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‘I want Hasan Piker to go away!’: Michigan congresswoman voices frustration after left-wing streamer’s recent interview

3:09 PM EDT, Thu September 17, 2026 / By Blake McGill, CNN

‘I want Hasan Piker to go away!’: Michigan congresswoman voices frustration after left-wing streamer’s recent interview

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) reacts to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker’s recent Axios interview. Dingell tells Piker to “stop going on television” if he wants Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to win in November. El-Sayed has attempted to distance himself from Piker in recent weeks after Piker received blowback for comments he made about the Jewish community.

2:02 • Source: CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/17/politics/video/cncpm-hasan-piker-debbie-dingell-abdul-el-sayed-michigan-senate-race

Former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona dies at 84

September 17, 2026 12:57 PM EDT / AP

Former GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a longtime lawmaker who guided the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and shaped landmark water policies in the western part of the country, has died at the age of 84.

According to a statement released by his family, Kyl died due to complications stemming from a neurological disease. He had withdrawn from public life in December 2025, after announcing he had been diagnosed with dementia.

He spent nearly three decades in Congress, serving eight years in the House and 18 in the Senate, plus a four-month partial term to fill the vacancy left by the death of Sen. John McCain. He watched his party undergo a drastic transformation over the course of his career, which began during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and concluded during President Trump’s first term.

Former Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who considered Kyl a mentor, described the former senator in a February 2025 interview with The Associated Press as a true statesman and a “workhorse” among Washington, D.C.’s show horses.

“If you saw him on the plane, he was sitting in the aisle, in coach, and he was reading,” Ducey said. “And he was reading potential bills or Senate business.”

Kyl rose to a leadership position during his last full term in the Senate, when his Republican colleagues selected him as minority whip. After he retired from politics in 2013 and became a lobbyist, Kyl returned to Congress briefly in 2018, when Ducey appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.

His appointment drew high praise from Trump, who said he was looking forward to working with “the extraordinary senator.” Kyl stayed for less than four months before rejoining lobbying firm Covington and Burling.

“At the federal level, and I regret to say that this is the case, but probably a lot of my better achievements were in preventing bad things from happening (rather) than forcing good things to happen,” Kyl said in a 2012 conversation with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Kyl was born in Oakland, Nebraska, on April 25, 1942, and grew up in a rural farming district in Iowa that his father represented in the U.S. House. At 18, he left the state to attend the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Caryll, and earned a law degree.

Before he was elected in 1987 for the first of four terms in the House, Kyl was a key participant in shaping Arizona’s 1980 groundwater code as a lawyer representing a large water utility. The first-of-its-kind code created a regulatory framework for managing groundwater in the drought-stricken state, largely centering on the state’s population centers, including Phoenix and Tucson.

In 2004, Kyl authored legislation that provided one of the largest tribal water rights settlements, which, after a decades-long battle, gave the Gila River Indian Community enough water to fill nearly 313,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools annually. Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who later served as majority leader, called Kyl’s work ethic “legendary” in a 2012 floor speech and said Kyl had labored mostly behind the scenes for 15 years to advance the settlement.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I was in a position to be the catalyst,” Kyl told the Phoenix New Times in a 2006 interview. “There wasn’t anybody else who could do that water deal. And it had to be done.”

Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy is named for him. Its director, Sarah Porter, said Kyl was generous with his time and was an effective member of the state’s congressional delegation who took a practical approach to water policy.

“He’s always sort of cared about the public good and been able to think about, ‘What will this mean for the generations to come?’” Porter said, adding that Kyl remained “quite a dynamo” until recent years, as his wife battled health problems.

Ducey said Kyl was a “giant” in the Senate, describing him as serious, engaging, forthright and thoughtful. His biggest impacts, Ducey said, came from the way he kept the Republican caucus together in opposition to Obamacare and his staunch support of Israel.

Kyl also backed legislation to authorize construction of a fence stretching hundreds of miles along the U.S.-Mexico border. He later joined with Democrats to support a bill that would provide a path to citizenship and temporary guest-worker status for those in the U.S. without authorization. The proposal ultimately failed.

As a lobbyist, Kyl helped guide the confirmation of Trump-picked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. When Kyl returned to the halls of Congress in 2018, he was known as Kavanaugh’s chief Sherpa — an informal but widely known term for a nominee’s guide to the political tundra in the Senate.

