Epstein and corruption allegations loom

Trump’s foreign policy, Epstein and corruption allegations loom over Senate debates in Maine, Georgia and Iowa

By Annie Grayer, Steve Contorno, Eric Bradner

One Republican tried to put distance between herself and President Donald Trump on trade and the Iran war. Another focused her criticism on Trump’s diesel deal with Russia. And a third tried to turn one of the GOP’s biggest political liabilities against their Democratic rival.

Tuesday’s Senate debates in Maine, Georgia and Iowa offered a revealing look at how Republicans are navigating a difficult political environment in the closing weeks before the midterm elections, with control of the narrowly divided Senate at stake.

In Maine, Sen. Susan Collins emphasized her independence from Trump as she sparred with Democratic challenger Troy Jackson over the Iran war, healthcare cuts and a trade war with Canada. Down the East Coast in Georgia, Republican Rep. Mike Collins went on the offensive as he tried to turn the tables by attacking Sen. Jon Ossoff over his ties to a donor named in the Jeffrey Epstein files — an issue that has largely put Republicans on the defensive.

In another closely watched contest in Iowa, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek made their case to voters Tuesday night for the state’s open Senate contest, squabbling over Trump’s foreign policy and which of the two candidates actually showed up for work.

The heated exchanges underscore the different challenges facing Republicans as they try to hold onto their Senate majority. Democrats, meanwhile, need a net gain of four seats to flip the Senate.

Here’s a look at key moments from the debates.

Susan Collins stakes out further distance from Trump

In Maine, Susan Collins sought to emphasize her independence, as the five-term incumbent seeks reelection in an environment increasingly difficult for Republicans amidst the president’s plummeting popularity.

After kicking off with her criticism of his approach to the war in Iran, Collins during later exchanges pointed to her vote against Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and her opposition to the tariffs on Canada. Her debate performance was the latest example of how vulnerable Republicans are defying Trump ahead of the midterms.

When discussing the Iran war, Collins quickly called Trump out for not having a plan, and stressed how once the conflict surpassed 60 days, she voted against the war effort.

“I voted with the Democrats to bring the war to an end, but there were not sufficient votes for that to happen,” the senator said. “In addition, I agree that the president did not have a good plan. He should have anticipated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which part of the world’s oil travels, and I don’t feel that that was well anticipated, although it should have been.”

While Jackson sought to tie Collins to her party’s signature tax and policy bill that cut Medicaid, Collins pointed out that she ultimately did not support the bill specifically because of those cuts.

When Collins was asked about her position on Trump’s tariffs on Canada, she said, “I have been extremely outspoken in my opposition to Canadian tariffs and I have voted repeatedly to repeal them.”

But while Collins sought to highlight her distance from Trump, she also argued that she was better equipped than Jackson to work with his administration, pointing to her position as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee as leverage in negotiations.

Hinson separates from Trump on Russia, Iran

Hinson similarly sought to distance herself from Trump during her Iowa debate on two of the biggest foreign policy crises confronting the president — Russia’s war with Ukraine and the US war with Iran.

On Tuesday night she criticized Trump’s deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to supply markets with diesel fuel in a bid to lower prices that both candidates said are hurting Iowa farmers.

“We need to lower diesel prices, but I don’t think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it,” she said.

Hinson also pointed to a 2022 congressional ban on energy imports from Russia, a measure intended to punish the Russian economy over Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

“I am proud to have voted for sanctions against Russia,” she said. “I’m banned from Russia because of my stance on being tough on them and supporting Ukraine, and we cannot allow Vladimir Putin to win that war.”

She also said Trump’s war with Iran “does need to come to a resolute and successful end as quickly as possible.” However, Hinson balked when asked whether she would again vote against a war powers resolution that would halt Trump’s ability to continue military action against Iran without the approval of Congress.

“I don’t think we need another resolution on the House floor. I think the president and the US military can bring it to the end,” she said.

Those breaks with Trump were notable in a debate in which Trump played a minor role — a reality owing to both Hinson’s awareness of Trump’s sagging popularity and Turek’s need to win over a share of voters who backed Trump in the 2024 election.

Hinson rarely made direct reference to Trump. But she did say she lobbied Trump personally last week to quickly get soybean trade pacts negotiated to open up foreign markets for Midwestern farmers — an acknowledgement of the economic fallout of Trump’s tariff policies.

Mike Collins steps up his offense

Mike Collins spent the first Georgia Senate debate largely on the defensive. But in Tuesday’s debate, he came out swinging.

“This is a race between Georgia and Georgetown,” Collins said at the top of his opening state.

From there, Collins called Ossoff a “globetrotting trust-fund kid,” and a “coward” who hides behind “scripted online clips.” And days after Ossoff opened their last debate by telling Georgians he would put Collins’ record on trial, the Republican said it was his turn to expose his opponent’s past.

