Prediction market Kalshi announces lifetime ban against former Rep. George Santos
Former U.S. Rep. George Santos appears after a court hearing on Aug. 19, 2024, in West Islip, New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The prediction market Kalshi on Monday announced its first-ever lifetime ban against disgraced former Rep. George Santos, who previously settled a regulatory investigation into his trades with a hefty fine and a temporary ban from using prediction markets.
The platform also announced penalties against three political candidates who the site accused of wagering on their own races in violation of its insider trading rules.
Kalshi said Santos improperly manipulated the price of contracts on the platform by making public statements about his planned attendance at the State of the Union address earlier this year and then wagering on that contract.
Kalshi “found that Santos made these statements with the intent to manipulate the price of the Yes or No contracts that he intended to purchase. Ultimately, these statements did in fact manipulate the price of said contracts,” according to Kalshi’s regulatory filings.
Santos, on X, reacted to the ban by posting, “Hey @Kalshi thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform. Let’s see how much longer you guys are around for.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission previously leveled its own penalties against Santos, including a disgorgement of his winnings and a $17,500 fine.
The other penalties announced Monday were levied against political candidates Ben Midgley, who ran as a Republican candidate for governor in Maine; Stephen Cloobeck, who briefly ran as a Republican for California governor; and Laurie Buckhout, who is running for Congress as a Republican in North Carolina against Democratic Rep. Don Davis.
Each purchased “event contracts” related to their own races, in violation of Kalshi’s rules, the platform said Monday.
As candidates, all three “qualified as a decision maker for the contract and had direct influence on the outcome of the Underlying event,” the platform wrote in regulatory filings. The exact nature of their wagers was not revealed in documents released Monday.
Kalshi said all three cooperated with its investigation.
Cloobeck, a billionaire real estate developer, “purchased approximately $10,000 worth of contracts related to his own candidacy,” Kalshi wrote. “Under the terms of the settlement, Kalshi suspended Cloobeck from direct or indirect access to Kalshi for a period of three years and imposed a financial penalty of $31,770.”
Midgley and Buckshot wagered less than $1,000 on the site and faced penalties of a few thousand dollars each, the platform said. Both were also suspended from the platform for three years.
Earlier this year, ABC News reported that Kalshi had penalized three other political candidates who had wagered on their own races.
S. President Donald Trump attends a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can cancel the temporary protected status (TPS) for thousands of Haitians and Syrians.
Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that courts cannot override the federal government’s determination about TPS status.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Melat Kiros participated in a League of Women Voters Congressional District 1 candidate forum at Montview Presbyterian Church on May 28, 2026, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old attorney and democratic socialist, will win the Democratic primary for U.S. House in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, the Associated Press projected, triumphing over longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette and notching another win for the left wing of the Democratic Party over established incumbents.
Kiros’ projected win is a stunning victory for a political newcomer and yet another apparent sign of Democratic voter discontent with incumbents, just a week after three insurgent candidates triumphed against incumbent or incumbent-backed candidates in New York City congressional races.
The primary challenger, who was fired from her law firm in 2023 after writing an open letter criticizing her employers’ response to pro-Palestinian protests, campaigned on channeling voters’ anger with the political system; her campaign also tapped into the strength of local and national branches of the Democratic Socialists of America.
DeGette, who has served in the House for around three decades, had argued that her experience, including in leadership roles during President Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings, made her effective at pushing back against the Trump administration.
Kiros will face Republican nominee Christie Peterson, an accountant, who was uncontested in the GOP primary. The Cook Political Report rates the seat, which is based around Denver, as solidly Democratic.
Another victory for progressive wing in gubernatorial primary
The Associated Press also projected on Tuesday night that Attorney General Phil Weiser will win the Democratic primary for governor in Colorado, triumphing against Sen. Michael Bennet.
The results could potentially be seen as another sign of Democratic voters’ dissatisfaction with Washington and incumbents in Congress, even though the race was technically for a state position.
Weiser, who served in the Obama administration and as Colorado’s attorney general since 2019, had positioned himself as the insurgent in the race against Bennet, linking the longtime senator to Washington and gridlock in Congress. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is term-limited.
But there was better news for another congressman from Colorado. The Associated Press projected Tuesday night that incumbent Sen. John Hickenlooper will win the Democratic primary for Senate in Colorado, putting him on a glide path back to Congress as he runs for a second term.
Hickenlooper triumphed over a primary challenge from state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who ran a progressive campaign and notched the endorsement of left-leaning organizations.
Inside the Melat-DeGette race
Still, most of the attention was focused on the 1st Congressional District.
Ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Kiros told ABC News she hoped to build on the movement’s momentum from last Tuesday in New York.
“Ultimately, folks are really tired of the party failing to meaningfully represent the values and policies that are extremely popular with our base,” she said. “And we’re looking for leaders that are unbought and unafraid to stand up to a lot of these corporations and special interests that have gotten us into this mess in the first place.”
