Trump warns Republicans about Texas, Michigan ahead of midterms
President Donald Trump looks to the press as he disembarks from Marine One at the White House on Oct. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. President Trump kicked off a 32-day campaign blitz ahead of the midterm elections in Texas and Oklahoma. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump warned Republicans that Texas and Michigan are among the states the party is “worried about” ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, while speaking to voters in Oklahoma on Thursday.
Fresh off an event in Texas, Trump told a crowd in the reliably Republican state that he was not concerned about Oklahoma but that Republicans needed to turn out voters in other states.
“I feel a little foolish, you know. I’m saying, ‘go out and vote, go out and vote.’ You’re gonna, they’re gonna win in the last half, but still go out and vote,” Trump said. “But we’re not worried about them. We’re worried about Michigan. We’re worried about Texas. We’re worried about a few states.”
Trump later said Republicans need to get the word out about the midterms, citing what he described as 35 to 40 races that the party is concerned about.
“But we have to get the word out because we have to win in those 35. Maybe you could even say 40 places, 40 races,” Trump said. “You have many, you have hundreds of races, but it’s all about 40.”
Trump also again urged supporters to imagine that he himself was on the ballot.
“So you have to pretend I’m on the ticket and turn out for a midterm victory that’s really too big to rig,” Trump said.
Trump sought to rally Republicans by attacking Democrats over inflation and immigration, repeating claims about the number and backgrounds of migrants who entered the country during the Biden administration.
Trump has repeatedly made claims about millions of migrants entering the U.S. from prisons and mental institutions, but those claims have been disputed and are not supported by evidence showing that foreign governments emptied prisons or institutions and sent those people to the United States.
The president also said his administration was running the country well but criticized Republicans for what he called poor “public relations.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, during a dinner Wednesday evening, announced his intent to nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the post permanently.
In a video shared on social media by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Trump is seen in the Rose Garden saying that he will instruct his team to start the process to formally nominate Blanche to the post on Thursday.
Earlier, Trump’s announcement was confirmed to ABC News by two sources at the dinner.
Blanche, who was once Trump’s personal attorney, served as the Department of Justice’s deputy attorney general until the president tapped him to serve as acting attorney general following Pam Bondi’s ouster.
Trump hinted at the move in a pre-taped interview with the program “Pod Force One” on Wednesday, saying that he thinks Blanche will be nominated to the attorney general position.
“I wanted to see how he’s received, you know, we put him as acting, and he’s done a very good job, but I’ve known him a long time,” Trump said.
In recent weeks, Blanche has been at the center of the controversy over the Justice Department’s so-called $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” ostensibly established to benefit the president’s allies.
On Tuesday, Blanche told Congress that the department was “not moving forward with the fund.”
The move came after heavy pressure from Republican congressional leadership and marked a significant defeat for Blanche, who had spent the past two weeks seeking to defend the $1.776 billion fund while refusing to rule out the prospect that settlements could be paid out to defendants who joined in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — including those who had been convicted for assaulting law enforcement.
But on Wednesday, the president himself admitted he did not know what the fund’s future would be after a federal judge temporarily blocked it.
“I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know,” Trump said when pressed on whether the plan was truly dead.
“The weaponization fund, as far as I’m concerned, was a beautiful thing,” he added.
Before Blanche told lawmakers the administration was nixing the fund, several Senate Republicans had balked at the plan, telling him they would not be able to pass Trump’s legislative agenda until the issue was resolved and even raised concerns about losing in the upcoming, high-stakes midterm elections as a result of the controversial settlement fund.
As acting attorney general, Blanche also secured the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over his post of seashells that the Justice Department claims amounted to a threat against the president.
Blanche has shrugged off the suggestion that he would use the Justice Department to more aggressively target perceived foes of the president.
Construction continues on a venue for the upcoming UFC match on the South Lawn of the White House on June 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is floating the possibility of keeping the UFC arena on the White House South Lawn — built for a series of fights on his birthday and Flag Day — permanently.
