WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s midterm travel blitz will continue in the coming days, with Election Day on Nov. 3 now less than two weeks out, headlining rallies in several states hosting hard-fought Senate contests seen as toss-ups.  

Trump began his October campaign road trip in GOP-friendly states, but has begun venturing into territory that’s deemed to have become perilous for Republicans.

The GOP is itching to maintain its narrow majority in the U.S. House and Senate, though elections forecasters are offering a far less optimistic outlook for Republicans, as Democrats remain favored to take back the House and more Senate races shift in the party’s favor. 

Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics on Tuesday moved nearly 30 House races toward Democrats.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter shifted Senate races in Mississippi and South Carolina toward Democrats on Tuesday. But the elections forecaster also moved a Senate race in Minnesota toward Republicans. 

In the Palmetto State, where South Carolina GOP Sen. Darline Graham faces Democrat Annie Andrews, the Cook Political Report changed its race rating from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.” 

Trump was scheduled to rally in Clemson, South Carolina, on Wednesday for Graham, who was appointed in July to serve out the remainder of her late brother Lindsey Graham’s term. 

Rush to early voting

More than 16 million Americans have already voted early in the midterm elections as of Wednesday afternoon, according to a tracker from the University of Florida Election Lab. 

Meanwhile, Trump continues to see dismal approval ratings amid the costly war in Iran and its impact at the gas pump. According to AAA, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas stood at $4.26, as of Oct. 21. One year ago, that price stood at about $3.05. 

New polling from The New York Times and CNN offers a snapshot of just how bleak Trump’s approval ratings are with less than two weeks to go until the midterms — hitting record lows in the pair of polls.

In a Times/Siena University national poll, only 36% of likely voters approved of Trump’s performance. Similarly, a CNN/SSRS poll found a 32% approval rating for the president.  

Trump road show

Here’s a closer look at Trump’s travel in the coming days, after recent stops in Georgia, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina: 

• The president will head to Sioux City, Iowa, for a rally on Thursday. The Hawkeye State features an open Senate race between Iowa Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek that the Cook Political Report has listed as a toss-up.
• Trump will then rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday, where the Sunshine State’s Senate race is described as “solid Republican” by the Cook Political Report. Florida GOP Sen. Ashley Moody faces Democrat Angie Nixon. 
• Trump travels to Perry, Georgia, on Saturday for a rally. The Senate race in Georgia is listed as “likely Democrat” by the Cook Political Report. Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is vying for another term against Georgia GOP Rep. Mike Collins. 
• The president will then head north to rally Sunday in Port Huron, Michigan. Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed are battling it out in an open Senate race the Cook Political Report has dubbed a toss-up. 
• On Monday, Trump will rally in Corinth, Mississippi. In the ruby red state, Mississippi GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is competing for another term against Democrat Scott Colom in a race that the Cook Political Report moved from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican.”
• On Tuesday, Oct. 27, Trump is set to hold rallies in both Waco and Lubbock, Texas. The Lone Star State features a pivotal Senate race between Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico that the Cook Political Report declares a toss-up. 
• Trump will then travel to Chillicothe, Ohio, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, for a rally. The Buckeye State is also home to another toss-up Senate race listed by the Cook Political Report between Ohio GOP Sen. Jon Husted and Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown.  

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health. 

The new division is set to work with the agency’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, which was established in 1990 and “has served as the focal point for women’s health research at NIH,” according to the NIH website.

The White House said first lady Melania Trump was involved in formulating and leading work on the order, which also creates a White House Women’s Health Task Force that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will co-chair. 

The order is meant to “strengthen research, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care for women and girls throughout every stage of life,” according to a White House fact sheet. 

The order says it “is the policy of the United States to prioritize translating research into improved clinical care that benefits women and girls through a comprehensive approach to women’s health that recognizes evolving health needs from infancy, childhood, and adolescence through pregnancy, midlife, menopause, and aging, and supports timely, stage-specific prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care.” 

The order does not mention research into contraception or reproductive rights. The Food and Drug Administration is conducting an ongoing safety review into abortion medication. 

Reshaping NIH

The initiative came just two weeks ahead of the midterms, as the GOP vies to maintain its razor-thin majority in the U.S. House and Senate. The order also followed many other announcements on new projects by the administration in the days leading up to Election Day on Nov. 3. 

The Trump administration has sought to reshape NIH to align with its political priorities and has sought to cut its funding, prompting pushback from Congress. NIH, the country’s largest research agency, is housed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

“Today, we’re taking historic action to promote women’s health through all phases of life,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House Rose Garden alongside the first lady. 

“Despite amazing advances in medical science, many diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women remain chronically understudied,” the president added. 

The first lady touted the effort as establishing a “new ambition, transforming hardship and pain into scientific discovery, effective treatments and lasting cures.” 

Kennedy and Wiles were in attendance Monday, along with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Erica Schwartz and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, among others. 

Trump said the order will promote “new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women and promote innovative technologies to diagnose conditions sooner and improve treatment using the best available science, and we’ve got that.” 

The task force — which will hold its first meeting Monday — will “mobilize the entire federal government to coordinate action focused on improving women’s health,” Trump said. 

Revoking Biden actions

Trump in his order also revoked a 2024 executive order by then-President Joe Biden that sought to improve women’s health research as well as a 2023 memorandum that had established the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

The National Women’s Law Center criticized the administration for rolling out the order amid “major attacks on women’s health,” pointing to the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law signed by Trump in 2025, which includes sweeping Medicaid cuts that axe roughly $1 trillion in program spending over 10 years. 

“Women’s health has long been ignored as a federal priority, and while we agree that steps must be taken to close disparities in women’s health care, it’s hard not to point out the blatant hypocrisy of this unfunded order coming from an administration that is actively decimating health care access for women,” Dorianne Mason, senior director of health equity and contraceptive access at NWLC, said in a statement Monday. 
 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a flurry of travel on deck in the final frantic weeks leading up to the end of the midterm elections, in which the GOP is vying to maintain its control of both the U.S. House and Senate.

But that outlook looks increasingly less favorable for Republicans, as analysts say Democrats remain heavily favored to win back the majority in the House, and Senate races continue to shift in the Democratic Party’s favor. 

