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US appeals court rejects Trump mail-in ballot restrictions as Supreme Court considers rule

2026-09-10 16:56:56 UTC / Reuters

By Nate Raymond

September 10, 2026 4:56 PM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

Supporters of mail-in voting gather outside the federal courthouse, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., June 2, 2026. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• US Postal Service cannot implement mail-in ballot rule at this time, court says
• DOJ has already asked the US Supreme Court to lift the block on USPS rule
• Appeals court cites risk of voter disenfranchisement in ruling

BOSTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – A ​U.S. appeals court on Thursday declined to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to implement a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would ‌tighten mail-in voting requirements before November’s congressional elections, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a similar request.

A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined, opens new tab to put on hold an injunction that a lower-court judge issued last week that has prevented USPS from enforcing the new rule it adopted at the Republican president’s direction.

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The fate of that ​rule will be decided soon by the 6-3 conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court. In a rare step, the administration did not even wait ​for the 1st Circuit to issue a decision before asking the high court to lift the injunction on Sunday.

Boston-based U.S. District ⁠Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, had issued the injunction on Friday at the behest of voting rights groups and numerous Democratic-led ​states.

‘DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF MILLIONS OF VOTERS’

In asking the 1st Circuit to lift Talwani’s order, the U.S. Department of Justice argued the plaintiffs’ case appeared based on an ​unfounded premise that USPS intends to seize control of the administration of federal elections when it was instead adopting just a “modest” mail-related regulation.

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But the three-judge panel, comprised entirely of judges appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, said that argument focuses on the “trees while ignoring the forest.” The panel said that under the U.S. Constitution, states and Congress have the ​authority to regulate elections, not the executive branch.

The court said it saw no error in Talwani’s conclusion that allowing the rule to take effect “will likely ​result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal — if any — gains in combating voter fraud.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat who ‌helped lead ⁠the litigation, in a statement hailed the 1st Circuit’s ruling, saying it “rejected the Trump Administration’s latest attempt to disrupt mail voting.”

USPS and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

blob:https://www.reuters.com/a40b5ed3-ff5c-42c3-9fd4-60d46ff6d976

The appeal before the Supreme Court remains pending. It had previously lifted an earlier injunction Talwani issued that had blocked USPS from moving forward with the rule before it was finalized.

USPS issued the rule to implement an executive order the Republican president signed in March after years ​of Trump calling for tighter rules on ​voting by mail and pushing the ⁠false claim that his 2020 presidential election defeat to Biden was the result of widespread voter fraud.

All 50 states allow for some form of mail-in voting. Twenty-nine states allow voters to ask to cast ballots by mail without ​providing a reason and eight conduct their elections entirely by mail.

Under the rule, states must supply the USPS with ​lists of mail ⁠ballot recipients, and all outbound and return ballot envelopes must bear unique barcodes.

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The USPS, under the rule, may refuse to deliver ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.

Talwani prevented the USPS rule from going into effect after concluding it risked disenfranchising ⁠voters, and ​was likely unlawful and adopted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which gives states the ​authority to administer elections.

A whistleblower statement from an anonymous federal official that was released on September 1 by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, alleged that USPS was rushing to ​implement a hastily created new system that risked disrupting the delivery of mail ballots during the election.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot

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Trump’s crooked-feeling promise of $5,000 checks if Republicans win

2026-09-10T17:28:22.966Z / CNN

President Donald Trump bizarrely offered Americans thousands of dollars in direct payments Wednesday night at the Republican midterm convention. It wasn’t the first time.

Ten months ago, Trump was peddling tariff dividend checks of $2,000. He declared that Americans “will be paid” the money and that anyone against his tariffs were “FOOLS.”

Turns out, anyone actually counting on that money were the real fools. Because it never arrived.

Indeed, Trump’s promise Wednesday of $5,000 to every adult US citizen if Republicans keep their congressional majorities is just one example in a long line of dubious promises on cash payouts.

