Texas Democrat James Talarico speaks out after projected win against Paxton
Texas State Rep. James Talarico speaks with “Good Morning America,” Nov. 4, 2026, after winning his election bid. (ABC News)
Texas Senator-elect James Talarico says the Democratic sweep in the midterm elections goes beyond party lines.
“This was bigger than the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Texans from all corners of our state demanded change and now change is on the way,” Talarico said in an interview on “Good Morning America” Wednesday, hours after he beat his Republican challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Talarico, a former teacher and seminarian, campaigned on lowering costs and fighting corruption, a sticking point against his challenger Paxton, whose campaign was overshadowed by fraud and corruption allegations, which he has denied.
Talarico said he would work with Republicans and President Donald Trump to bring about change for Americans, touting his previous track record in the Texas House of Representatives.
“In the state house, I worked with both parties to pass 60 bipartisan bills to lower people’s costs,” he said. “I think we could repeal these tariffs to lower grocery prices. I think we could suspend the federal gas tax and the federal diesel tax to provide some relief at the pump. And I hope that we can end this disastrous war in Iran so that we can bring down prices across the board.”
Democrats are projected to take control of both the House and Senate and Talarico said Americans aren’t seeing eye to eye with President Trump’s stance on tariffs and the ongoing war with Iran.
“I think the people of this country may have convinced [Trump] last night. They delivered a resounding message that they want the president, they want both parties in Congress to focus on them, to focus on making their lives easier and better and less stressful, and that’s not a Democratic thing or a Republican thing,” said Talarico.
Another major issue Talarico said he hopes to tackle is immigration.
“We need to bring both parties together to pass comprehensive immigration reform that includes border security,” Talarico said. “We have to know who’s coming into our country but we should also fight for more legal pathways for hardworking immigrants to come here and contribute to our economy, make us richer and stronger as a nation and we should pass a pathway to citizenship for our neighbors who have been here for years and decades and they can come out of the shadows.”
Talarico also reiterated his campaign message of leading with a focus on loving fellow Americans.
“I’m called to love all of my neighbors, not just my neighbors who look like me, or pray like me, or vote like me. And that’s what this campaign was built on: a deep love for all of our neighbors,” Talarico said, adding, “I think it’s a model for what politics can look like in our state and in our country in the years ahead.”
Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook participates in a board meeting at the Federal Reserve on March 19, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In an extraordinary ramping-up of his ongoing efforts to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, President Donald Trump has ordered a committee to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against her, culminating in a closed-door, in-person hearing at the White House next month.
The move, laid out in a memo signed by the president and announced on Friday, creates a three-person “committee of inquiry” to hear the charges against Cook and allow her an opportunity to respond at the Nov. 5 hearing.
“Governor Cook shall appear at the hearing and be examined by the Committee, its representatives, and her legal counsel, if any,” Trump’s memo states.
No president prior to Trump had ever attempted to remove a Federal Reserve governor in the 112-year history of the central bank. The law allows for a governor’s removal “for cause,” but that term is not defined in the statute.
Trump’s memo directs the panel to provide him with “written findings of fact and conclusions of law,” along with a recommendation of “whether there is cause to remove Governor Cook.”
The committee will be composed of top Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas and Keith Sonderling, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.
Trump’s memo sets the terms of the panel’s review and allows Cook to “present argument, written evidence, and written witness statements regarding the evidence and allegations.”
The announcement of the hearing comes more than three months after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s initial attempt to fire Cook, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for a divided court that a final decision on Cook’s dismissal could only be made after she “has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her.”
Cook sued Trump to block his ill-fated attempt to fire her last year over the mortgage fraud allegations, insisting she has committed no wrongdoing. Her attorneys claim Trump’s attempt to oust her was based on her refusal to lower rates.
Lawyers for Cook said in a statement that they have “grave doubts” that the hearing will prove to be legitimate and legal.
“But if it is anything close to objective, the conclusion will be that Governor Cook did not commit mortgage fraud, leaving no cause to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board,” Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, said in their statement.