Adding to the trend, the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, an elections forecaster, shifted 11 additional House races in the direction of Democrats on Friday — in congressional districts in Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio and South Carolina.

The political report also currently lists seven Senate toss-up races, including in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. 

Those shifts come as the president weathers dismal approval ratings amid the costly war in Iran and its impact on gas prices. As of Oct. 16, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas stood at $4.33, according to AAA. A year ago, that figure stood at about $3.06.

Meanwhile, the most recent Federal Election Commission filings that were due Oct. 15 offer the financial snapshots for campaigns, including in the closely watched Senate race in Maine, where GOP Sen. Susan Collins is defending her seat against Democratic nominee Troy Jackson. 

Jackson raised four times as much as Collins since July, though the Democratic nominee now has less cash left than Collins, Maine Morning Star reported. 

Trump’s travel has ramped up since Oct. 1. As Election Day on Nov. 3 rapidly approaches, here’s a snapshot of Trump’s travel in the coming days: 

• Trump was slated to speak Friday afternoon at a rally in Dalton, Georgia. The area is friendly turf for the president after he won almost 72% of the vote in 2024 in the broader Whitfield County, in which Dalton is the county seat, the Georgia Recorder reported. 
   
• On Saturday, Trump is set to rally in Highland Heights, Kentucky, part of the Bluegrass State’s 4th Congressional District, where Republican Ed Gallrein faces Democrat Melissa Strange. The Cook Political Report lists that race as “solid Republican.” 
   
• Trump’s midterm travels pick back up Monday, when the president will hold a rally in Park City, Kansas, a suburb of Wichita. The ruby red state features an unexpectedly competitive Senate race, as GOP Sen. Roger Marshall vies for another term against Democrat Adam Hamilton. The Cook Political Report lists the Senate race in Kansas as a toss-up. 
   
• On Tuesday, Trump will rally in Greenville, North Carolina, where the Tar Heel State’s open Senate race is listed as “likely Democrat,” per the Cook Political Report. Michael Whatley, the GOP candidate, is up against Democratic former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
   
• Trump will then go to Clemson, South Carolina, on Wednesday and rally for GOP Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed in July to serve out the remainder of her late brother Lindsey Graham’s term. Graham is facing Democrat Annie Andrews in a race that the Cook Political Report lists as “likely Republican.” 
   
• The president will then make his way to Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday, as the Hawkeye State holds several highly contested races, including an open Senate race between Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek that the Cook Political Report has dubbed a toss-up.
   
• Trump is also slated to return to Iowa on Nov. 1, just two days before Election Day, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.
   
• After his Oct. 22 appearance in Iowa, Trump will then head to Fort Myers, Florida, for a rally on Friday, Oct. 23. 

WASHINGTON — Democrats are touting an ambitious legislative agenda centered on affordability and accountability if they take back the U.S. House or Senate — or both — in November. 

A slew of pressing policy debates are on tap for Democrats, including healthcare, immigration, voting rights, the war in Iran, oversight, education and beyond, as they aim to reverse many of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans’ actions since January 2025. 

Some issues, while surging to the forefront, likely will provoke internal divisions, such as “Medicare for All,” a movement popular among progressives to extend single-payer national health care to all Americans. 

“Healthcare costs have consistently been at or above other concerns on the public’s affordability worries,” said Liz Hamel, a senior vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF who oversees the nonpartisan health organization’s polling program.

Democrats also are poised to conduct tougher oversight of the Trump administration.

Any legislation from Democrats faces the threat of Trump’s veto, making any legislation without broad bipartisan support almost certain to fail. In addition, Democrats would need a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes to advance most measures in the Senate.

Democrats remain heavily favored to regain the majority in the House, while Senate races continue to move in the party’s favor, amid Trump’s plummeting popularity, according to the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, an elections forecaster. Democrats currently hold 47 Senate seats, including two independents who generally vote with the party.

“House Democrats are committed to fighting for an affordable America, lowering the high cost of living, lowering the cost of groceries, lowering the cost of gas, lowering the cost of housing and fighting to make healthcare affordable for every single American,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in September. 

The New York Democrat is in line to become the next speaker — the first Black person to hold that office — if the party clinches control of the lower chamber. 

Jeffries announced five working groups on affordability — housing, healthcare, gas and utilities, groceries and goods, and caregiving — which House Democrats will concentrate on at the beginning of the new Congress. 

The Democratic Party’s campaign apparatus for House races echoed an agenda centered on affordability. 

“House Democrats are going to win the majority because voters know we’re focused on lowering costs, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do when we’re in charge,” Nebeyatt Betre, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

“From ending the war in Iran to lower gas prices, restoring (Affordable Care Act) tax credits to lower health care prices, to rolling back reckless tariffs to lower prices on everything in between, House Democrats’ number one priority will be making life more affordable for working families,” Betre said. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the corresponding campaign arm for Senate races, cited healthcare access and affordability as a top priority in a Democratic-led upper chamber. 

“I think the most important issues that I’ve heard from voters is restoring their healthcare, making sure that those cuts to Medicaid get restored, making sure that people can afford healthcare and get access to good, high-quality healthcare,” Gillibrand said in a September interview with States Newsroom and other members of the Regional Reporters Association. 

The New York Democrat, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said other major priorities include “trying to fix the problems Trump has created, end the war in Iran” as well as getting “costs of groceries, housing, and healthcare and other everyday costs down.” 

While not a major part of the party’s messaging in the general election, House Democrats are poised to take a harder line with Israel amid the country’s war in Gaza. Jeffries said a measure meant to discourage violence in the West Bank, where Israeli settlements have inflamed tensions, “should be considered” next year, according to The Hill. 

With less than three weeks to go until Election Day on Nov. 3, here’s a closer look at what Democrats want to accomplish in both chambers: 

Anti-corruption, impeachments 

Democrats are all but certain to open investigations into the Trump administration if they gain power over congressional subpoena decisions.

“Our promise to the country in the new Congress is that beginning on Day One, we’re going to hold the crooks accountable,” Jeffries vowed at an Oct. 8 press conference. 

High-ranking Democratic House members say multiple probes are on the table, including Trump’s IRS settlement, brokered by his administration’s Justice Department, which delivered retroactive tax audit immunity for him and two of his sons as well as the creation of an “anti-weaponization” fund.

