Trump’s attempt to ban CNN, Politico, and MS Now from White House to be heard in court – live | Trump administration

We’re following the key hearing in the Trump media ban case now, which is under way in DC district court.

Ted Boutrous, the lawyer representing CNN, MS Now and Politico, said today that Trump has “unambiguously said” that the grounds for barring these outlets is “because of what he perceives as negative, false, bad, not positive enough reporting”.

He also repeated to Judge Timothy Kelly, the Trump-appointed judge presiding, that the outlets received “no notice whasoever” about the ban – an issue that Kelly brought up explicitly when he issued his temporary injunction two weeks ago.

Boutrous noted that Steven Cheung, the White House communications director who he described as “no shrinking violet” also issued no declaration that there was a specific problem.

“President Trump has been making these nasty comments about my clients for a long time, and suddenly there’s an emergency,” Boutrous said.

Also today, the administration announced it had launched investigations into nine universities, they allege are committing J-1 visa fraud.

These temporary visas that are often used by higher education institutions for specialized work and study exchange programs. The justice department announced these investigations into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, University of Pittsburgh, University of Califonia Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Subpoenas have been served. Investigations are underway, and nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” said Anthony D’Esposito, the inspector general of the labor department.

Today, the Trump administration announced it would block Microsoft from a program sponsoring foreign workers for green cards – which grant permanent residency in the US.

These workers are already in the US on H-1B visas, a temporary work visa that allows US companies to hire skilled foreign workers for specialized jobs. Since returning to office last year, Donald Trump has sought to restrict the use of the program, including by imposing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas. That order was later blocked in court.

Today, the administration said it was suspending Microsoft from the so-called Perm program, the first step employers must complete when sponsoring workers for employment-based green cards. The move would prevent Microsoft from using the process to seek permanent residency for many employees currently on H-1B visas.

“Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants,” said vice-president JD Vance. “We cannot allow visa programs that were designed to ensure that American corporations had access to the best and the brightest to use them to undercut the wages of American workers.”

Vance also claimed that that foreign workers are “earning wages that are far below the average for American citizens”. However, according to a 2025 study from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, while immigrants in the US earn 10.6% less than similarly educated US-born workers, but this is because they are concentrated in “lower-paying industries, occupations and companies”, not getting paid less for the same work.

Reporting from Athens

US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has used his latest tour of Europe to voice fears over the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine.

On the third day of his tour in Europe, Rubio expressed Washington’s mounting concern over the ability of the war in Ukraine to spread, more than four years after Russia invaded the country.

In an interview with Greece’s authoritative Kathimerini newspaper – published hours before he departed Athens for Portugal – Rubio said the conflict appeared to be mired in a “strategic stalemate which is a dangerous thing,” because a negotiated settlement was still far off.

“In the meantime, we watch with great concern as escalation could happen. Just yesterday, some ships were attacked in the Black Sea through a coordinated drone attack. We’re worried about a sabotage operation in a neighboring country that can spiral out of control,” he said.

It was clear, he told the paper, that Russia was now bent on using the upcoming winter to destroy Ukraine’s electricity grid in a bid to get Kyiv to surrender.

“Meanwhile, Ukraine has grown more effective in its ability to conduct long-range strikes deep into Russia. So, we share the same concern. The whole world is going about this thing like something that could escalate and perhaps become a broader conflict.”

Rubio also predicted that Tehran was only weeks away from “facing the most cataclysmic economic catastrophe in the history of modern Iran,” saying the country’s oil shipments were about to run dry because it no longer controlled the Strait of Hormuz.

About 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is shipped through the waterway connecting the Gulf with the Arabian Sea. “Now, as it stands today, the Straits are open, and Iran does not control them. Oil shipments through the southern lane, which we cleared of mines, are now at almost 80% of pre-conflict levels. The only country that cannot reliably get oil out of the Middle East is Iran, whose shipments have all been blocked or stopped by a blockade. They’re facing crushing economic pressure, which will only grow exponentially in the next few weeks.”