And while this one is no more likely to actually materialize, it stands out in another way: Even in a political environment where politicians have increasingly made more direct overtures to their voters’ wallets, Trump’s phrasing makes it sound a lot like a political bribe — as even he would formerly admit.

Trump has repeatedly floated giving people money — and failed

This is at least the fourth time in the last 19 months that Trump has floated giving Americans cash.

In early 2025, he proposed giving Americans rebates funded by the money supposedly saved by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He labeled the proposal “$5,000 DOGE DIVIDEND CHECKS!”

Except DOGE, whose savings the administration grossly overstated, didn’t save anywhere near that amount of money. The rebates never came.

Then came the $2,000 tariff dividend promise. Like the DOGE dividends, they were premised on Trump’s overstated claims about him making the federal government suddenly newly flush with cash.

But this one was more of an ironclad pledge (“will be paid”) rather than just an idea. And Trump broke his promise.

By the next month, December, Trump was back at it. He floated giving Obamacare recipients $1,000-$1,500 rather than renewing their expiring healthcare subsidies.

In the end, people got neither.

Now, Trump is doubling down. Not only did he make the $5,000 pledge at the convention, but he announced Thursday that the administration was planning to send $500 rebate checks to up to 1 million people who claim they were overcharged for their Obamacare coverage. And in recent days, the administration floated effectively paying stay-at-home parents $9,000 per year.

Trump did successfully send some direct payments to households during his first term, which amounted to thousands of dollars for some: the Covid pandemic stimulus checks. But despite Trump putting his name on those checks, it was a bipartisan effort passed through Congress and was aimed at providing financial relief during an unprecedented time.

There is little reason to believe the thousands of dollars will actually materialize. The $5,000 checks alone would cost more than $1 trillion. The entire discretionary budget for the federal government in the 2026 fiscal year is $1.6 trillion, so this would explode that portion of the budget — right after the national debt hit $40 trillion. It would surely require Congress’s sign-off, which seems very unlikely. It would also risk spiking inflation.

CNN 5 Things

‘Trump-a-palooza’: Is Trump Serious About a $5K Midterm Payout?

President Donald Trump has made himself front and center at the GOP’s first ever midterm ‘convention’ in Texas this week. However, some prominent Republicans and candidates in tight races are skipping the event amid high costs and fear Trump’s unpopularity could weigh down their campaigns. We break down Trump’s message, his promise to pay American adults $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms, and whether the GOP is already looking past Trump. — Guest: Steve Contorno, CNN Senior Reporter Host: David Rind Producer: Paola Ortiz Showrunner: Felicia Patinkin Editorial Support: Jeff Simon

Sep 10, 2026 • 12 min

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But putting cash in people’s pockets probably isn’t really the goal. It’s the illusion of Trump doing so.

The definition of a bribe is the promise of money “in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.” Unlike the previous cash payments he floated, Trump is describing this one like a quid pro quo in which voters — who are in a position of trust by virtue of their ability to elect his fellow Republicans — get $5,000 in exchange for putting those Republicans back in power.

That doesn’t make it criminal bribery, and defenders would likely say it’s akin to GOP candidates vowing to cut taxes if they win, over the opposition of their opponents. (A prosecutor in Wisconsin recently declined to bring bribery charges against Elon Musk after he offered $1 million prizes for people voting.)

But Trump’s latest gimmick certainly sounds like bribery, especially given Trump hasn’t outlined any policy goal that’s attached, like stimulating consumer spending.

It’s not subtle, and even some Trump allies and conservatives are calling it out.

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale posted on X that while he wants the GOP to win in the midterms, he is “strongly against bread and circus bribes.” And Republican former Rep. Bob Good of Virginia called it “Trump’s $5K ‘dividend’ socialist vote-buying scheme.”

The president himself has decried the concept of vote-buying — accusing Democrats of attempting it even when there was no such explicit quid pro quo.

In 2016, he called it a “bribe” for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to float keeping Loretta Lynch on as attorney general — even as the Justice Department was investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server.