A federal judge slammed the settlement in a July order prohibiting Trump, his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization from claiming they reached a “settlement,” and referred Trump’s personal attorneys to the bar for investigations. 

Democrats are also weighing whether the party would attempt to impeach Trump if they take back control of the House. 

The president was impeached twice in the House and acquitted twice in the Senate during prior sessions of Congress. 

Jeffries told PBS Newshour in September “we certainly haven’t ruled anything in, and we haven’t ruled anything out,” when asked about any impeachment proceedings against the president if Democrats regain the majority in the lower chamber. 

Democrats could also try to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth if they clinch control of the House. 

Outgoing GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth in September for the secretary’s handling of the war in Iran.

But House GOP leadership sent the lower chamber home early for its weeks-long campaign break, punting any vote until after the midterms. 

House Democrats will also likely dog the administration’s legally mandated release of files related to the 2019 federal sex trafficking investigation of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who kept the company of powerful and wealthy individuals, including Trump.

Trump denies any knowledge of Epstein’s involvement in trafficking girls and young women for sex.

Democrats and Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened a months-long probe, subpoenaing documents from the Epstein estate and compelling closed-door testimony from Epstein associates and former Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Healthcare 

On the healthcare front, House Democrats want to undo the healthcare provisions tucked into a mega tax and spending cut law signed by Trump in July 2025, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”  

“Undoing (that law) is the floor, but not the ceiling,” according to a September memo obtained by Politico from Democrats’ affordability working group on healthcare. 

The 84-page memo proposes myriad healthcare policy priorities in the first 100 hours, first 100 days and first year of the next session of Congress, broken down into eight wide-ranging categories. 

“There is broad consensus in the Democratic caucus that the Democratic agenda must both reverse the immediate harms of the administration while also taking bold action to rein in corporate monopolies, invest in a durable healthcare system, and pursue an ambitious path towards universal coverage,” per the memo.  

Part of Democrats’ healthcare agenda includes reversing the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law’s sweeping Medicaid cuts, which axe roughly $1 trillion in program spending over 10 years and impose new work requirements.

The party is also looking to “permanently restore” the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expired in December 2025 and were used by individuals who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. 

The expiration of those credits has “sharply increased” individuals’ out-of-pocket costs toward premiums, according to KFF. 

The memo also underscores a commitment to “achieving universal coverage” in the first year of the next session of Congress, and mentions the “Medicare for All Act” as one avenue to examine in achieving this ambition. 

The bill would establish a national health insurance program administered under the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Iran war

The costly war in Iran that has caused prices at the gas pump to soar for Americans is a major reason for Trump’s sagging poll numbers, and Democrats, if the House and Senate flip, would likely pass a measure to try to end any further conflict without congressional approval.

The war has cost $40 billion and counting, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and will continue to cost American taxpayers $2 billion to $3 billion per month as the conflict drags on.

The national average price of diesel remains above $6 per gallon in the U.S., according to AAA, as Iranian officials continue to block petroleum products from reaching the global market. 

The national motor club, which monitors daily fuel prices, reported that Americans were paying a national average of $4.33 for a gallon of gasoline as of Oct. 14.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ attempts to rein in Trump’s military campaign in Iran have slowly picked up some Republican support over multiple votes in both chambers.

Senate Democrats have forced 14 War Powers Resolution votes to curb Trump’s unilateral military decisions without input from Congress. The votes are privileged, meaning they can be brought to the floor without the blessing of majority leadership.

The measure has advanced twice in the upper chamber, but the latest attempt to advance a House-passed War Powers Resolution narrowly failed, 49-50. 

House Democrats picked up seven Republicans on Sept. 15 to approve the War Powers Resolution. 

Administration officials contend the War Powers Resolution, established by Congress during the Vietnam War era, is unconstitutional, so it’s unclear what might happen if a resolution were approved. 

Immigration 

To help the president carry out his mass deportation campaign, congressional Republicans used a legislative tool to skirt Democratic support and allocate more than $200 billion for immigration enforcement through two measures. 

With the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” more than $170 billion was given to the Department of Homeland Security to hire more immigration agents, expand detention centers and carry out deportations. 

The “Secure America Act” funded Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement until late September 2029, at nearly $70 billion, after Democrats refused to approve funding for DHS following two deadly shootings of American citizens by immigration officials in Minneapolis. 

Though it’s unlikely Democrats will be able to claw any of that funding back even if they take both chambers, there are several avenues they are likely to pursue amid the president’s immigration crackdown. 

The first avenue is oversight and the ability to subpoena Trump officials. Democrats are likely to hold oversight hearings into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot and killed by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis in January. 

Members of both parties on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee reached rare bipartisan agreement at a grilling of top Trump immigration officials after the killings. 

Democrats will also likely hold hearings on the scores of U.S. citizens detained by ICE and also shot by federal immigration officers, such as Marimar Martinez, who has already appeared several times before lawmakers as the minority witness for Democrats. 

She was shot in her car five times by Border Patrol agents during the aggressive immigration deportation campaign in Chicago in October 2025 and was labeled a domestic terrorist by DHS. The DOJ dropped charges against Martinez after the Trump administration accused her of using her car as a weapon.

Democrats are also likely to continue with oversight at federal facilities that detain immigrants, including the high death toll of immigrants at those detention centers. So far, 61 immigrants have died in ICE detention, which has doubled under the second Trump administration. Democrats have demanded answers from the administration about the deaths, along with concerns about medical neglect at the facilities. 

And even though former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stepped down earlier this year, Democrats still plan to question some of her decisions while leading DHS, such as a $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured her and the practice of no-bid contracts awarded to her close allies. 

Apart from oversight, Democrats are likely to introduce and pass legislation related to immigration reform, such as creating a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who were stripped of their Temporary Protected Status and for children brought into the country without legal authorization under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. 

The Trump administration has stripped more than 1 million immigrants of their legal status, and House Democrats, with a handful of Republicans, in April moved to extend TPS for more than 500,000 immigrants hailing from Haiti. 

TPS is granted to nationals who hail from a country deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, disasters or other destabilizing forces.

In the Senate, Democrats have tried to pass legislation through unanimous consent to grant a pathway to citizenship for TPS recipients, but were blocked by Republicans. If Democrats regain the Senate, they will need a 60-vote majority for that legislation to move ahead. 