Former president Barack Obama has endorsed Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Maine.

A reminder that Jackson, a logger and former state lawmaker, replaced Graham Platner – the embattled former nominee – after he faced allegations of sexual assault and rape, which he denies.

Platner’s withdrawal from the race set off a frantic search for an alternative, and resulted in a special party convention where Jackson secured nearly all the delegates from across the state. He’ll now face the five-term Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, in November. Who, for years, has boasted her “moderate” credentials and proven unbeatable in a purple state that Trump has lost three times.

In a straight to camera video, Obama touted Jackson’s achievements as Maine senate president, said the state needs a “fighter like Troy” in Congress and emphasised Jackson’s work to protect reproductive rights in the state legislature in the wake of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

On the trail, Collins has received blowback for her 2017 vote to confirm conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court. In 2022, Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade, the landmark abortion rights protection. This year’s midterm elections mark the first time Collins is on the ballot since the ruling.

As I noted earlier, we’ll have the second debate between Jackson and Collins in Maine at 8pm ET.

Donald Trump has urged James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Texas, to debate Ken Paxton – Republican attorney general that the president has endorsed in the election.

On Truth Social, Trump described Paxton as “ready, willing, and able” to take on Talarico – the 37-year-old state representative who has been leading in several polls.

The Texas legislator’s rising star has led Trump to the Lone Star state to rally for Paxton, who he has previously disparaged for his appearance and oration, while Republican groups have poured tens of millions of dollars into the race. A Democrat hasn’t won statewide office in Texas since 1994.

The president, however, claimed on social media that Talarico is “MISSING IN ACTION!”.

“No one has seen him for an extended period of time. Where is he? What is wrong with him? Bad rumors are coming out,” Trump said of Talarico, while urging him to face-off Paxton on stage.

The Democrat’s campaign said Talarico paused in-person events at the end of September due to a flu diagnosis.

Later today, we’ll be keeping an eye on three key Senate debates ahead of the November midterms.

• In Georgia, Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent will face off against Mike Collins – a congressman and the Trump-backed Republican nominee at 7pm ET.

• At the same time in Michigan, progressive insurgent Abdul El-Sayed, will debate Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee also endorsed by the president.

• Finally, it’s the second debate in Maine in as many days. Susan Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent will spar (again) with the Democratic nominee, Troy Jackson, at 8pm ET.

A reminder that these are some of the most competitive seats in this midterm cycle. Georgia and Michigan represent two must-holds for Democrats, while Maine is a key pick-up opportunity in order to boost the party’s odds of reclaiming the upper chamber of Congress.

The federal judge who issued a temporary restraining order, pausing Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House, is set to hold a hearing at 11am ET today.

Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointee, previously blocked the president from carrying out the ban, but that is set to expire today.

Now we’ll see whether that pause is extended on the administration’s latest attempt to strip access from members of the press whose coverage it claims to be negative and inaccurate.

The three newsrooms have since requested for Kelly to extend his pause while the litigation plays out.

At the initial hearing two weeks ago, Kelly was skeptical of the administration’s argument to bar the three outlets from the White House grounds, expressing that they received no prior warning. He also pointed to existing precedent, which shows the high standards needed to prevent press-pass holders from accessing the White House – including a written notice with the reasons for denial.

Since Kelly’s injunction, there have been several reports of the affected outlets still being barred from covering the president. Most recently, a reporter from Politico was prevented from traveling on Air Force One to cover Trump’s rally in Nebraska on Monday. While CNN journalists were also stopped from also traveling on the jet at the end of September to report on the president’s trip to Tennessee.

A reminder: these outlets are part of the press pool, an almost century-old system in which news organisations take turns covering the president’s daily movements. When Trump returned to office, the White House took control of the pool rotation, which previously was managed by an independent association. Kelly’s temporary block technically doesn’t apply to Air Force One or the Oval Office – smaller spaces that only those on pool duty have access to on any given day.