“Tough questions are going to come out tonight,” Collins said. “No one’s ever challenged Jon Ossoff on anything he’s ever voted on.”

Collins, who faces an uphill climb to knock off the incumbent Democrat, spent much of the next hour criticizing Ossoff over his record on immigration, his support for green energy initiatives and the help he’s received from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. He accused Ossoff of being an inadequate ally of Israel and of ignoring the interests of Georgians while he built a national profile that has fueled speculation about a future White House bid.

“He’s using us as a platform,” Collins said in his closing remarks. “Georgians are hardworking people, and we deserve a senator that will work as hard as us for us.”

For his part, Ossoff picked up where he left off at last week’s debate. He confronted Collins over his White nationalist son-in-law, criticized his support for Trump’s tariffs and tied him to the unpopular conflict with Iran. He also repeatedly pressed Collins to testify in a House ethics investigation into whether his office misused taxpayer funds.

Collins called the investigation a “political hit job” when asked. Ossoff contended he was dodging.

Georgia’s Senate debate gets heated over Epstein

A testy back-and-forth in the Georgia Senate debate over files related to Jeffrey Epstein illustrated how the late financier’s crimes continue to roil American politics.

During the debate, Mike Collins attacked Ossoff over the donations he’s received from Hoffman — “the same guy that’s in the Epstein files.”

(After the Justice Department’s Epstein files showed several messages between Hoffman and Epstein, the prolific Democratic donor acknowledged he had multiple meetings with the disgraced financier. “I only knew Jeffrey Epstein because of a fundraising relationship with MIT, which I very much regret,” Hoffman wrote on X.)

“The Epstein class is on stage right now, and it’s you,” Collins said, pressing Ossoff to denounce Hoffman.

Ossoff shot back that Collins was against making the Epstein files public, a reference to a July 2025 House vote that blocked a measure that would have required the Department of Justice to release the records in 30 days. Collins ultimately joined 426 of his colleagues to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November after Trump, who had initially opposed the legislation, reversed and said he would sign the measure. Millions of documents were eventually released.

“You voted to cover up the evidence, even though you knew 14-year-old girls had been raped, because Donald Trump told you to,” Ossoff said. “Donald Trump, who, by the way, is named 1,000 times in the Epstein files.”

The debate around the documents and their ultimate revelations of Epstein’s ties to many high-profile figures dominated headlines for months over the last year. Now, candidates are seeking to capitalize on the issue, from the debate stage in Georgia to campaign ads in Colorado featuring the family of a prominent Epstein accuser.

Jackson, Collins spar over fraud claims

Both candidates tried to land an anti-corruption argument as the issue has taken center stage in the Maine Senate race

When Collins attacked Jackson for being ineffective in cutting fraud in Medicare and Medicaid in the Maine state legislature, Jackson immediately turned the issue back on Collins.

Jackson used Collins’ decision to talk about fraud as an opening to bring up a ProPublica report of a pay-to-play scheme allegation that Collins committed to steering millions of dollars in federal contracts to a Hawaii-based defense contractor in exchange for donations to her 2020 campaign.

“I’m shocked that you’re talking about fraud because there’s only one person up here that’s been accused of that by the FBI,” Jackson said.

Collins has denounced the report as a “political hit job” and her office has called the allegations “categorically false.”

Central to Jackson’s argument throughout the debate were accusations that the longtime incumbent is beholden to billionaires and special interests.

Collins said that Jackson was insulting her integrity and tried to flip the script by later accusing Jackson of not being forthcoming about who is funding his campaign since he replaced Graham Platner on the ballot this summer.

“I’ll give you the report tomorrow morning,” Jackson said, ahead of the FEC third quarter filing deadline on Thursday.

An Iowa debate over work ethic

In both of their Iowa Senate debates, Hinson and Turek have hammered each other for what they didn’t do.

Early in their clash Tuesday night, Hinson repeatedly lambasted Turek for missing 58% of the Iowa House’s floor votes in the most recent legislative session.

“That’s two out of every five days of work,” Hinson said. “If you show up to work two out of five days, you don’t get a promotion; you’re getting fired.”

Turek’s defense for those missed votes was that he was campaigning for the Senate. Before facing Hinson in the general election, he had to win a competitive primary.

“I’m out campaigning. I’m out meeting Iowans all over — all 99 counties. I’ve done hundreds of in-person town halls,” he said.

Turek, meanwhile, criticized Hinson for failing to conduct in-person public town halls — a decision many congressional Republicans have made after seeing the fierce backlash to Trump’s second term at early 2025 town halls. He said Hinson is “the least bipartisan member of the Iowa delegation.”