Some Democrats in Congress also likely will advocate an end to funding for ICE, but it’s unclear whether that would have enough support to advance.

Voting rights and democracy

Voting rights and democracy are likely to be high priorities for Democrats if they retake one or both chambers of Congress. 

A gerrymandering war egged on by Trump and a U.S. Supreme Court decision this spring that severely weakened the federal Voting Rights Act left Democrats and their base deeply angry and eager for action.

Democrats are likely to again turn to the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late civil rights activist and Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis. 

Though the U.S. House last passed the measure in 2021, the bill did not advance through the Senate. 

The legislation would seek to restore preclearance, a major provision of the Voting Rights Act that was previously blocked by the Supreme Court in 2013. Preclearance required states and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes, and it applied to most Southern states and a handful of others.

“We fight to pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act so we can end the era of voter suppression in the United States of America once and for all,” Jeffries said in an August speech.

The renewed focus on the voting rights legislation comes after the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in April sharply weakened Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The section prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. 

In 1982, Congress expanded Section 2 to ban voting practices that have a discriminatory effect, whether or not the law was intended to discriminate.

Louisiana had redrawn its congressional map in response to a court order to include a second majority-minority district where a majority of residents are Black. The Supreme Court ruled the new map was an unconstitutional gerrymander.

In response, several Southern states quickly redrew their congressional maps to eliminate majority-minority districts — part of a larger wave of gerrymandering that swept the country over the past two years after Trump initially urged Texas to enact a more GOP-friendly map.

In response, some Democrats are also pushing for gerrymandering reform. At a minimum, some lawmakers want to require states to return to a once-a-decade redrawing process. That was the norm before 2025, and followed the census every 10 years.

Over the summer, the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus unveiled a framework for changes to the redistricting process. The proposal calls for restricting new maps to once a decade, requiring “clear, objective” criteria to draw lines and supporting steps to reduce partisan influence, such as turning to independent commissions to develop district lines.

Education 

Congressional Democrats also want to halt and undo the administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and repeal major education provisions in the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law.

The department has entered into a series of interagency agreements with other departments that transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies, including Health and Human Services, Labor, Interior, State, Justice and Treasury. 

If Democrats take back the Senate, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine told States Newsroom his first goal in education is to “stop the handoff of critical components of (the Education Department) to other agencies that don’t want them.”

In the most-far reaching of the interagency agreements yet, the department said in June that HHS would administer programs under Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, while civil rights enforcement under Education’s Office for Civil Rights would be transferred to the DOJ. 

Kaine sponsored a bill, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska as original co-sponsors, that would block interagency agreements that transfer programs regarding special education, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education and Native American education. 

That measure advanced out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in July. 

Sen. Mazie Hirono told States Newsroom “we need to restore federal support for education and how it’s going to look, I mean, clearly we need to support IDEA and support it to a greater extent than we have normally,” pointing to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities.

The Hawaii Democrat is also looking to repeal a national school voucher program baked into the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law that’s set to launch in early 2027. 

The program allocates up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for people donating to organizations that provide K-12 scholarships, with 31 states having opted in so far. 

Hirono and Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, joined by more than two dozen of their colleagues, introduced legislation in April to repeal the program. 

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore introduced a companion bill in June with Reps. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and dozens more original cosponsors.

WASHINGTON — As partisan tensions rise in advance of the fast-approaching midterm elections, students will test their knowledge Wednesday in a field that’s long enjoyed bipartisan support: civics. 

Fifty-two middle school students hailing from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and American Samoa, will compete at the third annual National Civics Bee Championship in the nation’s capital. 

For the first time ever, C-SPAN will televise the nonpartisan civics competition set for 8 p.m. Eastern and hosted by actor and game show host Jerry O’Connell. 

Students will showcase their knowledge of  “American government, the Constitution and the civic challenges facing their communities,” according to a press release.  

The winner of the competition, presented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, will be awarded a $100,000 529 education savings plan.

The 52 students advanced in state and local competitions from across the country.  

Middle school students first submitted essays on “how they would improve their communities through civics” — a branch of social studies centered on rights and obligations of citizenship. Their essay topics ranged from homelessness to childhood poverty to solar energy.

The students with the top essay scores moved on to regional competitions within their states, and the regional winners advanced to a final competition in their states. 

Each state’s first place winners made it to the nation’s capital to compete in Wednesday’s championship. 

WASHINGTON — Leading immigration advocates and experts sounded the alarm Wednesday on the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to undo state laws allowing some immigrants to pay in-state college tuition in the states where they reside. 

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued 24 states, Washington, D.C., and the University of Delaware since President Donald Trump retook office over laws or policies that allow noncitizen students who meet certain requirements access to in-state tuition, regardless of their immigration status.  

The lawsuits are part of a larger push from the administration to curb any benefits that could extend to immigrants more broadly.

Leaders of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration and TheDream.US defended the state laws during a virtual press conference, while warning of the setbacks noncitizen students face to accessing affordable higher education when these policies are struck down. 

The groups also released a joint report Wednesday charting the landscape of such laws and the DOJ’s legal challenges against the policies. 

The administration’s challenges “limit opportunities for thousands of students and undermine the social and economic well-being of communities across the country,” said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. 

“When access to in-state tuition is taken away, many undocumented students cannot bridge the gap between in-state and out-of-state rates,” Feldblum added. 

Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of TheDream.US, called the Trump administration’s efforts “coordinated assaults on tuition equity.”

They are “just one part of a larger pattern of legal and policy barriers and restrictions being put in place that threatens Dreamers and immigrants’ educational opportunities, their stability, their safety and their futures,” she said. 

TheDream.US grants scholarships to immigrant youth, including individuals under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, who are also known as Dreamers. 

DACA is intended to help people brought into the country without legal documentation as children. The program, created in 2012, protects participants from deportation and allows them to receive work permits and obtain driver’s licenses.

Six state laws blocked

In six of the lawsuits the DOJ filed — targeting Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas — courts have already struck down the laws. 

But in a blow to the administration’s efforts against Virginia’s in-state tuition policies, a federal judge earlier this week scrapped the DOJ’s challenge, upholding the Virginia law.

Lawsuits are also pending in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington state.