Cook’s lawyers says they’re evaluating whether the process laid out by Trump’s order “has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box checking exercise.”
“Governor Cook welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her,” the attorneys said.
Trump’s order says the hearing will be closed to the public but transcribed.
U.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. Secretary-General Mark Rutte is meeting with the President before the annual NATO summit next month and as the Pentagon does a six-month review of American forces in Europe. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump brushed off his loss after the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to end birthright citizenship — rooted in the 14th Amendment — on Tuesday, saying the decision is “too bad for the Country” and insisting that he can “easily make it up in Congress through Legislation.”
The court ruled in a 6-3 decision to reject Trump’s executive order that he issued on the first day of his presidency, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in this land. We keep that promise today.”
Trump responded to the court’s decision with a post on his social media platform, writing, “The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” he wrote on his social media platform.
“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” he added.
Birthright citizenship is rooted in both the Constitution and 1940 federal citizenship law. But even if the law were to be changed, this would likely be challenged in court on constitutional grounds with the possibility of the issue making its way back to the Supreme Court.
ABC News reached out to the White House for more information about how the president would use Congress as a workaround for the court’s decision and if he is prepared for the issue to potentially return to legal scrutiny, but the White House referred questions back to the president’s post.
On Monday, Trump said he would “accept” the results of the Supreme Court and acknowledged that “it’s up to them.”
In a subsequent post Tuesday, Trump again reiterated his desire to “correct” the birthright citizenship case in Congress while touting other cases that he won before the court.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking at a House Republican news conference before Trump posted, said he was “very disappointed” with the decision and that Congress will look at amending the Constitution to address the issue.
“I think it subjects the country to serious challenges going forward and we’ll have to deal with it as a Congress,” Johnson said, saying the policy has been “grossly abused.”
“I’m sure we will continue to look at that. I’m sure the conclusion from this opinion is going to be you’ve got to amend the Constitution to fix that,” he said.
Johnson acknowledged a constitutional amendment would be “very complicated” and a “many-years-long process,” but said he thought it was likely the only way forward.
Amending the Constitution would take a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress ratification by three-quarters of the states.
President Donald Trump participates in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, June 24, 2026. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will head to the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week as an unstable ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and Trump’s feud with his NATO allies continue.
The summit will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Beştepe Presidential Compound and chaired by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The formal opening is scheduled for Tuesday and the event is expected to conclude the following day, when Trump will hold a news conference.
Trump’s trip will be brief. He is expected to leave the White House Monday night and return to the U.S. on Wednesday evening. While in Turkey, the president is expected to take part in a bilateral meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and participate in a number of working sessions.
‘Taking stock’ of NATO
Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Sunday that the summit will measure the progress of NATO allies’ commitment to spend 5% of their GDP on defense and said that the U.S. would also “take stock of our allies’ expanding NATO’s capabilities in support of the burden-shifting going on here on the European continent.”
“Some allies are doing more than others. Poland, the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries lead the way, and Germany is on track for the 5%, reaching it in 2029. But many others are lagging behind,” Whitaker said.
The summit also comes after Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of leaving NATO. As recently as April, Trump expressed frustration with European allies amid the U.S.’s war with Iran, as many members have been reluctant to join military operations in re-opening and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump said in April when asked if he would reconsider the U.S.’s membership after the conflict ends. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
More broadly, Trump has been extremely critical of NATO allies over their ability to share the burden of contributing to the post-World War II alliance.
Whitaker said, “The United States remains a proud NATO member,” but “we have responsibilities elsewhere in the world as the world’s only superpower.”
Trump continued his criticism of some NATO allies as recently as last week.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us,” Trump wrote last Thursday on his social media platform.
“The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing,” the president also claimed on Thursday in a post on social media.