In a video posted to his official TikTok account Tuesday evening, Trump sat in the Oval Office and said that the Eiffel Tower in Paris was supposed to be a temporary structure, but that France kept it up — suggesting that the UFC arena is “quite attractive to a lot of people” so “maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”
“People don’t know that in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower, 1889 it was built. It was supposed to be taken down immediately after the world’s fair, and then they said: ‘leave it up a little bit longer, and then they said, ‘let’s leave it up longer and longer and longer,'” Trump said in the video.
“Well, they never took it down, and you know we’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people. Really, it’s going to have the big UFC fight on June 14, and I’m looking at it and maybe we’ll never ever take it down,” Trump added.
The Eiffel Tower was constructed for the 1889 World Exhibition, and was only meant to stay up for 20 years — until 1909, according to the Eiffel Tower’s website. Yet the tower’s architect Gustave Eiffel fought to keep the tower intact, according to the website.
The “UFC Freedom Fights 250” will take place on June 14 and feature a lightweight title matchup between undisputed champion Ilia Topuria and interim title holder Justin Gaethje alongside four other fights.
The arena is visible from the White House North Lawn, cresting over the historic West Wing and Executive Residence.
The White House South Lawn, where the arena is located, is a place often utilized by presidents.
Trump and past presidents depart and arrive on Marine One from the lawn ahead of any travel to Joint Base Andrews — an opportunity for members of the media to shout questions to the president as he moves from the White House to his helicopter. These arrivals and departures have been closed to the press since the week of May 20, when construction on the arena began.
Other events, including the White House Easter Egg Roll and the annual Congressional Picnic, which was just held in May, are traditionally hosted on the South Lawn, too.
ABC News’ Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes Monday on the eve of the midterm elections to begin a new term that will confront a fresh wave of appeals from President Donald Trump and the prospect of explosive legal challenges to 2026 election results.
The first case for oral argument involves climate change and a blockbuster bid by local governments to sue energy companies for financial damages over alleged harms from fossil fuels — the first-of-its-kind dispute to reach the justices. Potentially billions of dollars are on the line.
This year the court will also decide whether states can ban semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15; deny federal ballots to voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship on state registration forms; and block religious schools from taxpayer-funded programs when they discriminate against LGBTQ+ families.
It is also considering whether to weigh in on state laws mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms; legal shields for medical providers who mail abortion pills out of state; and, regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.
These cases are not expected to be decided before the midterms in November.
“Is the court a Republican court? Is it resolving disputes in the name of justice or some broader set of principles? I think it’s a very live question,” said Genevieve Lakier, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. “This term, like the last, is going to provide fuel to the fire of that question.”
The justices will decide the legality of the Trump administration’s rapid deportation of immigrants to third countries — without giving them a chance to raise fears of persecution — and the indefinite detention of immigrants awaiting deportation proceedings without a chance for release on bond.
The president also has personal appeals before the court. He wants the justices to invalidate an $83 million civil judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit; revive a conspiracy claim against Hillary Clinton and the DNC from the 2016 campaign; and allow defamation claims against CNN from the 2020 election to go forward.
“The Supreme Court’s term is, in part, going to involve a lot of election drama,” said William Baude, a prominent conservative law professor at the University of Chicago and member of the Federalist Society. “The 2026 midterm elections are upon us, and the court has already had several pieces of litigation related to that, and has more to come at any moment.”
A majority of Americans believe that the justices are motivated mainly by politics in their decision-making and that this court — with a 6-justice conservative supermajority — rules often for Trump, a Marquette University poll found last month.
But many scholars, and the justices themselves, argue that public perception is not matched by reality.
On dozens of other matters that reached the court on the emergency docket, however, the conservative majority has been much more deferential to the president. By one analysis, he has won about nine times out of ten.
“I don’t see this as a court that is just like, ‘We’re just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.’ You know, quite the opposite,” Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal minority, told a judicial conference over the summer. “I think that that is a bad rap.”
Former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who served in the Obama administration, said the Court has been deliberate in asserting its independence from the president.
“It’s doing so at a time in which there really is a pretty darn serious constitutional clash going on,” Verrilli said last month. “Though, I think it’s certainly right it is not a MAGA court.”
Veteran court watchers note, however, that every term comes with surprises.
“Will the court continue to hold the line against the president’s never-ending assault on the rule of law? Will the court otherwise break down 6-3 in favor of conservative positions?” said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center.