Debate over 1996 law

The DOJ’s challenges center on the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which bars a state from offering in-state tuition benefits to people not lawfully present in the country if that same benefit is not granted to U.S. citizens from another state. 

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the DOJ’s Civil Division has noted that “colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens” and that the agency “will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF, which has sought to intervene on behalf of affected students in cases targeting the laws, described “extraordinary” aspects of the DOJ’s “litigation campaign,” including that “the administration uses very sharp tactics to attempt to prevent anyone from coming in to defend the state tuition-equity laws.” 

Saenz also pointed out that all of the state tuition-equity policies across the country were enacted after the 1996 law was enacted. 

“What that means is that they are using a provision that was on the books when all of these legislators acted to create laws like the Texas Dream Act,” Saenz said, pointing to the Lone Star State’s 2001 law — the first of its kind in the country — that has since been blocked.

He added that “no administration prior to this one has ever gone to court contending that that 1996 law somehow renders these tuition-equity laws passed beginning in 2001 unconstitutional or preempted.” 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Keith Sonderling as secretary of Labor on Wednesday, marking one of the few Trump administration picks to get through the upper chamber recently after a North Dakota senator put a hold on “any and all” nominees. 

But the Senate left town late Wednesday for its weeks-long campaign break and is not scheduled to return until after the midterms in November. 

Dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees remain held up amid Sen. Kevin Cramer’s outrage over a Biden-era rule dealing with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetland easements that Cramer says harm his state’s property owners.

Those nominees on hold include Kari Lake, the 2024 Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, as ambassador to Jamaica and Sean Kaufman to serve as assistant secretary for preparedness and response for the Department of Health and Human Services, among others. 

Senators also have a slew of unfinished business to address once they return from their recess for the lame-duck session, and the consideration of nominees would compete with other matters for floor time, potentially dragging out the timeline even longer.

Sonderling — confirmed as Labor secretary, 47-41, along party lines — took on the acting agency head role in April after former Oregon U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid misconduct allegations.

Aside from Sonderling, Cramer — generally a stalwart Trump ally — has only allowed Chris Klomp’s nomination to serve as deputy secretary of HHS to move forward. 

Klomp’s bid, which advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee in late September, has yet to reach a vote on the Senate floor. 

“No other holds have been lifted, because my landowners need results, not commitments,” Cramer said in a statement shared with States Newsroom. 

The GOP senator’s hold only covers Trump’s nominations and does not include military promotions. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., conducted one of the most highly publicized blanket holds in recent years on hundreds of military promotions for most of 2023 in protest of a Pentagon abortion policy.

A “hold” on a nomination in the Senate is an informal practice, used by members of both parties, where a senator signals their intent to object to confirming a nominee via unanimous consent. 

Those unanimous consent agreements allow the Senate to fast-track consideration and take up nominees without the need to hold a roll-call vote. 

Wetlands rule

Cramer’s hold began in August over a 2024 federal wetlands rule enacted under then-President Joe Biden’s administration, which Cramer blasted as “illegal” and “an affront to private property rights,” per the statement to States Newsroom.  

Cramer said the rule stands in violation of those rights by creating enormous setbacks for drain tile from wetland easements, North Dakota Monitor reported. 

The regulation affects the Prairie Pothole Region, a wetlands area in the northern Great Plains that encompasses a large portion of North Dakota and is a key habitat for wildlife, including ducks and geese. 

Parts of Iowa, Montana, Minnesota and South Dakota are also included in the region.

Cramer said the rule “needs to be thrown out and farmers need clear guidelines to end the threat of harassment from the federal government.” 

He added that “the White House knows all of this, but the ball is in their court to act, not mine.”

Some movement

However, Cramer has been willing to incrementally lift the holds as he sees progress from the Trump administration, with Sonderling and Klomp as examples.

Part of that progress includes a September announcement from the Department of the Interior that the Fish and Wildlife Service, or FWS, would “incorporate feedback from North Dakota farmers, ranchers and conservation partners as it updates and expands an innovative Prairie Pothole Wetland pilot project addressing landowner concerns — particularly with wetland easements purchased prior to 1976.” 

Cramer said that “from the beginning, I told the White House I would be as flexible as they would be.” 

He added that “since then, we’ve had two meaningful meetings where North Dakota’s farmers educated the administration on the land grab the FWS has perpetuated in the Prairie Pothole region.” 

In response to a request for comment on Cramer’s holds, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers doubled down on Trump’s nominees, saying the president is “nominating talented patriots to successfully carry out his America First agenda.” 

Rogers added that “under President Trump’s leadership, these nominees will continue to deliver major wins for the American people.” 

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee used a hearing Wednesday to continue voicing opposition to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, which the top Democrat on the panel called a distraction from cost-of-living issues voters are more concerned about.

Republicans, vying to defend their majority in the House and Senate in the midterm elections less than six weeks away, have pursued a broad anti-trans agenda alongside President Donald Trump’s administration. Republicans on  Wednesday framed the issue as protecting women’s sports. 

“Biological women should not be asked to accommodate men who, for reasons of identity or otherwise, choose to compete in (the) women’s category instead of (the) men’s or co-ed category,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Judiciary panel. 

“Women were last to get the vote, to participate in professions, to serve on juries, get credit cards in their own names and so much more,” the Iowa Republican said. “Women should not again be asked to cede their opportunities just to make men comfortable.” 

The GOP-led panel brought in advocates, who spoke out against transgender athletes’ participation in sports that align with their gender identity. 

Dems absent

Democrats on the panel largely sat the hearing out, drawing the ire of GOP members.

In the only statement by a Democrat during the hearing, the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Dick Durbin, used his opening remarks to question his GOP counterparts’ priorities amid Americans’ affordability concerns. 

“If you ask the American people, ‘What are the priority issues you hope Congress will address as soon as possible?’ the issue of this hearing would not be in the top 10, maybe not the top 20,” the Illinois Democrat said. 

“People are concerned about the cost of living, they’re concerned about the ability to pay for the college education of their kids, they’re concerned about their utility bills, they’re concerned about their grocery bills — they want to know what we’re doing about it,” he added. 

Republicans on the panel noted Democrats’ absence.

