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3h agoTrump escalates anti-Muslim attacks against El-Sayed in Michigan

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Donald Trump intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday, portraying him as a threat to national security.

The president also questioned his loyalty to the United States in remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from a former top Arab American ally. Trump called El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists” and would “have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate.”

He also repeatedly invoked 9/11, drawing a comparison between stopping El-Sayed from entering the Senate chamber and the passengers who fought back against the hijackers aboard United Flight 93, AP reported.

El-Sayed, who would become the nation’s first Muslim senator if elected, has called attacks on his loyalty to the country “shameful” and repeatedly denied any ties to extremist groups.

The Republican president’s remarks were condemned by Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president’s outreach to Arab American voters in 2024. “The president’s statements are out of line,” he said in a phone interview. “They are crossing a red line. They are racist.”

Trump also reiterated his apparent love for buxom bums and encouraged the crowd to compliment rapper Nicki Minaj’s behind. The comments about Minaj’s derriere came as he explained his recent observation on the Republican Ohio senator Jon Husted’s rear end.

Earlier in October, Trump said of the former college football player: “I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole – and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these, like, claws.”

“You are a great athlete,” Trump also said to Husted. “Congratulations.” Trump was speaking at the rally to support Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate.

Read our full report here:

In other developments:

Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is running for Alaska’s lone US Senate seat, and her family suffered minor injuries in a car crash while driving to a campaign stop on Saturday, her campaign said. The family was on its way to the Alaska Federation of Natives annual banquet when another vehicle crashed into the one transporting Peltola and her family, her campaign said in a statement on Sunday. Peltola required medical attention after the collision.
Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s attorney general, lashed out during an interview on Sunday while defending the justice department’s pre-emptive lawsuit to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate results if the GOP incumbent loses, calling a TV host’s question “crazy”. The testy repartee unfolded on CNN’s State of the Union over the DoJ’s unprecedented legal action, which alleges that there could be “voter confusion” due to two candidates named Dan Sullivan on Alaska’s ballot. Trump told reporters, “I’m the one that said do it” when asked about the suit.
The US military has given Elon Musk’s SpaceX access to restricted space tracking data, raising a new round of questions about whether the Trump administration is attempting to hand over traffic control in Earth’s orbit to a controversial donor. The access also raises new national security questions, industry observers say.
Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) has decreased significantly over the past year in the US following restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which has forced more people to seek help from food banks or go hungry, stakeholders say. The number of people who receive food stamps has dropped from 41.6 million in July 2025, before the One Big Beautiful Act took effect, to 36.5 million in June 2026, a 13% decrease, according to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the program.

Key events

Discontent with Trump buoys Democrats in Ohio: ‘People are disgusted by the corruption’

Stephen Starr

Democrat Kim McCarthy is canvassing in a middle-class Ohio neighborhood of four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes. There are $70,000 trucks in the driveways and robot lawnmowers at work.

“This is a neighborhood of two incomes and young families; people working hard,” says McCarthy, who is running against a three-time Republican incumbent for a seat in Ohio’s house of representatives.

Despite the manicured lawns, these are the very Ohioans struggling from the fallout of many of the Trump administration’s policies. They live in a district that includes the largest single-site employer in Ohio – the Wright-Patterson air force base – whose civilian contractors and employees have been hit hard by federal workforce cuts. Rising mortgage interest rates and wider affordability concerns are top of mind for many.

McCarthy’s opponent, Brian Lampton, beat her in a previous election by 15 points. In the presidential election two years ago, Trump won 60% of the vote here in Fairborn. But having knocked on thousands of Greene county doors, she says she’s noticed something different this year: people are telling her on the doorstep that they are planning to vote Democrat down the ballot for the first time.

“One woman I was speaking to earlier who worked in the military and recently retired was like: ‘Oh my God, I can’t afford anything.’ You could kind of see the sadness in her eyes,” she says.

For more than a decade, Ohio has been considered a firm Republican stronghold, but after 20 months of extreme Trump administration policies, signs of discontent with the status quo are appearing here. That could be critical for Democrats at every level on the ballot – the party is trying to reclaim a US Senate seat, the governor’s mansion, and a host of competitive house seats around the state.

Early voting indicators in Ohio suggest that participation among affiliated Democrats is higher this year when compared to 2024, especially in predominantly Republican districts.

According to the Ohio secretary of state’s data portal website, by 13 October more early voting ballots were returned in rural Defiance county by Democratic affiliated voters than by Republicans, despite Trump winning 69% of the vote in the county in the 2024 presidential election.

The county also had the highest ballot return rate in the state, at 19%, suggesting a high level of motivation.

The economy isn’t the only thing on voters’ minds. “The number one issue in Defiance right now is the proposed datacenter. There is a local investor who is entertaining the idea of selling property to a datacenter investor,” says Rebecca Kirkland of the Defiance County Democratic Party.

Trump has repeatedly encouraged communities to accept datacenters, telling supporters at a campaign rally outside Dayton, on 3 October, “We want them,” despite broad bipartisan opposition to their presence.

Home to a General Motors powertrain foundry that employs more than 500 people, Defiance county has also been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs war on Canada: among the plant’s main customers is the GM-owned St Catharines engine plant in Ontario, with engine parts that are built in Defiance are shipped for assembly across the Canadian border.