“I mean, the attorney general sitting there, saying, ‘You know, if I get Hillary off the hook, I’m going to have four more years or eight more years,’” Trump said. “‘But if she loses, I’m out of a job.’ It’s a bribe.”

In 2020, he decried former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg trying to help former felons vote by spending millions paying their court fines and fees.

“Are you allowed to go tell people that: ‘Go vote. I’m going to pay off your tab’?” Trump asked, before saying it amounted to buying votes.

And during the 2024 campaign, he accused then-President Joe Biden of trying to buy votes with infrastructure projects and student loan debt forgiveness.

“We have a corrupt president — very corrupt,” Trump said in June 2023 about Biden’s student loan plan. “But this was a way of trying to buy votes. That’s all it was.”

“I guess I don’t blame him,” Trump added in May 2024, “but it’s very unfair.”

Why you shouldn’t bank on Trump’s $5,000 dividends happening

2026-09-10T12:56:00-0400 / CBS News

By

Updated on: September 10, 2026 / 3:45 PM EDT / CBS News

Washington — President Trump pledged to give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans keep the House and Senate in November, framing it as a dividend made possible by the country’s “tremendous economic success.”

But the president’s pledge at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention has political and logistical hurdles. And Mr. Trump has yet to follow through with other universal cash payments he’s promised to Americans thus far, with the Trump Accounts for babies born during his time in office being an exception.

The Census Bureau says there are about 245 million U.S. citizens over 18, so if the Trump administration gave $5,000 to every adult U.S. citizen, it would cost over $1.2 trillion. CBS News has asked the White House for details on the president’s plan, including whether the money would come in the form of a check or some other way.

Here are the reasons why Americans might not want to count on that $5,000.

The payments would have to pass both chambers of Congress

Giving $5,000 to each American adult would require an act of Congress. Republicans already control both chambers, so if Mr. Trump wanted to prove he’s serious — and wanted to gain goodwill with voters — he could have already demanded that Congress take it up, or he could draft legislative language now.

Asked by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham why not give Americans the money now, while the GOP has majorities in both chambers, Mr. Trump blamed Democrats.

“Because they can’t — I’ll tell you what — because the Democrats can’t do it,” he responded in a brief clip posted on social media. “Because with them it’s negative growth. With us, it’s so positive.”

So far, Republican leaders in Congress aren’t jumping on an idea that would add to the national debt, which last month surpassed $40 trillion. And House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged spending cuts after the midterms should the GOP retain control.

Polling isn’t favorable for Republicans to keep both chambers. Republicans face particularly strong headwinds in the House, where only a few district flips would lose them the chamber. Democrats are outperforming Republicans on the generic ballot.

It’s unlikely a Democratic-controlled House or Senate would approve the $5,000 payments.

Americans never received DOGE dividends

The president expressed openness to some form of “DOGE dividends” to Americans at the beginning of his term, when billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was overseeing the implementation of the administration’s government downsizing.

“There’s even a — under consideration, a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt,” Mr. Trump said at the FII Priority Summit in Miami in February of last year.

DOGE savings came in well under projections, and the idea died out.

Mr. Trump pledged tariff refunds that never arrived

The president already vowed tariff dividends last year. He said a dividend of “at least $2,000” a person would arrive for everyone except for high-income Americans.

The government has not, however, paid taxpayers directly. Companies are receiving tariff refunds after the Supreme Court ruled some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs were illegal. Some of those companies have vowed to share their financial relief with consumers, but they aren’t required to do so.

The money generated from tariffs hasn’t come close to $5,000 per adult

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News the money would come from tariff revenue. But the government isn’t generating enough tariff revenue for that to work. The money the U.S. has raked in through tariffs hasn’t come close to the more than $1.2 trillion that would be needed to pay each American adult $5,000.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the U.S. has brought in about $210 billion from gross tariff and other excise taxes in 2026. That only amounts to about $857 per eligible person, not to mention the U.S. government has already had to return much of its tariff revenue to companies. Over half of the revenues generated by tariffs in 2026 have been eaten up by refunds to companies, the Bipartisan Policy Center says.