“Not one member on the other side of the aisle has had the respect for women to come in here and ask questions, to figure out how we get this right, how we stand up for fairness, for safety, for an opportunity for young women across the country,” GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said at the hearing. “It’s absolutely absurd.”

But Durbin pointed to a similar 2024 hearing that saw NCAA President Charlie Baker tell senators that of the more than half-million total athletes in NCAA schools, he knew of fewer than 10 who were transgender. 

“We can all agree that we want to be fair and safe in women’s athletics, but this vendetta against a small number of people in the trans community affects everyone, including cisgender girls who can be subject to inappropriate gender verification checks,” Durbin said. 

At a press conference after the hearing, GOP Sens. Ashley Moody of Florida, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Darline Graham of South Carolina and Britt, along with several athletes and advocates, continued to blast the inclusion of trans athletes on women’s sports teams. 

“It shouldn’t be complicated,” Moody said. “Men do not belong in women’s sports. Women’s sports exist for a reason, and if we’re going to have women’s sports, we must protect women’s sports.”

Hot topic

The issue has been the subject of intense debate in recent years.

The House passed a bill in January 2025 that would bar trans students’ participation in women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. 

But Senate Democrats blocked an effort in March of that year aimed at imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s 2025 executive order on the issue. 

The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld state laws banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

The court’s decision — which has no impact on states without such bans — marked a major setback for transgender rights across the nation. 

Meanwhile, a major bipartisan bill to regulate college athletes’ compensation and establish additional protections for women’s and Olympic sports continues to advance in the Senate.

Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Republicans have made clear that the bill would not preempt state laws regarding the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports.

WASHINGTON — Education experts and advocates on Tuesday urged Congress to repeal an incoming national school voucher program over concerns that it will divert critical funds away from public schools to private institutions.  

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono convened a Democratic-led panel to sound the alarm on the sweeping program, which marks a key pillar of President Donald Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ efforts surrounding school choice. 

The Hawaii Democrat blasted the federal initiative, set to launch in early 2027, as a “tax break for wealthy families whose children are already enrolled in private schools, disguised as support for education.” 

At least 30 states have already opted in to the program, which allocates up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for people donating to organizations that provide K-12 scholarships for education-related services at private or public schools. 

The program is baked into the GOP’s “big, beautiful” bill that Trump signed into law in 2025. The U.S. Treasury Department is slated to release proposed regulations by the end of this month. 

Repeal attempts

Hirono and Arizona Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, joined by more than two dozen of their colleagues, introduced legislation in April to repeal the program. 

Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore introduced a companion bill in June with Reps. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and dozens more original cosponsors. 

But any measure to roll back the program faces a dismal path in the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

The umbrella term “school choice” centers on alternative programs to a student’s assigned public school. Opponents say these efforts drain critical funds and resources from school districts, while advocates argue the initiatives are necessary for parents who are dissatisfied with their local public schools.

Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “our conclusion is clear: This is not free money or a targeted investment in students with the greatest needs.” 

“It is an uncapped federal tax subsidy that steers public resources toward private education with few safeguards,” he added. 

Mays pointed out that “a voucher does not guarantee access or quality,” noting that private schools are not bound by the same civil rights protections and obligations extended under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. 

Diverting funds?

The Education and Treasury departments have said that the credit “does not divert money from local or state taxes, which make up the large majority of school funding,” according to a fact sheet. 

The agencies have also pointed to examples of education expenses the scholarships can be used for, such as “tuition for students to attend private schools of choice, tutoring at public schools, and support services for students with disabilities.” 

But Jessica Levin, litigation director at the advocacy group Education Law Center, said it’s a “major misconception” that “this is free money without cost to public schools” or that “currently underfunded public schools will benefit from the voucher program.” 

“Tax credit voucher programs are funded with public dollars because the money sent to scholarship granting organizations is money that would otherwise have been paid in state or federal taxes and gone into the state or federal treasury,” Levin said.

Trump administration defends tax credit

Meanwhile, Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the Education Department, defended the tax credit, saying opponents of the program are “resorting to fearmongering by falsely labeling it a voucher because the phrase ‘we don’t want families to have more options to succeed in education’ isn’t a winning message,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom.  

“The truth is that this provision does not take a single dollar away from public schools because it is funded by the generosity of private donors that supplement — not supplant — existing education dollars,” she added. 

“A word of advice: resisting change to the failed status quo in education makes you part of the problem, not the solution.” 

WASHINGTON — Three former U.S. Education Department secretaries and the union representing agency workers on Tuesday urged the department’s top watchdog to investigate the cost and impact of mass firings last year. 

Former U.S. Education Secretaries Arne Duncan and John B. King Jr., who led the department during the Obama administration, and Miguel Cardona of the Biden administration and Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, sent a letter including a formal request to Mark Priebe, acting inspector general of the Education Department. 

“We need a full picture of the fraud, waste and abuse carried out by this administration as they continue to play politics rather than doing their jobs to serve the American people,” Gittleman said at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol.

Democratic members of Congress and other labor leaders also spoke at the press conference, blasting President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old Department of Education. The mass firings have marked a major part of that effort, which Trump tapped Education Secretary Linda McMahon to spearhead. 

“We may never be able to truly calculate the human cost of all of this, but we at least need to understand the financial cost to taxpayers,” Gittleman added. 

The department announced a reduction in force, or RIF, in March 2025. The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit those mass layoffs, along with Trump’s plan to dramatically downsize the agency, which he’d outlined in an executive order in March 2025. 

The RIF was delayed while a legal battle played out, but took effect in early August 2025 following the go-ahead from the nation’s highest court. 

Roughly 1,000 department workers were “unlawfully terminated or forced into retirement” that month, Gittleman said. 

The Tuesday letter also called into question another department effort in October 2025 to fire nearly 500 employees that was paused in court and stopped by Congress. 

Gittleman and the former secretaries are also asking Priebe to look into the cost and impact of “the subsequent reinstatements and rehiring of hundreds of employees” at the department. 

In response to the letter, a department spokesperson panned the secretaries’ records.

“It’s interesting that the Education Secretaries who brought you the failures of Common Core, the botched FAFSA rollout, and a campaign to redefine ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ are concerned about the Trump Administration’s efforts to reform a demonstrably broken bureaucracy,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to States Newsroom. 