Donald Trump is in Washington today. At 1.30pm ET he’ll be at the US Institute of Peace – the organization he has attempted to gut and rename after himself – to attend the American innovation summit.

The president is expected to present Elon Musk, the Tesla and Space X founder, with the medal of science. It’s a full circle moment for the pair – who began Trump’s second administration as close allies. Musk led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and was tasked with hollowing out large parts of the federal government, under the guise of rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse”.

However, Musk’s fidelity faltered last year when he criticized the president’s sweeping domestic policy legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill, and took issue with Trump’s attempts to rollback electric vehicle incentives. It led to a public falling-out that resembled a celebrity break-up.

However, in recent months, Musk appears to be back in the fold. He has been present as several major White House events, including the state dinner for China’s president, Xi Jinping. Musk was also recently tasked with heading up a temporary Pentagon project to analyze “the future of warfare” alongside Palmer Luckey – a key Trump ally and donor – and former House fspeaker Newt Gingrich.

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, has been forced to yet again address allegations of misconduct by Kimberly Guilfoyle, America’s ambassador to Greece.

At the end of an action-packed trip, topped by what US diplomats called an historic policy speech before the Acropolis, Marco Rubio was brought face-to-face, once again, with the grubby allegations of improper behaviour by his top diplomat in Athens.

For the second time in the space of 12 days the Wall Street Journal had run a report detailing misconduct by Guilfoyle – the former fiancée of the US president’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr.

The report was published late Wednesday as Rubio was holding talks with Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis. It alleged the former Fox News channel host had asked Eric Deters, a Republican donor and supporter of president Trump, to pay off a $100,000 American Express credit card bill ahead of her confirmation hearing on 9 July 2025. In exchange, Guilfoyle reportedly promised direct access to the White House and high profile officials in the Trump administration.

Early Thursday as he was about to board a plane for Portugal – the last stop in his three-day tour of Europe – Rubio was asked to comment. Acknowledging he was aware of the report – and as Guilfoyle looked on – he told reporters:

You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things.

It was not the first time the foreign policy chief has been forced to address reports of misconduct swirling around Guilfoyle – or alluded to fake news in debunking them.

On Wednesday, at a press conference with Greece’s foreign minister, he was asked if he remained confident in the envoy amid mounting congressional scrutiny of Guilfoyle’s tenure following earlier allegations detailed by Journal.

Visibly irritated, Rubio shot back saying:

This is not the forum to address this, as simple as that. Suffice it to say, our embassy here is doing a great job. Our ambassador here has been a strong ambassador here.

Late last month the Wall Street Journal ran a report accusing the high-profile ambassador of improper behaviour around the sale of US natural gas exports to the region via Greece. The paper reported an incident in which Guilfoyle was also said to have boasted about America’s ability to undermine governments, including the Greek government, if they didn’t comply with US wishes.

Donald Trump has said he wants to develop one of his Florida golf courses into a presidential retreat where his successors can spend quiet weekends on the greens, describing it as “sort of a Camp David ” that he says would already have many of the security features needed to host presidents and world leaders.

The proposal for the retreat on Trump’s private golf course in West Palm Beach would comingle the presidency with Trump’s business ventures beyond his time in office, and is the latest example of Trump seeking ways to leave his imprint on the presidency.

“It’s a great idea, and it’ll be used a lot,” Trump said, claiming it was suggested by the United States Secret Service. “It seems that all presidents play golf.”

Worries around artificial intelligence cross party lines, with the vast majority of Americans saying the US government should prioritize keeping AI under human control and protecting workers.

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that most Americans, 64%, think AI is developing “too fast,” while 27% say its development has been “about right” and only 8% say it’s moving “too slow.”

The risk that powerful AI models could evade human control and hurt humanity, once the stuff of science fiction, has been emerging as a more pressing concern.

Even leaders of the companies that are developing frontier AI models are calling for a slowdown so that government regulation can catch up.