According to the Cato Institute, a $5,000 check for each American adult would be between 60% to 75% of the total revenue the Trump administration’s tariffs are projected to generate over 10 years.

Manu Raju has today’s midterm headlines with 54 days until the election

1:25 PM EDT, Thu September 10, 2026 / By Manu Raju, CNN

Manu Raju has today’s midterm headlines with 54 days until the election

Inside Politics

Inside Politics brings you the latest news on key races across the country, including Democrats getting some rare good news from the Supreme Court; the President channeling Oprah and promising Americans a check if his party wins in November; and a star-studded California fete for two Democratic rising stars hoping Hollywood will show them the money.

3:22 • Source: CNN

Republican sounds alarm on rising Dem star: ‘This guy’s going to be a problem’

Senate candidate Mike Collins rips Jon Ossoff as a ‘trust fund kid who’s never had a real job in his life’

September 10, 2026 12:43pm EDT / Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6404878038112

Republican vows to stop rising Democratic star before 2028: ‘This guy’s going to be a problem’

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital that he believed Sen. Jon Ossoff’s bid for re-election in Georgia was the first step on his way to a 2028 presidential bid, and that he was the only one who could stop the Democratic star’s rise.

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DALLAS — There’s a rising star in the Democratic Party that is generating buzz for a possible presidential run, but one Republican argues he’s the only thing standing in the way of a future “DSA candidate” in 2028.

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., is running to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., in one of the most closely watched contests of this midterm election cycle. Ossoff has sought to nationalize their battle, focusing more on President Donald Trump and leaning into viral clips on social media to sell his message.

But Collins told Fox News Digital during the GOP’s midterm convention that Ossoff’s intentions extended beyond a second term representing the Peach State. Instead, Collins charged that Ossoff is eyeing the White House and using this cycle as a springboard to get there.

TRUMP-BACKED CANDIDATE SURVIVES GRUELING RUNOFF, ADVANCES TO HIGH-STAKES SENATE RACE

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., speaks to members of the media during the opening of the Democratic Party of Georgia’s South DeKalb Field Office on May 23, 2026.(Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“This guy is nothing but a trust fund kid who’s never had a real job in his life,” Collins said. “And at the end of the day, and I think the whole puzzle has been put together now, you can put the pieces of this thing so easy.”

“He caters to that far-left base, and at the end of the day, we’ve got to stop him in Georgia,” he continued. “If we don’t stop him in Georgia, this guy’s going to be a problem for the entire country in 2028.”

Those puzzle pieces were scattered throughout his voting record, which Collins said aligned over 90% of the time with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., through his support of progressives, like former Maine Senate Democratic nominee Graham Platner and Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and because the bulk of his campaign donations are from out-of-state.

‘JESUS WAS A RADICAL’: PROGRESSIVES INVOKE CHRIST TO SELL LEFT-WING AGENDA ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6403705878112

Collins contended that the final piece was when the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) opened their first permanent field office in Atlanta last month. The organization has not endorsed Ossoff.

“That just tells you, yes, Jon Ossoff is really running for president,” Collins said. “He’s going to be the DSA candidate. He uses Georgia as a platform to raise money.”

Ossoff’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

OBAMA STRATEGIST TURNS ON RISING DEM STAR OVER VIRAL TRUMP ATTACK: ‘GRATUITOUS AND UNNECESSARY’

Republican Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins speaks to supporters at a primary night event on May 19, 2026, in Jackson, Georgia.(Jason Allen/Getty Images)

He has previously thrown cold water on the notion that he was chasing the White House and told MSNOW last month, “I have zero interest in running for president in 2028, and, frankly, zero interest in the 2028 fantasy football right now.”

The first-term senator is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents on the Democrats’ Senate map this cycle, running in a state that Trump won in 2024 over former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly three points.

Still, he has gained national attention over the summer for his speeches on the campaign trail, particularly when he needled Trump in a viral social media clip bringing into question his relationship with his executive assistant, Natalie Harp.