Talk about voter fraud....

Trump administration escalates voter roll fight with threats against California election officials

By Jeremy Herb, Tierney Sneed, Evan Perez

The Trump administration threatened to take legal action against California election officials if they did not review a list of alleged noncitizens on Los Angeles’ voter rolls within 48 hours, according to Tuesday letters from the Justice Department obtained by CNN.

The letters, signed by the number two official at the Justice Department, are an escalation in DOJ’s attempts to press for aggressive voter purges with ballots already mailed out in some states, after courts have repeatedly pushed back at attempts by the administration to insert itself in the running of elections. It’s the latest step in a government-wide push to find voter fraud amid President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread cheating in elections.

The Justice Department is demanding that the election officials refuse to send ballots to the alleged noncitizen voters and is requesting that election officials segregate ballots from voters on the list until their citizenship is confirmed.

Acting deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote in the letters to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder and the California Secretary of State that if election officials do not take steps to identify the alleged noncitizen voters, DOJ would “have no choice but to seek emergency relief.”

McCotter wrote that the department provided a password-protected thumb drive containing names the administration “believes are likely non-citizens” who were sent a mail ballot this year. It requests that the election officials work with the Department of Homeland Security to comply with its demands.

The letters were first reported by Reuters.

Spokespeople for the California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiries about the latest administration demands.

It is not clear what legal avenue the administration could use to force California election officials to take the actions it seeks. The Constitution gives states the primary job of running elections, though it allows Congress to pass some regulations of the vote as well.

Earlier this summer, the Justice Department sent letters warning it would prosecute election officials who did not take adequate steps to remove noncitizens from voter registration files, but state officials of both parties dismissed the threat.

It’s unclear why the Justice Department sent the letter now, as election officials view the window for changing protocols as closed.

“California’s voter lists are public, and this administration has had 21 months with total control of the federal government to review those public lists,” said David Becker, a former DOJ voting section attorney who now advises election administrators.

“California sent out mail ballots to all voters on Oct 5. One must question why the DOJ would violate its own rules about investigating elections close to Election Day, and over a week after they knew the state had already mailed ballots out, particularly when their past claims have been full of errors,” Becker said.

The Justice Department defended sending the letters.

“Federal law is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. The Department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law,” said DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels.

The Trump administration has alleged there are hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls. In August, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed DHS had identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states — including California, along with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada — by comparing public voter rolls with federal immigration records.

But those claims have come under immense scrutiny and, in some cases, failed to hold up. In Nevada, for instance, DHS acknowledged to state officials that its initial claim of 15,900 non-citizen registrants was an unvetted preliminary finding, and that it had only “confirmed” 185 of them through manual review. Last month, Nevada officials told DHS that their own subsequent review found all 185 were citizens — a conclusion DHS disputes.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has also sought unredacted state voter roll data from the states as part of its hunt for noncitizens on the rolls. The department has sued 30 states demanding the data — but lost every case where a judge has ruled so far, including in California.

Other attempts by the administration to police how states handle elections have also been shut down in court. The Supreme Court blocked a Trump directive for the US Postal Service to screen mail ballots, and a 2025 executive order from the president seeking to boost the proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration was halted in court as well.

Trump’s efforts to implement those requirements through legislation faltered in Congress this year. A recent judge’s ruling dismissing a non-citizen voter prosecution the administration brought in Florida also has raised constitutional questions about the federal law barring non-citizen voting.

The administration did secure a major legal win when the Supreme Court okayed a federal immigration data system that Trump has encouraged states to use to vet the citizenship status of their registered voters. Election officials in more than half of the states use the system voluntarily. However, even Republican election officials have balked at proposals from Justice Department that would force them to purge voters whom the administration has deemed ineligible — particularly given the accuracy concerns around the federal government’s data tools.

What? More lies??? Of course...

Katie Zacharia presented herself as a lawyer. She’s not

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf

The press secretary is supposed to spin the news, not be the news.

On that most essential qualification, the new lead White House spokeswoman, Katie Zacharia, is struggling.

She has presented herself as a lawyer but does not meet the requirements in her home state to use that title. And at least one watchdog group has asked the State Bar of California to investigate.

It’s a development made even more awkward after Republicans mercilessly attacked the Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, for not being a doctor, though he went to medical school and made his career in public health.

Zacharia has a law degree from the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, but there’s no evidence she ever passed a bar exam. She does claim to have obtained a credential in China, but it’s not at all clear what credential she’s talking about.

Squabbles over who can call themselves a lawyer or a doctor probably seem beside the point to a large portion of the country.

This issue here is not that a law degree is required to be White House press secretary — it isn’t.