President Donald Trump has pushed back against slowing down AI development because of concerns that China will gain an advantage with the technology.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio is in Portugal on the last leg of a three-nation tour of Nato allies.

Rubio arrived in Lisbon on Thursday for a brief stop on his return to Washington, a day after delivering a speech in the Greek capital of Athens urging European countries to save Western civilization by upholding the values and traditions of ancient Greece.

Rubio, who began his trip in Iceland, is expected to thank Portuguese officials for supporting US operations in the Iran war by allowing the US to use the Lajes Field air base in Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores islands, which is strategically located for military refueling flights.

The US Air Force has long had a base there under an agreement with Portugal. Unlike neighboring Spain, where socialist leader Pedro Sánchez refused to allow the American military to use Spanish bases to stage operations for attacks on Iran, Portugal’s center-right government granted Washington “conditional approval” to use Lajes Field.

“Portugal is a great ally, very cooperative ally of the United States and a country with which we already have a solid and growing relationship. And we visit these countries in order to reinforce those ties,” Rubio said before departing Athens. “That’s the purpose of the trip.”

As Donald Trump struggled to end the war with Iran, and the Lincoln’s deployment dragged on, reports emerged over the summer of shortages of food and basic supplies, and deteriorating mental health and morale among some crew members, including that two crew members had attempted to jump overboard.

At the time, senior Trump administration officials dismissed the reports. Hegseth claimed they “completely misrepresented” the reality, while Trump, when asked in August whether the deployment had gone on too long, responded, “Not nearly long enough” – a remark that upset some naval families.

The reports about the conditions on the Lincoln caused concern among some military health experts, veterans and families of sailors onboard, and drew outrage from Democratic lawmakers, including several who demanded more information from the Pentagon.

The Lincoln was relieved from its deployment later in August, as the USS George Washington aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East to take its place.

But in recent weeks, as the Lincoln has headed back to San Diego, a new disclosure about the carrier has renewed scrutiny. Acting navy secretary Hung Cao acknowledged last month that eight service members from the Lincoln and its strike group had attempted suicide during the deployment.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

The USS Abraham Lincoln will return home to San Diego later today after supporting the Iran war during a record long deployment of 265 uninterrupted days at sea.

For months, there have been widespread concerns since reports first emerged of supply shortages and deteriorating mental health onboard.

In remarks yesterday, however, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth sought to play down the issues, instead condemning “a few folks in the media” who he accused of trying to “turn” the Lincoln’s deployment “into some sort of symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission”.

While Trump administration officials pushed back against accounts of poor conditions, families and veterans warned that the length and intensity of the deployment were taking a toll on both those serving onboard and their loved ones.

As reports of conditions leaked out, the Lincoln soon became a flashpoint in the increasingly contentious debate over the war and, for some, a symbol of the strains and pressures the conflict has placed on the US military and the people serving in it.

Hegseth flew out to the carrier on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive that is typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.

He said that “what makes the US military and the US Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you’re resilient and you overcome — you finish the mission nonetheless.”

Hegseth told the crew that president Donald Trump “tracked your activities from day one and couldn’t be more proud of what you executed.”

The US carrier, with roughly 5,000 sailors and marines onboard, left San Diego in November 2025, initially bound for the Pacific and expected to return in the spring. But after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, the Lincoln was redirected to the Middle East, to support US operations in the region.

Read our full story here:

In other developments:

• In remarks in San Antonio, Texas, Donald Trump tried to channel the anti-Muslim racism that helped get him elected in 2016, by skipping straight from a dire warning that Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it had one to the wild, false claim that Barack Obama could have stopped the Ft Hood gunman, Nidal Hasan, but chose not to.

• Trump repeated his false claim that the war he started with Iran in February was necessary to prevent Iran from destroying American cities like Los Angeles or San Diego in a nuclear attack. In fact, US intelligence agencies assessed in 2025 that Iran had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003.

• Trump’s midterm rally speech was disrupted up to a dozen times by protesters.

• The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court, asking a judge in Washington to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.