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“He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

That remark stoked a news cycle and earned him accolades from the likes of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who noted that Ossoff was one of the top communicators on the trail when it came to targeting Trump.

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

Trump to send $500 rebate checks to nearly one million Obamacare enrollees

2026-09-10T17:46:47.167Z / CNN

By Tami Luhby

2 hr ago

PUBLISHED Sep 10, 2026, 1:46 PM ET

Donald Trump Health care policy

See all topics

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on September 2.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters/FILE

A day after promising to send $5,000 dividend payments to all Americans, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would distribute $500 rebate checks to nearly one million Affordable Care Act enrollees in 30 states.

In a video posted on the White House X account, Trump said that these Obamacare policyholders were “wrongly overcharged” during the Biden administration – a claim that some experts dispute.

“Our administration is doing the right thing and giving the money back to the people who were wrongly ripped off,” he said.

Eligible enrollees are those living in the 30 states that used the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, and did not qualify for premium subsidies. (The vast majority of the ACA’s enrollees are subsidized.) The checks will start being sent in October.

The announcement comes at a time when many Obamacare enrollees are struggling to maintain their coverage – or have dropped their policies – after congressional Republicans allowed the enhanced ACA premium subsidies to expire at the end of last year. That sent premium payments skyrocketing for many enrollees, particularly middle-income folks, for 2026.

Premiums are set to jump again for 2027. Policyholders will learn how much more they’ll have to pay when open enrollment starts on November 1, just before the midterm elections. Healthcare affordability – including the lapsing of the enhanced subsidies and the GOP’s slashing of Medicaid funding in Trump’s domestic policy package – is expected to be among voters’ top concerns.

Unspent fees

The rebates will be funded from fees that participating Obamacare insurers pay to support the federal ACA exchanges’ operations, according to a White House factsheet. The fees, which insurers pass along to enrollees in the form of higher premiums, also pay for marketing, outreach and enrollment assistance, which Trump has slashed in office.

About $1.2 billion in unspent fees had accumulated when former President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. The money had been adding up largely because the first Trump administration greatly reduced spending on enrollment assistance, marketing, the healthcare.gov website and the federal ACA call center.

The Biden administration subsequently announced it would pour about $500 billion into these ACA operations. Enrollment roughly doubled during his term to nearly 22 million people, thanks in large part to the enhanced subsidies, which Biden signed into in early 2021.

The current Trump administration is reducing the fees, which it argues will help lower premiums.

In his video, where Trump also urged Congress to pass his healthcare plan, the president said that the $500 rebate will cover the spike in premiums “in many cases.”

At least one expert disagreed.

“It could easily be $500 a month more that they’re having to spend,” Cynthia Cox, director of KFF’s Program on the ACA, told CNN.

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2098046589948281076?s=20

Appeals court rejects Trump request to lift block on Postal Service rule for mail ballots

2026-09-10 1:19 PM EDT / CBS News

By Jacob Rosen, Justice Department Reporter
Jake Rosen is a reporter covering the Department of Justice. He was previously a campaign digital reporter covering President Trump’s 2024 campaign and also served as an associate producer for “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Stefan Becket, Managing Editor, Digital Politics
Stefan Becket is a managing editor of politics for CBSNews.com. Stefan has covered national politics for more than a decade and helps oversee a team covering the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, immigration and federal law enforcement.

Washington — A federal appeals court denied the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower court’s order that blocked new rules for mail ballots before the midterms, the latest twist in a case that has already reached the Supreme Court.

In a nine-page opinion issued Thursday, a three-judge appellate panel in the First Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Trump administration failed to show that the new rule from the U.S. Postal Service would not cause “chaos and widespread voter disenfranchisement” ahead of the November midterms if implemented, as a lower court judge found earlier this month.

“Indeed, appellants have not even seriously challenged this aspect of the district court’s ruling, much less demonstrated why it is clearly erroneous,” the appellate panel wrote, adding that, contrary to President Trump’s long-running claims of mass fraud in mail voting, “there is no record evidence of past fraud or a likelihood of impending fraud related to the November 3 election.”