In a statement disclosing his dementia diagnosis, Kyl recalled the words of Ronald Reagan when the former president revealed his own Alzheimer’s diagnosis and said he was starting a journey that would lead him to the end of his life.

Kyl said he shared Reagan’s confidence for Arizona and the nation’s future, and that despite his diagnosis, he was a “very fortunate man.”

Iran downed at least 2 unmanned American aircraft in recent days, U.S. officials say

September 17, 2026 / 1:04 PM EDT / CBS News

By James LaPorta

James LaPorta National Security Coordinating Producer

James LaPorta is a coordinating producer for the CBS News national security team. He’s a former U.S. Marine and veteran of the Afghanistan war.

Read Full Bio

James LaPorta

Washington — Iranian forces in recent days have brought down at least two American MQ-1 unmanned aircraft, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

It is unclear where in the region the remotely piloted aircraft were brought down or which MQ-1 variant was involved. The U.S. military has fielded two principal MQ-1 variants: the Predator, which became a fixture of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Air Force retired it in 2018, and the Gray Eagle, a larger Predator-derived aircraft still operated by the Army, including its special operations forces.

Both the Predator and Gray Eagle were designed for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions but they can also carry Hellfire missiles for striking targets. In the Strait of Hormuz, these unmanned aircraft can provide U.S. forces with persistent surveillance over the narrow waterway while also tracking Iranian military activity and monitoring threats to both American forces and commercial shipping.

If the aircraft were the Air Force’s older MQ-1 Predators that have largely been retired, the loss of two would equate to roughly $8 million total. Gray Eagles are more expensive depending on the variant and can cost tens of millions of dollars.

At least 24 MQ-9 Reapers have been lost since the U.S. began its war with Iran, representing a loss of roughly $720 million, according to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office this week. The report also said an MQ-4C Triton was destroyed, a loss of about $150 million.

U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military unit responsible for operations against Iran, declined to comment to CBS News on Thursday.

White House withdraws ICE director nominee Richard Schroyer

September 17, 2026 / 1:29 PM EDT / CBS News

By Kathryn Watson
Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.

Washington— The White House has withdrawn President Trump’s nomination of Richard Schroyer to run Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after Schroyer’s nomination failed to advance in the Senate.

Schroyer was serving as senior adviser to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin when Mr. Trump nominated him in June to run ICE as an assistant DHS secretary. Republican Sen. Rand Paul stalled Schroyer’s advancement as he demanded details of investigations into agent-involved shootings in Minnesota. Schroyer didn’t make it past the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

CBS News has reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

David Venturella is currently the senior official performing the duties of ICE director, after Todd Lyons announced his departure from the top ICE role in April.

ICE hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017.

Two US-bound vessels apparently compromised by hackers, US officials say

2026-09-17 17:39:43 UTC / Reuters

By Raphael Satter and Jonathan Saul

September 17, 2026 5:39 PM UTC Updated 56 mins ago

WASHINGTON/LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) – US Coast Guard and FBI personnel boarded two commercial vessels bound for the United ​States in the Gulf of Mexico last month after indications that hackers ‌had broken into their computer networks, the agencies said on Thursday.

The unusual operation, carried out on August 21 and August 24 aboard two foreign-flagged ships, comes as US authorities grapple with a ​series of cyber incidents that media reports have linked to Iran since ​the outbreak of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

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The FBI said a joint ⁠Coast Guard-FBI team boarded the vessels after receiving “indications that the networks of both ​vessels were compromised.”

The Coast Guard, which referred only to the August 21 boarding, said that “foreign ​cyber actors” were involved but did not identify them.

Neither agency provided further details about the incidents or explained the discrepancies between their accounts. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred questions back ​to the Coast Guard.

Corey Ranslem, CEO of maritime security group Dryad Global, said that ​his firm had confirmed that one of the ships was the Liberian-flagged VL Prosperity. The vessel ‌is ⁠currently anchored in waters around Galveston in Texas, according to LSEG and MarineTraffic ship tracking data. Liberia’s flag registry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on August 20, opens new tab that VL Prosperity had suffered what it called “a major ​cyberattack” while transiting ​through the Strait of ⁠Gibraltar and that its communications had been knocked out for 30 hours.

Citing an unnamed crew member, Mehr reported that hackers had also ​infiltrated the engine-room systems, reduced the engine’s cooling flow, increased ​the engine ⁠speed, and disabled the ship’s fuel and engine-oil tank.

The Iranian news agency did not say who was thought to be behind the alleged attack.