The issue is that Zacharia has presented herself repeatedly on TV, including on CNN, as a lawyer, something the independent journalist Judd Legum first documented. Trump used the term “attorney” to describe her when he announced she would be his press secretary.

A review by CNN’s K-File found at least six instances when she referred to herself as either a lawyer or a corporate lawyer in her own words and multiple other instances in which she posted or reposted to social media using the term attorney or “legal strategist.”

A town full of law degrees

Washington, DC, is filled to the brim with people who have law degrees but do not practice law. And it does not appear that Zacharia inappropriately tried to represent anyone in a court.

But all of this does suggest the vetting operation at the White House is, to be charitable, not very thorough.

When reporters asked Trump at the White House where Zacharia passed the bar, she chimed in from behind him that she was when she moved to China. Even Trump did a double take.

Wait, what credentials?

Zacharia later told Politico she had “practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials.”

It’s not clear — and the White House has not clarified — what certification Zacharia obtained in China, but it’s not the Chinese version of the bar exam. Only citizens can become licensed to practice law in China, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Republicans have questioned Abdul El-Sayed’s credentials

Questions about Zacharia’s CV are also an awkward development since Republicans in Michigan have attacked the Democrat running for Senate there, Abdul El-Sayed, for not being a doctor despite having gone to medical school.

At a debate this month, the Republican in the Senate race, former Rep. Mike Rogers, went so far as to say El-Sayed was a “con man.”

As CNN has reported, El-Sayed earned a Doctor of Medicine from Columbia University, but he does not practice clinical medicine.

El-Sayed has held public health positions in the Detroit area. His top policy issue is extending health insurance to all Americans.

Democratic boosters of El-Sayed have continued to call him a doctor.

“Abdul’s a doctor, and he’s taken on special interests to fight for good jobs, better healthcare, and lower costs,” former President Barack Obama said in an ad he cut for the Michigander.

Zacharia’s legal work

In addition to saying on TV that she is a lawyer, Zacharia cites some legal-sounding work on her LinkedIn page; for example, she lists herself as “general counsel” for the activist group Fix California. In the nonprofit group’s tax filing for 2024, Zacharia’s name appears as having been a fundraiser.

She also lists herself as having worked as an “associate” in the international practice group at the Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing for nearly two years starting in 2011.

The White House press corps, obviously, has followed up on this mystery.

“Katie moved to China with her husband after graduating because of his job at an American private equity firm while she worked on international transaction law,” according to a White House official.

CNN’s White House team has found no evidence that Zacharia has passed the bar exam in the states where she has lived and worked since graduating from Pepperdine.

Here’s what California’s bar association told them:

The State Bar of California has no record of Kate Sharon Zacharia or Kate Sharon Black having been licensed to practice law in California,” a spokesperson for the California State Bar told CNN in a statement, referring to her maiden name. “Due to confidentiality requirements, the State Bar can only confirm whether someone passed the bar exam, not whether they took the bar exam.”

What’s required to be a lawyer in California

California law lays out what’s required to be a lawyer.

There are requirements for college and law school, or their equivalents; for “good moral character”; passing an ethics exam; and passing the bar exam in California.

Zacharia, as a result, should not be considered a lawyer in California, the state where she has lived and worked.

A separate section of California law makes it a misdemeanor to pretend to be a lawyer.

Here’s the language:

Any person advertising or holding himself or herself out as practicing or entitled to practice law or otherwise practicing law who is not an active licensee of the State Bar, or otherwise authorized pursuant to statute or court rule to practice law in this state at the time of doing so, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in a county jail or by a fine of up to one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Does presenting oneself as a lawyer on TV violate that piece of code?

The group Campaign for Accountability, which describes itself as a nonpartisan government watchdog, on Wednesday announced it had asked the State Bar of California to investigate.

Many other questions remain. What is the credential Zacharia obtained in China, if any? Did she try to take a bar exam and fail, or simply not take it? Why did no one at the White House, especially after questions arose about El-Sayed’s status as a doctor, think to follow up on this earlier?

Trump is his own spokesman. But he’ll need good help

None of that really matters to anyone who is more concerned with how the White House is handling the war Trump launched on Iran or the related inflation that continues to hit Americans in the wallet. Questions about whether Zacharia can call herself a lawyer, or not, mostly distract from those other, larger issues.

Ultimately, Trump is the person who speaks for his administration in the long, often rambling appearances he frequently makes in the Oval Office.

But those appearances may become less enjoyable for him in the future, especially if Democrats take control of one or both chambers of Congress and, as expected, launch a series of investigations into his administration, the money his family has made during his presidency, and much more.

He will, at that point, need a press secretary he can trust.

Hodad

Hodad: 

A hodad is someone who pretends to be a surfer but lacks the skills or experience, often seen as a poser by the surfing community.