The judges continued that if the new rule were to be implemented, it would “likely result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal — if any — gains in combating voter fraud.”

The panel consisted of Judges Gustavo A. Gelpí, Julie Rikelman and Seth Aframe, all of whom were appointed to the First Circuit by President Joe Biden.

“Appellants have not demonstrated entitlement to a stay. Most prominently, appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court erred in determining that the Final Rule is likely unlawful,” the panel wrote. “The district court concluded, and we agree, that the Final Rule is likely a regulation of the manner of holding elections for members of Congress, which the Elections Clause of the Constitution assigns to the States and Congress, and not to an executive agency, such as the Postal Service, acting without congressional authorization.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction barring the Postal Service from enforcing the rule last week, and the administration appealed to both the First Circuit and the Supreme Court. The high court has yet to rule on the administration’s request for a stay of the injunction.

Talwani’s ruling found that the Postal Service’s requirements are likely unconstitutional and said states’ difficulties with implementing the regulations so close to the November elections “nearly guarantee[s] significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters.”

The final rule issued by the Postal Service requires states and localities to meet design requirements for mail ballots, including unique barcodes. They must also use an online portal to submit information about residents who will vote by mail, including their names, addresses and individualized barcodes.

Those voters will be enrolled with the Postal Service and included on state-specific “Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists.”

The rule requires postal workers to review and verify ballot mail being sent to voters. Any ballot mailings that don’t comply with the requirements “will not be accepted and will be returned” to the election offices, the Postal Service said.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration for the third time asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case. In filings with the court on Thursday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to stay Talwani’s “baseless injunction,” arguing the new rule “is a lawful exercise of USPS’s express statutory authority to regulate the design of envelopes and the information needed about addressees.”

Melissa Quinn contributed to this report.

Trump’s $5,000 dividend plan draws some Republican skepticism

2026-09-10T19:07:08.689Z / Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s promise to send U.S. adults $5,000 “dividend” checks ​if his party keeps control of Congress in November’s midterm elections drew a cool reception from some Republicans on Thursday, with several ‌lawmakers saying it would spike inflation and worsen the country’s fiscal stability.

Trump told voters at the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday that he would issue the stimulus checks to celebrate “our tremendous strength and success economically.” The proposal, if approved by Congress, would cost roughly $1.2 trillion, plus hundreds of billions of dollars more in interest.

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Some Republicans warned the massive cash ​injection into an economy already running hot could accelerate inflation at a time when voters are concerned about high living costs.

“I would personally ​throw everything of my heart and soul to stop it, because it would actually do more damage to working people ⁠than would ever help them,” U.S. Representative David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican set to leave Congress at the end of his term, told Reuters on ​Wednesday.

“It would continue to raise interest rates,” he added. “It would be on their own credit card and would bring the interest rate death spiral sooner to the ​United States.”

SOME REPUBLICANS SUPPORT PLAN

Several Republicans quickly backed the proposal, however, as they look for ways to energize voters in the campaign’s final stretch. U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, wrote on social media that he was preparing legislation to formalize the “Trump dividend” after the November 3 election.

The debate is unfolding against the backdrop of a fiscal reckoning decades in ​the making. Economists across the political spectrum warn that Washington’s heavy borrowing — pushing the national debt toward levels unseen since World War Two — has put ​the country on an unsustainable financial trajectory.

Trump has promised other “dividends” before, including payments from tariff revenue and his cost-cutting U.S. Department of Government Efficiency. None have come to fruition.

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, U.S., September 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

He ‌issued payments ⁠to military service members in December 2025, calling them a “warrior dividend.” But the $1,776 payments were repurposed funds from military housing stipends and not a Christmas bonus as Trump had described them.

“You never know with Trump whether this was just kind of a rhetorical thing, or whether he really meant it,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who periodically advises Trump and White House officials.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement that “the doomers and naysayers have consistently doubted President ​Trump” and Trump has proven them ​wrong.

