of the ballroom project, arguing that only Congress has the authority to approve substantial changes to the White House, and that it never delegated that authority to President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump unilaterally initiated demolition of the White House East Wing in late 2025 to make way for the ballroom.
The court’s majority wrote in an unsigned opinion Monday that the Trust likely lacked standing to bring the suit to begin with and that the government has established it would be irreparably harmed by being blocked from above-ground construction as the case played out.”Today, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project. We conclude only that, based on the submissions before us, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the Trust lacks Article III standing to challenge the project in federal court and that the remaining stay factors favor relief,” the court wrote.
The decision effectively preserves the status quo. The Trump administration had told the court that a crew of 250 workers has been working around the clock to finish the 90,000-square-foot structure and that it is 65% complete and work will continue.
Trump is taking a victory lap over the Supreme Court’s opinion, writing on his social media platform Monday, “I am pleased to report that the United States Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the Ballroom/Military Complex being built without any further contingency, doubt, or threat. We are living in the Golden Age of America, and this Building will be one of the Greatest ever constructed in Washington, D.C.”
Trump once again slammed the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s lawsuit against the construction of the ballroom, calling it “baseless.”
“The Ballroom is totally funded by Great Patriots and Corporations and, therefore, is a Gift — At no cost to the American Taxpayer,” Trump claimed, though questions continue to swirl around where such funding is coming from.
Federal law gives Congress control over federal property, including the White House grounds, but has also long allowed presidents to undertake the “care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurbishment, and improvement … of the Executive Residence.”
In the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Roberts wrote: “The White House is not just any building, and — when it comes to historic preservation — Hoagland [member of National Trust for Historic Preservation] is not just any person. In failing to appreciate as much, the Court misconceives the plaintiff’s injury, allowing the Executive’s likely infringement of the Legislature’s power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue.”
Roberts argued it would have been better to “ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”
Earlier this month, Roberts had issued an administrative stay of a lower court order halting most above-ground construction on the White House ballroom project. The move allowed construction on the project to continue temporarily.
The lower court had ruled that Trump exceeded his authority in demolishing the East Wing and beginning to erect the structure without congressional approval. A divided appeals court earlier this month affirmed that finding.
Administration officials have estimated the entire project — which Trump has called a “military complex” essential for national security — could cost $400 million, while other independent analysts have put the true figure at much higher.
Official seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation mounted on the exterior wall of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images/Michelle Brittain)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department and FBI said a Chinese government-backed hacking group has for years engaged in targeted attacks against hundreds of entities in the United States including NASA, National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Senate and the Federal Reserve.
According to a DOJ statement and an affidavit unsealed Wednesday in federal court in California, a group known as “QTFY” — which includes former members of China’s military — has used its infrastructure to compromise critical infrastructure since 2018 in networks spanning from government agencies, hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies and defense contractors.
As part of their efforts to expose and disrupt the group, prosecutors successfully seized three internet domains affiliated with the Chinese company, Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, and multiple advisories have been issued to companies and other federal agencies so that potential victims of the group can better protect themselves from future attack.
In the seizure warrant, prosecutors say that in September 2024, QTFY hackers “conducted computer intrusions” at three Energy Department laboratories, NIH, an HHS agency as well as an unnamed U.S. security device manufacturer. The group is further alleged to have attempted a hack against NASA in 2019, though court documents do not suggest that the effort was successful.
The court documents do not state clearly the scale of the attacks against several of the other government agencies identified as victims or the group’s level of success in infiltrating specific networks.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates the Justice Department’s steadfast commitment to going on the offensive against cyber threats to the national security,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg in a statement announcing the seizures. “These court-authorized seizures deny PRC-linked hackers access to tools they use to mount online attacks against our Nation’s critical infrastructure.”
The FBI and National Security Agency released an advisory with indicators of QTFY activity. Also, Lumen Technologies’ threat intelligence group, Black Lotus Labs, published a description of QTFY’s tactics, techniques and procedures to help thwart future hacks.
While the U.S. says it has exposed and disrupted this major Chinese cyber-espionage campaign, China’s cyber operations against the United States remain “relentless,” said Javed Ali, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
“China has been using cyber operations against the United States for probably 20 years through a relentless campaign of operations that have involved multiple targets, multiple attack methods, and nothing the U.S. has done to date seems to be deterring this activity because it is it has existed for so long and this goes over multiple administrations here in the United States,” Ali told ABC News.
Whether China is attempting to hack into telecommunications companies, attempting to breach water systems or waging a broader campaign of trade secret theft, China’s actions reveal a clear pattern, Ali said.
“[China] just uses different tools against different targets here in the United States, and they do not appear to be deterred, even when there are disruptions or people get indicted,” Ali, now an associate professor at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy, said. “None of this is stopping China’s strategic efforts of targeting the U.S. with these cyber operations.”