Hodad can be used more generally to describe a poser or wannabe in any field, someone who claims expertise or affiliation without genuine knowledge or experience 

In surfing, it remains a derogatory term for non-surfers who try to appear as part of the surfing community 

In essence, being a hodad is about appearance over authenticity, and the term carries a negative connotation within the communities it references.

You think?

Trump was trying to force prices lower ahead of the midterms. But Iran gets a vote, too

Analysis by David Goldman

President Donald Trump and Republicans just got the worst news on inflation ahead of the midterms: Prices rose more than expected in September.

The news came as no surprise to American voters. Polls show they’re furious about the high cost of living that has persisted since the pandemic but has been exacerbated this year by Trump’s policies – including tariffs and, primarily, the Iran war.

To alleviate some of the price pain, the Trump administration has been diving deep into its bag of tricks. Over a month ago, the US Navy began a high-stakes effort to assist tankers shuttling Gulf oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. And in a hail-Mary attempt, Trump last week announced a controversial deal to drop some sanctions on Russia to import a relatively small amount of the country’s diesel.

How much is inflation costing you? Find out with this calculator

Iran and its Houthi allies are now undermining both of those operations. An increase in attacks on tankers and oil infrastructure over the past week has sent oil and diesel prices higher. The disruption has sent transits through the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb falling sharply after mostly recovering to their pre-war levels.

The Trump administration was never going to solve the inflation problem in the month leading up to the midterms. But its last-ditch effort for some positive news on prices has run face-first into a brick wall this week.

Inflation

Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index showed a familiar story: Inflation continued to rise in September, boosted mostly by surging energy costs.

Gas prices rose 9.1% over the course of the month and ended September more than 34% higher than the same time last year. Fuel oil prices rose 15.3% last month and surged more than 74% over the course of the past year.

Those higher costs are starting to spread to other parts of the economy. As my colleague Matt Egan noted Tuesday, the Iran war is costing the average American household $2,000 in additional costs, according to Moody’s Analytics.

Particularly concerning in Wednesday’s inflation report was the surprising rebound in housing and rent costs, a significant contributor to inflation that had cooled off in the spring and summer.

All services rose 0.4% in the month – prices that tend to rise as yoga studios, lawn services and the like charge their customers more to make up for their rising costs. Those services prices may only be a knock-on effect from the Iran war, but economists get worried when they rise, because they tend to be “sticky.”

Bluntly: When was the last time your kids’ nursery school lowered prices?

The overall US economy remains hot and consumers keep spending despite rising prices. But higher inflation has translated into higher bond yields and rates from the Federal Reserve, which are lifting borrowing costs and making housing even less affordable.

The Strait of Hormuz

Iran knows all this. It knows the political pressure Trump and his Republican party are facing. And it knows what month it is.

After a relatively quiet September, at least 18 vessels in and around the Middle East have been attacked over the past two weeks, according to Kpler, a maritime tracking service. On Tuesday, the Iran-allied Houthis appeared to hit the headquarters of Saudi state oil giant Aramco.

“It appears Iran is attempting to keep oil prices high ahead of the midterm elections, and the best way to do this has been to increase attacks - both from themselves and via the Houthis,” said Matt Smith, analyst at Kpler.

The ever-shifting narrative about who controls the Strait of Hormuz has changed once again.

The complex operation of naval-protected dark fleets shuttling Gulf oil out of the strait and offloading it to tankers in the Gulf of Oman had been hugely successful. Just a few weeks ago, oil transits out of the Strait of Hormuz had almost fully recovered to their pre-war levels.

Over the past seven days, oil and fuel transits through the strait have fallen to 54% of their pre-war levels, according to Kpler.

Iran’s retaliation should surprise no one, said Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners.

“As the US trumpets the success of getting more crude out to global markets, it feels somewhat like sporting a big ‘kick me’ sign,” he said. “Iran is attacking almost everyone. Meanwhile, Iran’s proxy, the Houthis, are attacking Saudi Arabia with substantial results.”

Recent Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure have raised the stakes of the war. Although the oil market largely dodged a bullet after a successful but repairable attack on Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West pipeline, the recent attacks prove that the conflict isn’t abating anytime soon.

The ultimate winner can’t yet be known: The US Navy may once again gain the upper hand. The administration may find other creative ways to get more diesel flowing to the market.

In the meantime, the loser is clear: The American consumer. And in three weeks they will be casting their verdict on the economy as they vote in the midterms.

Block US execution livestream

‘It would scream through’: Joyce pushes separate bill to block US execution livestream

Communications minister to introduce digital duty bill, despite calls for separate measure against execution livestream.

By Paul Karp

The Australian government should legislate separately to block a proposed livestreamed execution in the U.S. instead of conflating the issue with a proposed crackdown on social media, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has said.