“With the continued support of the ⁠American people, President Trump will keep delivering real results,” Ingle said.

Trump told voters on Wednesday to cast the midterms as a referendum on his presidency, instructing them to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.”

But voters have soured on Trump’s agenda, ​recent Reuters/Ipsos polls show. Trump’s approval rating stands at 33%. Most Americans oppose his new tariffs on Canadian goods, and voters ​favor Democrats’ approach to ⁠cost-of-living issues over Republicans’ by an eight-percentage-point margin.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who has sometimes publicly disagreed with Trump, said it was unclear whether the checks could garner the 60 votes needed to defeat a Senate filibuster but that he thought Republicans could keep control of both chambers as they consider additional ⁠tax cuts.

“We’ll ​cross that bridge when we come to it,” he told Fox News.

“He wants more money in ​the pockets of the American people. The Democrats want to grow government in Washington, D.C.,” Thune said. “Obviously, we’re going to be looking at every opportunity we can to allow the American people ​to keep more of what they earn.”

Reporting by Jacob Bogage, additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan and David Morgan; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Rod Nickel

White House framework for testing AI models remains hidden as concerns about threats mount

2026-09-10 3:07 PM EDT / CBS News

By
Olivia Rinaldi
Olivia Rinaldi
Olivia Rinaldi is a White House reporter at CBS News. She covered President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and was previously an associate producer for “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell” and a broadcast associate for “Face the Nation.” She is based in Washington, D.C.

Read Full Bio

Washington — The White House has yet to publicly release the voluntary framework for testing frontier AI models that it finalizedin August, with no indication of when it might do so, as current and former Anthropic employees issue warnings about AI’s potential threat to humans.

Anthropic, the developer of Claude, said in a report released Thursday that it shut down multiple potential efforts by scientists to use Claude to conduct research that could have potentially built biological weapons.

The White House finalized the framework by the beginning of August, following an executive order President Trump signed in June. The June executive order asked AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI to voluntarily give the federal government access to their most advanced models up to 30 days before releasing them, with a goal of enhancing the models’ security. Mr. Trump pulled the plug on an initial executive order signing because he said he didn’t want the federal government to slow down innovation.

The framework that the administration is using to evaluate new models remains confidential, so it’s not clear what standards the federal government is asking the companies to meet or whether the firms are disclosing new breakthroughs. Neither the administration nor the companies are required to release the results of the reviews or even say if they participated.

Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company had submitted its powerful new Astra model for review, and called the process “productive.”

“As these models get to a quite significant level of capability, I think the importance of really doing this, closely engaging with the safety institutes in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere in the world, will become more important,” Altman told Axios.

This week, Anthropic researcher and former OpenAI employee Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic, saying on X that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Evan Hubinger, another Anthropic employee, agreed, saying, “We really do earnestly believe A.I. could kill all humans!”

The Center for Democracy and Technology, in a letter to the White House, urged the Trump administration to release its framework for review of frontier models.

“The public has a right to know what the government’s interpretation of the law is on these issues,” said Tim Harper, who focuses on election security issues at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “And I think this speaks to a broader lack of transparency we’ve seen from the administration to disclose internal dialogue and discussions.”

In July, more than 1,000 employees of AI companies posted a statement requesting that the “U.S. government support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”

The White House has pressed forward with supporting the development of advanced AI models, despite internal and external warnings from Anthropic, because of the prevailing belief that the U.S. must achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence and outpace China.

Mr. Trump has expressed strong support for AI development and the building of data centers in the U.S., saying “China could not be happier” about opposition to new infrastructure.

Recent CBS News polling found that a majority of Americans think that AI will take away jobs in the U.S. and nearly two-thirds believe the U.S. government policy will probably not make sure that AI is used in appropriate ways.