Although dramatic in its effects, a ship-centered ⁠cyberattack ​is not that difficult to pull off, Ranslem said.

“We ​are expecting these types of attacks to continue and will expand in the very near future,” he ​said.

Reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington and Jonathan Saul in London.; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

One place you won’t find President Trump? Starring in Republican ads

2026-09-17T17:01:45.785Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/17/politics/donald-trump-republican-ads-cnn-analysis

Washington—

President Donald Trump may be omnipresent in American politics, but one place you won’t find him during the midterm elections: starring in Republican TV ads.

A new CNN analysis shows that Trump is a bit player – often seldom mentioned at all – in a blitz of Republican messaging increasingly filling the airwaves in some of the biggest races of the year. Since the start of September, Democrats have been much more likely to invoke Trump’s name than Republicans.

Republican advertisers have aired just 12 TV ads that mention Trump from September 1 to September 15, according to a CNN analysis of AdImpact data, to the tune of about $1 million. Those spots represent a fraction of more than 500 Republican ads produced during that period, totaling more than $160 million.

It’s a striking contrast from Trump’s plea to make the midterm elections all about him, as he repeatedly tells his supporters: “Pretend that I’m on the ballot.” His near absence from GOP advertising underscores the degree to which he has become a political liability, with his national approval rating just 36%, according to CNN’s Poll of Polls.

https://www.cnn.com/

As Trump seeks to put himself at the center of the midterms, a CNN analysis finds Republicans are largely leaving him out of their TV ads, while Democrats spend millions tying GOP candidates to his low approval ratings and his agenda. CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reports.

GOP ads sideline Trump ahead of midterms

Republican advisers tell CNN they believe the party’s best hopes of holding a Senate majority is not by touting Trump’s name in TV ads, but by defining Democratic candidates and trying to make them seem unacceptable to voters.

“The president is not the best message or our best messenger at this point,” a veteran Republican ad strategist involved in several midterm races told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid agitating the White House.

The bottom line: GOP candidates and their allies are devoting less than 1% of their ad spending to TV spots specifically mentioning Trump.

Not so for Democrats.

With a wide majority of Americans expressing their disapproval of Trump’s job performance, feelings that are even more pronounced on the economy and the Iran war, the embattled president has become a core figure in the Democratic advertising strategy to win control of the House and Senate.

Democratic advertisers have spent nearly $23 million airing 95 ads during the first half of September that mention the president, according to the CNN analysis, accounting for about one-fifth of their ad spending. The ads are designed to closely tie Republican incumbents or challengers to Trump.

In Michigan, a Democratic super PAC says in an ad about the GOP Senate nominee: “Mike Rogers, all in on the war, all in on Trump.” A similar argument is being made in Maine, with a TV spot pointedly arguing that state’s Republican senator: “Susan Collins does what’s best for Trump.”

After months of questions about whether Trump’s political network would fully invest in the midterm elections, a sprawling coalition of outside groups is now fully engaged and has opened a massive financial spigot. But the ads those groups are producing rarely include Trump.

Even an avalanche of spending by a new super PAC linked to Trump’s political organization – more than $100 million in fall ad buys aimed at reinforcing vulnerable Republicans – has so far failed to mention the president. The focus, instead, is on attacking Democrats.

“There’s something not right about Abdul El-Sayed,” said one of its ads against the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan. El-Sayed is a central fixture of Republican attacks this cycle in his race against Rogers, the former congressman vying again for the Senate.

“Ohio works for every dollar. Sherrod Brown works to take them away,” said another, regarding the former Democratic senator aiming to return to Washington after his 2024 defeat.

“Roy Cooper. His record is worse than you remember,” said another ad in North Carolina, where the president held a rally Wednesday night in an effort to boost former RNC chairman Michael Whatley in his Senate race against Cooper, the former governor and Democratic Senate nominee.

The new group behind the ads, No Going Back PAC, is linked to MAGA Inc., Trump’s main super PAC, which reported more than $400 million in cash on hand in its most recent FEC reports. That massive stockpile of campaign cash has been the subject of intense scrutiny by Republicans, anxious about allocating resources across a competitive midterms landscape.

No ads have yet been detected that amplify Trump’s call for a $5,000 payout to be made to every American adult if Republicans win the midterms.

And for all of the bold pronouncements the president makes during campaign rallies, including an often-made contention that the American economy is the “hottest in the world,” there are no such claims being amplified in TV ads paid for by his own top political allies.