The spokesperson defended the RIF, saying it was “implemented carefully and in compliance with all applicable regulations and laws.”  

They added that the agency “will continue our work to return education to the states and improve outcomes for our nation’s students.” 

Dems ‘fighting back’

U.S. Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Bobby Scott of Virginia, as well as a handful of other Democratic lawmakers and union leaders, joined Gittleman outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. 

“The Department of Education’s stated mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access — since day one, Secretary McMahon has done everything possible to cause this mission to fail,” Alsobrooks said. 

Van Hollen noted that “we are fighting back, and we’re going to keep fighting back, and we’re going to prevail in the long run because they are trying to dismember the department piece by piece and then shut it down.” 

The administration’s sweeping steps to axe the department include more than a dozen interagency agreements that Education has signed with Health and Human Services, Labor, Interior, State, Justice and Treasury. 

The agreements seek to offload several of Education’s responsibilities to those departments. 

Scott said that the administration had been “illegally creating these interagency agreements, which are extremely inefficient and wasteful, and also result in inconsistent enforcement of federal education policy.” 

A Senate education panel in July advanced a bipartisan bill that would block interagency agreements that transfer programs regarding special education, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education and Native American education. 

Earlier that month, a House education panel advanced a package that would greatly reduce the department’s responsibilities, standing in sharp contrast to the Senate measure. 

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Senate set to hold a procedural vote in the coming days on a sweeping bill to overhaul college sports, dueling press conferences Monday underscored the fierce debate over how to tackle the biggest issues plaguing that landscape. 

Supporters of a bipartisan measure to set national standards for college athletes’ compensation, including the bill’s lead sponsor, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, argued it would “protect,” “save” and “preserve” college sports. 

However, opponents of the bill, including Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, blasted the measure over concerns that it “essentially ensconces a system of exploitation,” and would provide “an unprecedented antitrust exemption to an industry that is violating the law every single day.” 

Name, image and likeness battle

The college sports world continues to grapple with the fallout from the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines that allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL, as well as a patchwork of state NIL laws and gender inequity in NIL deals, among other major issues. 

Earlier this year, Cruz and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state — the top members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee — introduced the bill, with Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware as original cosponsors. 

Cruz likened the college sports landscape to the “Wild West,” saying the bill is designed to “bring order to the chaos” and “put simple common sense rules in place so that college sports remain strong and vibrant for decades to come,” during a press conference he hosted outside the U.S. Capitol alongside Cantwell, Senate colleagues, student athletes and coaches. 

Cruz called for “a big bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate, and with that momentum to go to the House and have it go to the president’s desk.” 

President Donald Trump has thrown strong support behind what he dubs a “great” bill. 

Patchwork of state laws

The Senate could take a procedural vote on the bipartisan measure as early as this week, where it would need at least 60 senators to advance.

The latest version of the bill would create a national NIL standard that preempts the patchwork of state laws, provide certain antitrust protections to the NCAA, establish a five-year eligibility timeline for athletes and bar professional athletes from competing in college athletics. 

The measure is notably neutral on the classification of athletes as employees.

Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Murphy blasted the measure, saying: “What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,” during a virtual press conference earlier Monday with college athletes, professional athlete unions and advocates. The event was hosted by the AFL-CIO. 

“This bill protects the billions of dollars that coaches and sports industry executives are making over the suppression of compensation for some of the most highly valued athletes in the world,” Murphy added. 

NAACP critical of bill

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, also blasted the Senate bill Monday, saying “what makes this bill so inadequate, and in many ways offensive, is the overture as if it’s going to do something special for historically Black colleges and universities,” during the AFL-CIO’s press conference.

“HBCUs, they deserve direct federal investment, not a political trade-off,” Johnson said.

The NAACP in May urged pushback against GOP-led redistricting efforts in Southern states via college sports, including a boycott of public universities by athletes and supporters.

The Congressional Black Caucus, which rallied behind that call in May, has also opposed the legislation, saying in August the bill “falls short of providing Black athletes with the rights, representation, economic opportunities, and meaningful safeguards they deserve, while also failing to adequately recognize the interests of Black coaches, Black agents, HBCUs, and other professionals whose futures will be shaped by this legislation.” 

Powerful U.S. officials past and present faced families, survivors and first responders Friday at ceremonies to honor the 25th anniversary of the day 2,977 Americans died in terrorist attacks in Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.

At the Pentagon, Condoleezza Rice, who was serving at the time under President George W. Bush as national security advisor, told the crowd she wanted to share something “deeply personal.”

“Those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11. We did what we knew to do, but by definition, it was not enough. … I will always carry deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel, and for the trauma that our country endured,” she said.

Speakers at all three Sept. 11 milestone anniversary events recounted stories of courage and loss as people found themselves in an unimaginable circumstance. 

Some also flared with frustration at what they say is a lack of justice for those who planned the attacks.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaking at the memorial service for the 184 people who died when the hijacked United Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, highlighted the anniversary as a justification for their stagnant war with Iran. 

That nearly seven-month-old conflict has killed 18 U.S. service members, injured over 700 more and taken the lives of thousands of civilians across the Middle East.

“We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice,” Trump said. “There can only be victory. We fight hard. We fight to win. We will always remember the victims and the families of September 11, 2001, very famous date, unfortunately.”

Hegseth told the crowd, which was only open to victims’ families, survivors and their families, that Americans were “ignorant of the Islamist threat” 25 years ago.

“Every day, enemies plot to curb our power and kill our citizens, including from Islamic terrorists abroad and at home, but we are ever vigilant,” he said, adding that the U.S. has killed Iran’s leaders and put their Navy “at the bottom of the sea.”

The deeply unpopular war has continued, despite early promises from Hegseth and Trump that it would not morph into the prolonged Middle East conflicts that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

‘No justice’

At the site in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center’s twin towers once stood, families read names of the 2,753 victims who died inside the towers, on the ground and on the two hijacked airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.

Terry Strada, widow of the late Tom Strada, who died in the north tower, slammed recent presidential administrations of both parties for not holding Saudi Arabia accountable for allegations that the kingdom’s officials knew about the attacks.

“My husband Tom Strada, you are missed more with each year that passes. But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” she said to loud cheers from the crowd.

“For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” she said. 