While Trump claims that allies spend “on NATO,” that’s not how the alliance works. Member states must spend 2% of their GDP on their own national defense budgets. The U.S. is NATO’s largest defense spender by virtue of having the world’s largest defense budget. But taken as a percentage of GDP, the US has hovered around 3% range — less than Poland and Baltic allies.
NATO’s involvement in Iran war
Trump’s requests for allies’ support in the U.S. war against Iran goes beyond NATO’s collective defense agreement, which calls for all to respond to an attack on a member country. Yet Trump has framed it as a test of whether allies reciprocate in return for American security commitments.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday the U.S. believes ensuring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz would be on the agenda, but that many NATO allies don’t have the capabilities to support those operations.
“I certainly believe that the Strait of Hormuz and the protection of the maritime traffic going through there is going to be a subject that comes up,” the official said.
But, they continued, “Many [NATO allies] don’t have the necessary ships or assets to contribute to a meaningful maritime effort” despite the fact that “we’ve had a lot of allies raise their hand and offer to participate.”
Shifting the burden to NATO allies
Two senior U.S. officials said on Sunday that the U.S. plans to further shift the burden of European defense onto European countries, saying that a force posture review currently underway of the military’s presence in Europe “very well may lead” to changes.
Asked about the potential for a U.S. force reduction in Europe, one senior U.S. official confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended a meeting of NATO defense ministers weeks ago to announce a “six-month or less” review of the U.S. force posture in Europe.
“The main reason being, we continue to have global demands as the United States of America, and we should always be looking at how we’re deployed to our threats,” the official said, adding that any shift in troop placement would be “based on nonpolitical reasons.”
“There should be no surprise that we’re doing a posture review or surprise if that posture review very well may lead to us adjusting our posture because we’re trying to shift burden to Europe,” another official added.
NATO 3.0
The summit comes fresh off of Rutte’s visit to the White House on June 24, when he said NATO is entering a new phase centered on greater European responsibility while keeping the U.S. engaged in the alliance. Rutte framed the summit as the moment when member countries begin implementing the spending and capability commitments made at last year’s Hague summit.
Rutte said the summit will be the beginning of a transatlantic “defense industrial revolution,” promising announcements of “tens of billions” of dollars in defense-related contracts. He ventured that this year’s summit is “more important” than last year’s in the Hague because of implementation of concrete investments aimed directly at Russia.
“Vladimir, we will defend ourselves,” Rutte addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech to the Atlantic Council last week.
A ‘big gift bag’ for Turkey
Trump said last Wednesday he would not have attended the summit were it not for his relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and suggested he plans to bring a significant offer, or a “big gift bag” for his host — potentially including the sale of dozens of F-35 fighter jets to the country.
“I am going to the summit out of respect for President Erdogan … Except for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don’t think I would have gone to it,” Trump said before a meeting with Rutte in the Oval Office in June.
Turkey is seeking to join the U.S. F-35 program, but it is prohibited from doing so as long as it possesses Russian-made air defenses.
“I’m probably going to do something that’s going to make him very happy,” Trump said.
Ending the war in Ukraine
As has been the case since the war with Russia began in 2022, the issue of Ukraine is also likely to play a key role in the NATO gathering.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Sunday that Trump will meet separately with Zelenskyy on Wednesday afternoon in addition to other meetings with NATO leaders.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday that Trump planned to speak with Zelenskyy about “how we can end the war.”
“So, there are some small areas where Ukraine has made progress. There’s some small areas where Russia has made progress. But, the line of contact has been frozen over the last couple of months,” the official said.
The official said that Trump was hopeful a meeting with Zelenskyy could bring the war closer to an end.
“We’re hopeful that we can make progress towards doing that when, when the president gets together with President Zelenskyy and I’m sure he’ll follow up with President Putin as well,” the official said.
The conversation with Zelenskyy would come after Trump spoke with Putin on Saturday for nearly an hour and a half, according to a Kremlin readout, which noted that the two touched on Ukraine and that Trump “reiterated his readiness” to find a solution to the conflict.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the call.