While most presidents distance themselves from midterm elections to avoid nationalizing the races, Trump is doing the opposite. He’s all in, firing up loyal supporters and fierce critics alike.

But the Republican advertising strategy underscores a far more nuanced conversation underway about the party’s best chances of minimizing the prospect of a Democratic wave in November.

While Republican campaign ads largely avoid explicit mention of Trump, many GOP advertisers have pressed to highlight key policy achievements, particularly related to tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

According to AdImpact data, Republicans have aired more than 200 ads about taxation so far in September, spending more than $70 million – about two-fifths of its ad budget in that stretch.

“We eliminated taxes on tips and overtime and cut taxes on Social Security,” says Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP nominee for Senate in Iowa, in one of her ads. In another spot, she points to working “with President Trump to take on health insurance companies” to lower costs but also pledges to work “across the aisle” to get results.

“I fought alongside President Trump to pass the biggest tax cuts for working families in American history,” Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch says in another ad.

Republican candidates are seeking to energize the president’s base without alienating voters frustrated with the country’s direction under full Republican control in Washington.

To be sure, there are some battleground Republicans seeking to buck the trend, banking on the potential upside of embracing the president.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who is locked in one of the most competitive House races in the country against Democratic challenger Cait Conley, ran an ad featuring his work with Trump on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to raise the SALT deduction – a key concern for voters in his district – including clips of Trump praising him at a rally.

Lawler also spoke at the Republican midterm convention in Texas last week despite several of his battleground peers skipping the event. He is among the Republicans who are trying to walk a careful line of supporting the president, while showing independence.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get things done,” Lawler said in the ad that shows the president. “I had to take on the left and the right.”

Saudi Arabia facing ‘biggest threat’ ever to oil production as Iran-proxy Houthis launch attacks, expert says

2026-09-17T12:59:29-04:00 / Fox News

Research fellow says Iran ‘likely instigated’ Yemen’s Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia

By Greg Norman-Diamond Fox News

Published September 17, 2026 12:59pm EDT

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405201554112

Saudi Arabia facing ‘biggest threat’ ever to oil production as Houthis escalate attacks, expert says

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, speaks to Fox News Digital as the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are seizing territory near the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

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Saudi Arabia is currently facing “the biggest threat” ever to its production of oil as the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are launching cross-border attacks and seizing territory near the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an expert told Fox News Digital.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Thursday that the situation is escalating in the Middle East as Iran “likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.

“I think this situation is really precarious for the Saudis. This is the biggest threat to their production of oil since their kingdom was founded in 1932. And this is almost existential,” he said.

“We see that the Saudis are trying to shop for some force to fight their war for them. And I think along the lines, they also called President Trump. It doesn’t look to me that Washington is going to get involved in this one,” he added. “We’ll probably offer them advice and tell support, but I don’t think we, the United States, will get involved with this war over Bab el-Mandeb.”

IRAN-BACKED TERROR GROUP’S LATEST TERRITORIAL GRAB THREATENS SECOND GLOBAL SHIPPING CHOKEPOINT

Yemen’s Houthi armed forces patrol in the capital of Sanaa on Sept. 12, 2026.(AFP via Getty Images)

Saudi Arabia was forced to temporarily close its East-West oil pipeline last week following a drone attack launched from Iraq, which Trump said he believes Iran was behind. Then on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia destroyed a Houthi drone that attempted to enter the airspace near Mecca, among other recent provocations.

“We know that the United States imposes a blockade on Iran, so Iran is unable to export any of its oil, licitly or illicitly. What the Iranians are trying to do is that they’re trying to telegraph to the other oil exporters in the region that either we export, all of us export oil, or none of us will export oil,” Abdul-Hussain told Fox News Digital. “This is why you see Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. This forced Saudi Arabia to switch its oil production from east to west, from Hormuz to the other side to the Red Sea. Tankers started picking up oil at the port of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea and sailing south through the Bab al-Mandeb all the way to the Asian markets.

“Iran didn’t like this because clearly all or none didn’t work,” he said. “So they likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.”

HOUTHIS ENTER US ‘KILL BOX’ AFTER SEIZING RED SEA ISLAND, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL WARNS

President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia pause for photographs along the West Wing Colonnade at the White House on Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Getty Images)

Fox News Digital, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported on Friday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump to take military action against the Houthis.

Trump then said the next day during a visit to Ireland that “the Houthis called us and they don’t want to fight with us.”