Joyce, a former Nationals MP who defected to the right-wing nationalist One Nation Party, made that call in an interview with POLITICO’s Canberra Playbook Podcast on Tuesday evening, pressuring the Albanese government to convert concern across the political spectrum about the Trump administration’s proposed execution livestream into a quick legislative win.

The Albanese government is in the midst of a fight to legislate a digital duty of care which would make tech companies responsible for actively preventing serious harm on their sites, a reform that would expose them to greater liability for violent content such as the livestream of the scheduled Dec. 3 firing squad execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

On Thursday, Communications Minister Anika Wells will introduce the bill for the proposed digital duty of care, revealing minimal changes since an earlier consultation draft.

The bill includes a carve-out for professional news material to protect public-interest journalism, responding to concerns raised by free speech advocates claiming that news reports on terrorism, war or even climate change could be censored on the basis of harm to young audiences.

The bill also removes the ministerial rule-making power to define new harms, as Wells flagged on Monday in an interview with POLITICO’s Canberra Playbook Podcast.

“Deliberation about a digital duty of care comes down to a simple question,” Wells will tell the National Press Club on Thursday according to extracts of the speech circulated in advance. “Do you really think that Big Tech is on the side of worried parents and vulnerable kids… or are they on the side of their shareholders?”

Earlier, Joyce told POLITICO he didn’t support the execution livestream “at all … but this is something you can be really specific in ruling out.”

“If you had a bill that says there will be no livestreaming of executions, I don’t think anyone in the parliament wouldn’t vote for it. It would scream through.”

“But they haven’t given that, have they? … They’ve just said: ‘Just understand, we’ve got your best interests at heart when we say that we’re going to rule out naughty things.’ And then they’ll give you a list of virtuous things, but they don’t tell you that they’ve actually got the power to do vastly, vastly more than that, and that’s where the danger lies.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed livestreaming of the execution was “completely abhorrent” and the government “should do whatever we can to stop that occurring.”

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has acknowledged her powers do not extend to blocking the stream before it starts, although she has written to social media companies seeking their cooperation in reducing harm by not showing it. Albanese said “It is difficult — we will do whatever we can.”

Despite Albanese’s promise to seek advice about further options to prevent viewing of the livestream in Australia. Two Australian government officials familiar with the options said that no separate bill to block it is currently being worked on.

Josh Bornstein, director of corporate regulation at think tank The Australia Institute, rejected Joyce’s view the execution livestream and duty of care were unrelated. He told POLITICO that a “proper regime for online safety would allow regulators or individuals to seek urgent injunctions.”

Bornstein has been lobbying Labor to accept a demand adopted by the Greens for a right for individuals to sue over online harms. “A monopoly on enforcement by a state regulator never works,” he said.

“The biggest development in online safety, occurred not because of the action of a regulator, it occurred in America through lawsuits against Meta that were recently settled in which it agreed to pay 25 billion Australian dollars over time and agreed to radical changes to its platform to make them safer.”

Starlink throttling

Russia pounds Kyiv energy sites as Ukraine reports Starlink throttling

Zelenskyy called the strikes deliberate, saying Russia had hit infrastructure covered by the energy ceasefire announced by Trump.

By Milena Wälde and Veronika Melkozerova

Russian missiles and drones struck a residential building and energy infrastructure in Kyiv Tuesday night, killing at least three people and injuring 22, Ukrainian officials said.

Around 600,000 people were without power overnight, while 26 energy facilities and four oil and gas sites were damaged, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Ukraine also reported a sudden Starlink speed restriction that disrupted military missions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones and loitering munitions at energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the surrounding region and Kharkiv. “This was a targeted Russian ballistic strike specifically against the energy sector” — infrastructure covered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announced ceasefire, he wrote.

The deaths in Kyiv include an eight-year-old child, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. “The ballistic attack on the capital continues,” he wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told reporters that Kyiv had received no advance warning from allies for a second consecutive day, while the Air Force said it had received no alerts for the first series of overnight ballistic strikes.

“During the subsequent three waves of attacks, notifications from partners about the use of ballistic missiles were indeed received,” Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ignat said on Ukrainian television Wednesday morning.

U.S. President Donald Trump denied intelligence sharing had been halted: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel.”

Worries about U.S. intelligence sharing have been worsened by an apparent throttling of Starlink’s capabilities.

Serhii Beskrestnov, who advises Zelenskyy on defense technology, said in a Facebook post that Elon Musk’s SpaceX had set a 100-mile-per-hour speed limit on moving terminals using StarShield, its military service. Ukraine’s armed forces received no warning, he said, and the restriction disrupted several missions. He suggested it was linked to the “current political situation.”