“There aren’t many high-paying jobs available in this area. We see posts on community Facebook pages of people looking for assistance finding work, housing or financial assistance,” says Kirkland.

Still, in a state that for decades turned older and whiter and was won by Trump in the last three presidential elections, Democrats know the odds are stacked against them. And pollsters are cautioning that the surge in early voting might not indicate that more Ohioans will vote for Democrats by the end of the election.

US military ready to launch new, large-scale attacks on Iran, media report says

American military forces are in place and waiting on a command from President Trump to launch a major new military operation against Iran, CNN has reported, citing a pair of US officials with knowledge of the plans.

The scale of those attacks, the outlet reported, would likely go beyond the strikes the US has traded with Iran in recent months. Other officials who spoke with CNN said that it seemed like Trump was leaning toward moving ahead with such an operation, likely before the end of the year and possibly after the midterm elections.

The war in Iran, which Trump launched alongside Israel at the end of February, has made that election an uphill battle for the Republicans. The conflict, unpopular at its outset, has sent energy prices soaring after Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping artery for oil and gas. But Trump has doubled down on the conflict while on the campaign trail, alleging that Iran wants Democrats to win control of Congress, and that only he can keep the country from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The report also comes as intelligence has surfaced suggesting Iran and its allies are in advanced stages of planning attacks against Americans in the Middle East, spurring the Trump administration to take measures to protect US personnel.

Donald Trump will still be US president on the morning of 4 November. But he could be facing a very different political landscape, depending on the results of the US midterm elections held the previous day.

As the name implies, midterm elections fall nearly halfway through a president’s term. They are often a telling referendum on the sitting president’s performance, something Trump is actively encouraging by telling voters “pretend I’m on the ballot”. In this case, voters will decide whether Trump’s Republican party can retain its grip on Congress.

Democrats are hoping to capitalise on growing discontent with Trump to seize control of the US House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate. Republicans are fighting to preserve their congressional majorities and prevent a fresh period of legislative paralysis and investigations into the White House.

To understand what the midterms are and why they matter, read our full explainer:

Lula's victory in Brazil hinders Trump's ambitions in Latin America

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s overnight reelection victory – a stunning reversal after he trailed in the previous round of voting against right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro – represents a blow to President Trump’s political ambitions in Latin America.

Lula, who secured a fourth non-consecutive term in office, had campaigned on protecting Brazil’s sovereignty in the face of alleged US coercion and colonialism, and had accused the US of seeking to meddle in the country’s elections.

And while Trump did not outright support the defeated candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, he is the son of one of Trump’s former close allies in the region, ousted Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. The older Bolsonaro is currently serving a prison sentence for attempting to overturn the results of his 2022 election defeat to Lula. Those criminal proceedings prompted Trump to at one point slap steep tariffs on Brazil, deepening the divide between Trump and the Brazilian leader.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gestures as he addresses supporters after his victory in the presidential runoff election, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Amanda Perobelli/Reuters

Trump has yet to publicly weigh in on Lula’s victory. But Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., took to social media to criticize a decision to extend voting in Brazil for two hours.

“If a conservative government in Brazil did this, everyone in the mainstream press in America would lose their minds,” Trump Jr. wrote.

Anthropic’s Claude AI model accessed Georgia voter data in US

Dan Milmo

Anthropic’s Claude model accessed voter data in the US state of Georgia, the AI company has confirmed, in the latest example of unauthorised behaviour by the technology.

The AI model managed to bypass a paywall to reach data that is publicly available but is typically accessible only after paying a fee. Claude accessed aggregate vote counts as part of a statistics project at Anthropic, which is preparing for a $1.5tn (£1.1tn) flotation.

“Claude did not access the state’s voter registration system, change any voting records, or pull any individual voter records,” Anthropic said, adding that it has since taken steps to block similar actions.

Anthropic said the AI found a loophole in an old version of the state agency’s website, discovering that it issues a digital entry pass – an “access token” – to visitors, which resulted in it requesting a token and gaining access to the information.

The AI developer said it had since put in place guardrails to prevent similar actions happening again. The incident was first reported by the news website Axios.

Lauren Aratani

With the midterm elections fast approaching, many Americans have the economy on their minds.

US voters are exhausted by years of higher prices. Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024 on promises to lower inflation and undo the damage he said the Biden administration had inflicted on the economy.

In Trump’s view, his plan is working. At a recent rally in Montana, Trump boasted about the current economy, framing it as a booming time for Americans. “We’re richer now,” he said. “We don’t have inflation.”

Economic data paints a different picture. Inflation, especially gas prices, have soared over the last year. The job market has been in stasis, and higher interest rates have meant it’s more expensive for Americans to borrow money for loans and mortgages.

These fluctuations have a concrete impact on the lives of Americans. A recent Harris poll for the Guardian found that a majority of Americans, including some Republicans, disagree. Nearly two-thirds said they believe the country is experiencing a recession, and many said higher prices have been a pain point. Americans are reporting having trouble saving, and a third polled said one surprise bill could sink them financially.

Here’s what the data shows us about Trump’s second term so far:

Trump escalates anti-Muslim attacks against El-Sayed in Michigan