“They let us know, they don’t want to fight with us…they don’t want us to go after them,” Trump added. “But they have called and they have talked to us, and they don’t want us to, they would much prefer not having us involved.”

Abdul-Hussain told Fox News Digital that “Our expectation as Washington is that the Saudis, with all these arms that we’ve sold them over the past few decades, with all the military support and advice we give them, that they should be able to protect their own tankers and ships in this waterway and keep it open.

“The Houthis announced that they’re only going after Saudi ships and Saudi navigation and they made it clear that they are not going after international shipping, whether they are U.S. ships or European ships,” he continued. “So this forces a choice on us. Do we go to war with the Houthis out of nowhere, even though they’re not willing to, or at least they didn’t wage war on our ships and our navigations through Bab el-Mandeb?”

A satellite image shows damage to the Saudi Arabia East-West pipeline after a strike on Sept. 11, 2026. The image was captured on Sept. 13, 2026.(Vantor/Reuters)

“Or we ask the Saudis to handle this, you know, after all the Houthis are not really a state, they’re a non-state actor and Saudi Arabia should be able to deal with them,” Abdul-Hussain added. “Unfortunately, the Saudis don’t seem to have been able to deal with the Houthis.”

A senior administration official told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the U.S. remains focused on protecting core national security interests such as the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea while simultaneously empowering allies in the region to manage and resolve security challenges.

The Trump administration also remains in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and Yemen over regional stability , the official added.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

Trump’s transactional presidency takes a more brazen turn

2026-09-17T17:04:08.272Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/17/politics/trump-quid-pro-quo

Few things have defined President Donald Trump’s second term as much as his transactionalism. He’s gone to great lengths to wield potential official actions for political and even personal gain in ways simply not seen since at least Watergate.

It’s this same sensibility that led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, after he suggestively tied Ukraine’s military aid to that country investigating the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election.

But while that and many of Trump’s transactions have relied on implied threats or quid pro quos, he’s increasingly coming out and saying them out loud.

His brazenness was on display on multiple fronts over the last eight days. Last week, he promised American adults thousands of dollars each if they elect Republican majorities in November. This week, he’s repeatedly threatened to abandon or even tear down the Kennedy Center if he’s not allowed to put his name on it.

And on Wednesday night, he jokingly threatened to withhold disaster aid from North Carolina if it elects a Democratic senator (except maybe it’s not a joke, judging by Trump’s track record).

To so openly talk about tying official actions to his political and personal interest should be scandalous. And it was a scandal in Trump’s first term, as evidenced by his impeachment.

His transactionalism is treated as less scandalous today in large part because Americans already know it’s how Trump’s been conducting business for the last 20 months.

But it shouldn’t be lost just how brazen it is now.

At a Wednesday night rally, Trump tied North Carolina getting disaster aid to the state electing Republican Michael Whatley to the Senate — before claiming he was joking.

“You’re waiting for some additional money … and I’m gonna get that to you, Michael,” Trump said. “Now, if Michael loses, I’m not sending it. Okay?”

Then Trump added: “No, I’m only kidding. You’re getting it. You’re gonna get it, Michael.”

But is it really a joke?

An AP investigation this year found that blue states had to wait longer for disaster aid and were denied more frequently. (The White House told the AP “there is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster relief.”) And the Energy Department in a July 15 legal filing explicitly acknowledged that it canceled clean-energy grants “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — i.e. whether it “was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State.”

It’s hard to see how people still recovering from Hurricane Helene don’t take this threat somewhat seriously. And regardless of how Trump meant it, this is not really a laughing matter.

The other development this week is Trump’s increasingly blunt effort to force the Kennedy Center to take his name. He’s been repeatedly denied in court, so he’s getting more open about his threats.

Trump said on social media Tuesday that renovations “cannot begin until such time as the DC Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name.”

“If the ruling is a negative one … the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” he added.

Then Trump said it again on Wednesday.

“For me to get involved and to take that on long-term and to carry it or to raise money to carry it — I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition,” he told reporters in Charlotte. “Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down.”

Trump was then pictured on Air Force One on Wednesday night reviewing a poster that appeared to say “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

So this is a president now explicitly saying he needs personal recognition to save this institution — and unsubtly threatening its demise if he doesn’t get what he wants.

Trump’s $5,000 checks idea might be the most brazen.