"Starlink is used in what is currently the most effective solution (interceptors units) for protecting our skies against jet-powered Shaheds," Bezkrestonv said in a later post. "In effect, through their actions, our partners are depriving us of one of the few options available to defend the country against jet-powered Shaheds," he added.

“Reports are coming in from many units,” an official familiar with the matter told POLITICO. “There was a speed limit of 160 kilometers per hour. It is primarily logistics and mid-range strikes that will be affected.”

The Ukrainian armed forces “are currently trying to resolve this through military channels with the U.S. and are looking for alternatives,” the official added. “Clearly, this is a limitation not just on speed, but also on trust in SpaceX,” he said.

So-called mid-range strikes form a key part of Ukraine’s defense arsenal, as they can disrupt Russia’s war logistics in occupied Ukrainian territory, well behind the front lines.

Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

The overnight strikes came days after Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” and demanded Kyiv halt attacks on Russian oil facilities. Zelenskyy said Ukraine had stopped such strikes, but Moscow continued hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected a temporary pause Tuesday, saying Moscow was seeking a lasting settlement.

Questioned under oath

Trump cancels deposition in BBC case, lawyers say

The president was set to be questioned under oath in his defamation lawsuit over the British broadcaster’s 2020 election documentary.

By Josh Gerstein

President Donald Trump was set to be deposed Friday in a defamation lawsuit he filed against the British Broadcasting Corporation, but his lawyers recently canceled the session and said he is unavailable through at least mid-December, according to a court filing.

“The President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance,” Trump’s attorneys told lawyers for the BBC late last month, the network’s attorneys said in motion Tuesday. The BBC is asking a judge to force Trump to set a firm date to submit to questioning in the case.

“Nearly eight months into discovery, after seven depositions of BBC witnesses, and with only two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself,” BBC lawyer Charles Tobin wrote. “There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff.”

Tobin said Trump’s attorneys agreed to the Oct. 16 date in July, subject to an agreement to keep the location and other details under wraps for security reasons. Trump’s lawyers advised on Sept. 28 that the Oct. 16 date was no longer feasible and recently proposed rescheduling the deposition for January, according to the new filing.

The BBC’s attorneys asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett to add the issue to the agenda for a hearing she has scheduled next week to address other matters in the case.

“Plaintiff chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation,” Tobin added.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said his lawsuit “is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”

Trump sued last December, alleging that a documentary the BBC aired about the 2020 election defamed him by splicing together clips of his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, to make it sound like he directly encouraged the violence that took place at the Capitol a short time later. The BBC apologized for the editing and any mistaken impression that it caused, but said the juxtaposition was inadvertent.

Trump sought $10 billion in damages, citing damage to his “brand, properties and businesses.” However, after the BBC demanded details about the financial performance of his businesses, Trump narrowed his suit to solely cover alleged damage to his reputation.

The BBC has moved to throw out Trump’s suit altogether, arguing that the federal court in south Florida where Trump brought the case lacks jurisdiction over the network. The BBC also noted that the documentary in question never aired in the U.S.

In August, Trump’s lawsuit was reassigned from U.S. District Judge Roy Altman to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz. Both are Miami-based Trump appointees. No ruling has been issued on the BBC’s motion to dismiss.

In 2023, Trump dropped a lawsuit he’d filed against his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after a judge ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the case and refused further requests to change the established date. Trump said through a spokesperson that he had elected to “pause” the suit, rather than cancel a campaign rally he had planned in New Hampshire for the same day as the testimony. The suit was never refiled.

GOP midterm woes got worse.........

Hot inflation data adds to GOP midterm woes

The numbers are feeding investor bets that the Fed might hike rates again later this month.

By Victoria Guida

Inflation unexpectedly accelerated in September due to soaring prices at the pump, boosting the chances of another Federal Reserve interest rate increase and dealing another blow to Republicans before next month’s congressional elections.

The consumer price index rose 3.7 percent over the 12 months ended in September, driven by the jump in gas prices, which accounted for over half the cost increases, the Labor Department said Wednesday. But prices beyond more volatile food and energy costs also rose more than projected, as consumers continue spending at a robust clip.

The numbers are feeding investor bets that the Fed might hike rates again later this month, with markets pricing in roughly even odds that it will raise borrowing costs or hold them steady, according to CME’s FedWatch tool. But before the data release, senior central bankers suggested they were willing to be patient as they monitored the trajectory for inflation.

That messaging might still keep the Fed on the sidelines, at least until the December meeting, but the September data has now reinvigorated the specter of an interest rate hike for the second month in a row, just days before Election Day. Such a move would likely enrage President Donald Trump, who has continued to push for lower rates but so far has not attacked his new Fed chief, Kevin Warsh.