The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/anthropic-reveals-another-ai-hacking-incident-the-fourth-of-its-kind/

Anthropic reveals another AI hacking incident, the fourth of its kind

(05:03)

EXCLUSIVE: US expands intel, targeting support for Saudi campaign against Iranian ally

2026-09-10T19:00:54.331Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/10/politics/us-military-support-saudi-arabia-houthi-iran-yemen

More than 100 US military advisers are on the ground in Saudi Arabia providing intelligence and targeting support to the Kingdom in its military campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, multiple sources familiar with the effort say. The assistance comes as fighting on the peninsula intensifies and risks spilling into open war with the Houthis, threatening a second major shipping corridor out of the Middle East.

The US military personnel are working as part of a newly-established joint forces command, which was formed in recent weeks amid signs Iran was ramping up its own efforts to aid Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, one of the sources, a US official, said. That official put the total at roughly 200 troops.

The presence of US troops assisting Saudi Arabia was described to CNN by five sources familiar with the operations.

The US has helped Saudi Arabia use a targeting tool that allows military officers to see in real-time what is happening on the battlefield, one US official told CNN, comparing it to the Maven system used by the Pentagon. Another source familiar with ongoing cooperation between the two countries also said that the US is providing “geospatial” targeting support to Saudi Arabia for strikes against the Houthis.

However, there are currently tight limits to the US support, the sources say.

The US is sharing intelligence with Saudi Arabia — as it routinely does already — but it is not participating directly in strikes. The US is also not helping refuel Saudi warplanes or providing other operational support, as it has in past fighting with the Houthis.

The effort is instead focused on ensuring Saudi Arabia’s operations run smoothly and professionally, one of the sources said.

All of the sources characterized the effort as an extension of preexisting cooperation and training the US was already providing to Saudi Arabia, a strong regional ally.

A Department of Defense official told CNN that “as a matter of practice we do not comment on intelligence-related matters.” CNN reached out to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington.

The US support comes amid recent Houthi advances on the peninsula, with fighting in recent days perhaps at its sharpest pitch since 2022. A fragile truce between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabia-backed Yemeni government took hold that year, but the country has remained effectively split in two since then.

The militia group on Thursday seized a strategic Red Sea port that could allow it to threaten a key shipping waterway, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and killed dozens of civilians in a missile and drone attack on Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

But hanging over the US effort are the memories of years of controversial targeting support American forces provided to Riyadh during the Obama and first Trump administrations that critics said contributed to a high number of civilian casualties.

Later, in Trump’s second administration, the US launched a months-long campaign against the Houthis in Yemen that ended in an abrupt ceasefire agreement. CNN previously reported that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, pushed for ending that operation soon after he was confirmed as Trump’s top military adviser over concerns the US lacked a clear exit strategy.

US officials have been closely monitoring the Houthis as the US war in Iran has ground on and threatened to spill over into proxy conflicts elsewhere in the region.

Although Saudi Arabia was initially reluctant to become too deeply involved in the US war with Iran — even refusing to support initial US efforts to escort commercial ships impacted by the that war earlier this summer — the increasingly aggressive attacks by the Houthis have raised US and Saudi Arabian concerns about a second front.

US officials believe there are currently hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in Yemen, working alongside the Houthis with goal of ultimately shutting down the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, one of the US officials told CNN.

CNN previously reported that Iran had been plotting an economic “nuclear option” if negotiations with the US fall apart: getting the Houthis to close that key waterway.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio alluded to intelligence about the IRGC presence in Yemen earlier this week when he told reporters that Iran had a hand in recent Houthi attacks targeting Saudi energy infrastructure, according to one of the US officials.

Still, US forces are already stretched thin after more than six months of fighting in Iran, during which American troops in the region have absorbed repeated missile and drone attacks, long deployments and concerns about munitions. The US military is also focusing most of its attention on operations around the Strait of Hormuz, carrying out strikes against Iranian targets, escorting commercial ships through the waterway and maintaining a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

And there is a deep wariness inside the military of being too closely associated with a Saudi strike campaign against the Houthis — especially if a strike goes wrong and there are civilian casualties, as happened in the past, another US official said.

“This is not the old days,” another of the sources said.