Kiros has also been outspoken about criticism of Israel and its conduct in Gaza, another issue that has divided Democrats and played a major role in the New York primaries. She recently faced some pushback for not calling the June 2025 firebombing in Boulder, Colorado, of on a group of demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages antisemitic, although she condemned the violence and said she is committed to combatting antisemitism.
Kiros told ABC News on Monday that the attack was “a horrific attack on a group of Jewish people that were just engaging in peaceful protest,” and said that she is committed to combatting hate in all forms, including antisemitism; that responsibility also includes “making sure that we are rejecting this conflation of the state of Israel’s actions with Judaism and with the Jewish people, and making sure that we are preventing that kind of conflation from leading to the kind of horrific attacks that a lot of Jewish people are afraid of.”
While Kiros netted the endorsement of progressive stalwart Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, and some left-leaning groups, the race did not break down evenly along ideological fault lines.
DeGette is a leading member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who has led Democratic messaging on abortion rights and served as a House impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial.
Unlike some incumbent Democrats facing primaries, she has criticized Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and voted against additional U.S. military aid to Israel.
“Denver knows I don’t back down. That’s why I’m taking on Donald Trump to protect our reproductive freedom, abolish ICE, and pass Medicare for All. Together we’ll win and deliver on our progressive values,” DeGette said in a statement to ABC News before the primary.
In a recent interview with ABC affiliate KMGH-TV, DeGette argued that her time in Congress was an asset to her constituents.
But that long record also made her a target for frustrated progressives, who sense momentum after democratic socialists Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez defeated establishment-backed Democrats in two New York City primaries — including the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — last week, with the help of democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“They see Melat as someone who has put up a fight — not just against Republican fascism, but also against the Democratic establishment that has failed voters,” Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, told ABC News.
The group helped Kiros and her allies knock on tens of thousands of doors and make more than 200,000 calls to potential voters since last week, according to the Justice Democrats.
DeGette’s record “is very progressive, and she’s not a moderate,” Doug Friednash, an attorney who was chief of staff to Hickenlooper, told ABC News. “A lot of young voters are demanding change … they look at rising health care costs, gas prices, and there’s a view that the establishment hasn’t done enough.”
Elsewhere, in Colorado’s 8th District, a battleground seat currently held by a Republican, Democrat Manny Rutinel, a 31-year-old state representative, was projected by the Associated Press to win the primary for the Democratic nomination against former state lawmaker Shannon Bird.
Video tripods sit empty on the White House grounds on Sept. 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Reporters from MS NOW, CNN, and Politico have been blocked from accessing the White House since September 19th after President Trump said he was banning the three outlets from the property. Those news organizations are now suing President Trump, alleging that it violates the First Amendment. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The three news outlets banned from the White House by President Donald Trump on Monday filed a First Amendment lawsuit to restore their access, according to a joint statement published by CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the outlets’ joint statement said.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” it added.
Trump said in a social media post following the news on Monday that the barring of journalists was not “an assault on the Free Press” but instead “an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he claimed was a national security “threat.”
Trump said in a post to social media on Friday, “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”
At an event in the Oval Office shortly after he posted his message, the president suggested there may be more restrictions on other outlets. Trump told reporters he supports a free press, but that “you need a fair and honest press.”
“It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house,” Trump said.
Journalists from the three outlets were turned away from the White House over the weekend. A reporter from CNN said on air that she was told by a Secret Service agent that her badge had been deactivated.
The three outlets are challenging the legality of the president’s ban on multiple fronts, according to the lawsuit, a copy of which was shared in Politico’s morning Playbook newsletter on Monday.
According to the document, the lawsuit will argue the ban violates the outlets’ reporters’ due process rights, that it unlawfully retaliates against their protected speech and that it violates the First Amendment by barring them from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the news outlets wrote.
The lawsuit warns of a cascading effect for other news organizations should Trump seek to expand the scope of the ban, as he said he may do in his Friday remarks in the Oval Office.
“The ban is already severely impeding the ability of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO to cover the President and his administration,” according to the lawsuit. “Every day, critically important news is breaking at the White House and in the press pool: President Trump is the commander in chief of a country at war; he is traveling to New York today to address the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow; he is meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday; and he is steering national policy on the ever-advancing technology of artificial intelligence. And the ban inflicts an injury on all news media organizations—who now risk a similar fate if they engage in reporting the President deems insufficiently favorable.”
The full D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court have yet to establish settled precedent in the wake of Trump’s earlier attempted ban on The Associated Press from being part of the press pool and attending certain White House events last year.
While a D.C. District court judge backed the AP, a three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit put the ruling on hold and later wrote that “restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion.”
Monday’s lawsuit is expected to cite a 1977 ruling in which the full D.C. Circuit found that the White House cannot arbitrarily deny a journalist a press pass without due process.
“As the D.C. Circuit has long held, the interest that members of the press have in their White House hard passes is ‘protected by the first amendment’ and ‘undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment,'” the attorneys wrote, according to the court papers shared by Politico.
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