At the Republican midterm convention last week, Trump said that if Americans reelect GOP congressional majorities, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

It would be one thing to say that electing Republican majorities would enable the party to pass cut taxes, or something like that. But Trump is expressly tying handing out large sums of cash to people — apparently without congressional approval — as a reward for giving him what he wants.

Even some on the right have labeled that a bribe. It certainly seems like a quid pro quo — a payment made in exchange for a specific outcome.

And imagine if that became the new normal. The only thing stopping presidents from paying ever-larger sums of money for votes might be the economic consequences of doing so.

There is evidence that the American people see through what Trump is doing.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week showed 66% of registered voters said that Trump’s promise to hand out $5,000 checks if the GOP wins the midterms was “inappropriate,” compared to just 18% who said it was appropriate.

Even Republicans leaned toward it being inappropriate, 37%-33%.

And while voters previously tended to view both parties as about equally corrupt, some recent surveys suggest the GOP is suddenly at a deficit on this issue.

A New York Times-Siena College poll this week showed likely voters said by 14 points that “corrupt” described Republicans more than Democrats. And a Fox News poll showed registered voters said Democrats would do a better job on issues of corruption by 11 points.

But Trump doesn’t seem to have much regard for this perception. He and his deferential GOP congressional allies have made the presidency too powerful not to squeeze all the juice out of it that he can.

And he’ll apparently just keep squeezing.

Senate Democrat blocks House-passed bill to shield Americans from data center energy costs, proposing alternate measure

September 17, 2026 / 2:40 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington — One Senate Democrat on Thursday scuttled a Republican-led effort to pass legislation aimed at shielding Americans from energy costs attributed to data centers, despite the bill securing widespread bipartisan support in the House a day earlier.

The measure, titled the Ratepayer Protection Act, seeks to force tech companies to pay for the costs of new energy infrastructure used for data centers, rather than passing costs on to consumers. It passed the House on Wednesday in a 417 to 3 vote.

GOP Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio on Thursday sought to approve the legislation under unanimous consent, which gives any single lawmaker the power to block its passage. But Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, opposed, arguing that the measure doesn’t go far enough.

“The senator from Ohio and I agree on one thing, AI data centers can mean higher costs for American families, and in a lot of places they already do,” Heinrich said. “But the Ratepayer Protection Act falls short of what we need to do to respond.”

Heinrich said, “Congress needs to pass real legislation with real teeth,” noting that he has introduced his own bill, titled the GRID Savings Act, aimed at preventing Americans from shouldering the electricity costs from data centers.

“My bill is what is needed to start to bring down energy prices,” Heinrich said. “We also need to do more to get data centers to actually engage with communities from the beginning to the end, and we need to conserve local resources, especially water. And we need to protect communities from air pollution by using clean energy and battery storage. But we’re not going to get there with the bill that the senator from Ohio has proposed.”

Heinrich then sought unanimous consent to pass his legislation. But GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, Ohio’s other senator, objected, lambasting Heinrich for blocking the House-passed effort that he said would have given Americans “immediate relief.”

“The term do-nothing Congress exists for a reason,” Moreno said. “We absolutely accomplished that right now.”

The developments come as affordability issues have remained top of mind for voters as the midterm elections approach, along with new debates around data centers and AI. A number of House Republicans running in tight races signed on to the bill as cosponsors in recent weeks. And Husted, who is running in a competitive race in Ohio against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, has spearheaded the effort in the Senate.

Husted has faced scrutiny for his previous support for data centers, a key issue in the Ohio Senate race. His opponent has hammered him on the issue, and the Senate GOP campaign arm warned in a memo last month that more than anything else, the data center issue is the “anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”

When he sought unanimous consent to pass the measure Thursday, Husted said it represents “the most meaningful, bipartisan step Congress could take to protect the American people from higher prices for electricity.”

“It is a shame that this opportunity has been missed today,” Husted said.

Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.

Trump says North Carolina GOP Senate candidate is going to follow Bush Sr. with crime ads reminiscent of Willie Horton

2026-09-17T17:40:30.068Z / CNN

By Dana Bash, CNN
Published 1:40 PM EDT, Thu September 17, 2026

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Trump says North Carolina GOP Senate candidate is going to follow Bush Sr. with crime ads reminiscent of Willie Horton

Inside Politics

Nia-Malika Henderson joins the Inside Politics panel to discuss President Trump’s focus on crime last night in North Carolina—and why he says his party will replicate a George H.W. Bush campaign strategy from 1988.

3:00 • Source: CNN