For their part, Fed officials are trying to suss out how much of the price increases are being supported by unsustainable economic activity versus temporary shocks to the supply of goods, fed by foreign policy, that will eventually fade. The risk for them, as well as for any politician running in 2028, is that failing to contain inflation now could mean the Fed will have to act even more aggressively to control it later.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett called the hot September CPI number “disappointing.” He argued that the president’s policies are “helping to keep inflation down” but added, “the energy shock is really the headline story today.”

Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights, pointed to signs that tariffs are still pushing up costs, such as prices for sporting goods and toys.

“The surprise was not concentrated in any one item … but instead reflected a number of components showing strength,” Sharif wrote in a note to clients.

A recent analysis on the tariff burden for midsize businesses by the JPMorgan Chase Institute found several manufacturing industries now spend more than 2% of their cash inflows on tariffs.

“Is this expense on the same level as your commercial lease or your payroll? No,” said Chi Mac, business research director at the institute. “But this is not a small amount.”

Will show who got fucked over in the tax cut..........

Administration delays release of IRS data showing impact of GOP tax cuts

The tax agency was supposed to release detailed data on this year's filing season in July. Months later, it's still unpublished.

By Brian Faler

The Trump administration is delaying the release of detailed data showing how Republicans’ 2025 tax cuts affected millions of Americans’ taxes, even as it tries to sell voters on the law ahead of the midterm elections.

The numbers document which tax breaks were claimed by people in different income brackets, as well as information like how much they paid in taxes.

The IRS typically releases the data in the wake of each filing season, and this year’s rollout is more anticipated because it’s expected to provide the first detailed look at how taxpayers are taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including its new deductions for overtime wages and tipped income.

The data was scheduled to be released in July, and then updated again in September, as the IRS processed more people’s returns —but the agency hasn’t published either. The IRS said it is awaiting approval from the Treasury Department to publish the figures.

But the delay has already irked some who complain it is part of a pattern of the administration withholding otherwise routine releases of tax data.

“I think they are hiding stuff that doesn’t line up with all the crowing the CEO has been doing,” Nina Olson, a former national taxpayer advocate, said of Frank Bisignano, the IRS’s day-to-day leader who has joined Republican lawmakers in touting the breaks to voters.

The lack of detailed numbers on the 2026 filing season comes as the agency is also under fire for withholding a periodic report on the so-called tax gap, which is the share of taxes owed but not yet paid.

The administration declined to answer questions about the delay on the record. In an emailed statement, an official speaking on condition of anonymity said its “priority is to release accurate and reliable data” following “major changes” to the tax code. The official did not say when the figures might be released.

During the filing season, the IRS publishes weekly top-line statistics documenting how many returns it processed, how many refunds it issued and how much money taxpayers typically got back — figures the administration hyped earlier this year as evidence of the benefits of their tax cuts.

But the delayed data is far more granular, showing the uptake of individual provisions in the code as well as things like how much more people in different income groups reported earning, and how many people still owed money to the IRS at the time of filing.

In past years, the figures have created problems for the majority party when they didn’t show what lawmakers hoped for. Republicans took heat when the figures released the first year after their 2017 tax cuts showed fewer people taking deductions for charitable contributions, for example.

It’s possible this year’s figures include less-than-flattering details about Republicans’ tax cuts — they could show the tax burden shifting between income groups, for instance, or a suspicious number of people claiming specific breaks, said Barry Johnson, a former top IRS official.

But the reason why the data isn’t out yet could also be more mundane, like if an unusual number of people requested filing extensions.

“There’s all sorts of things it could be — you can’t know until you see the data whether it’s they don’t like the answers, or whether the data themselves really aren’t useful,” said Johnson, who was the IRS’s director of Statistics of Income from 2014 to 2025.

But the Treasury isn’t supposed to be blocking the release of the figures, he said, pointing to a law Trump signed in his first term that gave statistical agencies, like at the IRS, more power to decide when to publish data.

“By law, the IRS determines what they release and when it gets released,” said Johnson. “Treasury shouldn’t have a role in determining the timing of any statistical release.

“It’s unusual,” he said. “It would telling to see if everything comes out in the middle of November, and then the stories a little bit challenging, then you’d say it was being held up to get past the midterms.”

The first batch of data, showing figures through May, was originally slated for release in July, but is now listed on the IRS’s website as “pending.” The update with numbers through July was slated to go out Sept. 17.

The figures, when they’re finally released, won’t be the final word on this filing season because they don’t include people who asked for filing extensions and now face an Oct. 15 deadline for completing their returns. Those taxpayers tend to be wealthier, so they tend to be understated in the figures.

The mid-July data typically covers 95% of taxpayers, 87% of the income reported and 82% of the taxes paid, the IRS says.