 

“President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through. Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today. Please carry that message back,” she said, again receiving loud cheers.

Vice President JD Vance sat in a front row at the ceremony alongside former presidents Bush, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. 

Former first ladies Michelle Obama, Jill Biden and Hillary Clinton, also a former secretary of state, were seated in the row, as was former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Neither the Embassy of Saudi Arabia nor the White House immediately responded to States Newsroom’s requests for a response.

Painful memories

Families at the site in Lower Manhattan shared memories seared in their minds.

Bob Lee, 67, was a firefighter in the Bronx that day. He remembers how many first responders had to gather together to clean up the dust and debris that had settled around the city.

“When you see the people that were down here, everybody’s eyes was … full of soot and dust, and their eyes were glowing like bright red because all the stuff that was in their eyes,” Lee said. “It was just a crazy scene.”

Lee moved to Kansas City, Missouri, shortly after 9/11. He was 42 at the time and realized he had been exposed to a lot of toxic air.

“I told them I was retiring,” Lee said recalling that he knew a lot of his colleagues would get sick. He was a union representative for his unit in the Bronx. 

“I lost hundreds of those guys. You know, it’s crazy … Quite a few friends have died of cancer.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week announced that his office had released around 170,000 pages of records that had been closed off over the last 25 years on the level of toxic air pollution people were exposed to in the aftermath of 9/11.

The records suggest that New Yorkers were misled about the air quality and that officials downplayed how dangerous it was to breathe the air. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 50,000 people, including first responders and survivors, developed cancer in relation to the event. 

Christopher Santora, then 23, was a firefighter who responded to the attacks and was enveloped in debris as the towers fell. He lost his life trying to save people that day. His cousin Jason Roettger, 56, was chosen to read the names of people who had died during 9/11 at Friday’s ceremony.

Roettger said it was an honor to be a part of the event and to represent his cousin. He said he’s glad the air quality records were released.

“I think everyone that was here in the city, or even in New Jersey, everyone in this area knew the air wasn’t good,” Roettger said. “Even though the government said ‘No, the air is fine.’ I think everyone knew that that was a lie.”

Wanda Hernandez, 72, lost her daughter Monique de Jesus, who was 28 at the time. She was working at the World Trade Center. 

Hernandez said Friday she was focusing on all the beautiful moments she had with her daughter before that day.

“We went on vacation for my birthday before it happened, like a month before. Yeah. Yeah, we had a good time, you know, and we went to a wedding like a week before it happened,” Hernandez said. “Two weeks, so that was nice. Had a good time. I was a good mother. She was a good daughter.”

‘A vast empty space in the side of the Pentagon’

Over a 13-minute speech Friday morning at the Pentagon, Rice, who also served as secretary of state later in the Bush administration, painted a picture of administration officials caught completely off guard by the attacks, orchestrated by the well-known anti-American extremist terror network al-Qaeda.

“I was at my desk at the White House that day when my executive assistant, a young Army officer, told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. ‘What a strange accident,’ I thought,” Rice said.

“I called President Bush, who was reading to children at an education event in Florida. He too thought that it must have just been an accident. But within 17 minutes, a second plane hit the World Trade Center,” she continued.

What followed, according to Rice, was a whirlwind as officials rushed to secure locations — Bush to Air Force One, Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney to a White House bunker and CIA Director George Tenet to an undisclosed location. 

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Peru “and trying to get home.” Those in the White House “Situation Room,” Rice recalled, just heard the “ringing and ringing and ringing” of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s phone at the Pentagon, where he had been hosting a congressional breakfast. 

The late Rumsfeld would end up outside assisting in rescue efforts “as his security detail begged him to flee,” she said.

“I remember turning to a television screen, and the horror and the shock that I felt. There was a smoking crater, a vast empty space, in the side of the Pentagon.”

Fight with hijackers

A morning observance program was also held at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to mark 25 years since 40 passengers and crew members died when the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a rural field. 

Families read aloud the names of the victims during the ceremony.

Members of Flight 93 fought with hijackers over Western Pennsylvania and forced the flight to crash, which prevented the hijacked aircraft from hitting the intended destination of the U.S. Capitol.

Others expected to speak Friday afternoon included Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Gordon Felt, brother of Edward Porter Felt, one of the 40 people who died on Flight 93, was set to speak, along with retired United Airlines Capt. Morrie Wiener, who piloted Flight 93 prior to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and Jessica Bowron, acting director of the National Park Service.

Mullin ties mass deportation to Sept. 11

Outside of the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C., Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin used the anniversary to promote the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, and said that lack of cooperation from so-called sanctuary cities is what could lead to another 9/11.

“It’s a safe haven that incubates terrorist activity and it doesn’t just stay local,” he said.

He specifically called out Democratic-led cities of Seattle, Boston and New York City.

“It shouldn’t be political,” he said. “When we start looking at the 25th anniversary, if there’s anything we should agree on, it should be that. Why should the Department of Homeland Security be controversial? We’re taking care of your backyard.”

Immigration enforcement agencies under the department have been roiled in scandal and carried out alleged illegal orders since Trump’s second term began. 

The events have included allowing deportation flights to take off against a judge’s order, erroneous deportations of individuals with legal protections, and the killing by immigration agents of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, of Minneapolis. 

The latest scrutiny of the department comes after a $20 million no-bid contract was extended in Kentucky to outfit agents with electric shock gloves.

Courage and ‘selfless service’

Despite the lasting pain, speakers Friday noted that relatives of those killed in the attacks found ways to move forward and persevere.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine at the Pentagon said the milestone anniversary was not only about remembering those lost, but “it is also a story of great American courage, selfless service, and those who’ve made the choice to carry those memories forward.” 

“The courage of those extraordinary Americans in Pennsylvania, in New York, and right here on these hallowed grounds, did not end when the smoke cleared and the fires went out, because survivors and families have carried it forward through service, through sacrifice, and through remembrance,” Caine told the crowd.

Vice President JD Vance took to the GOP convention stage in Dallas on Thursday in what served as a re-introduction ahead of a widely anticipated run for the party’s presidential nomination in 2028. 

The former U.S. senator from Ohio sought to rally the GOP base on the second and final day of the unusual gathering, as Republicans vie to retain control of the U.S. House and Senate in the midterms less than two months away, even as President Donald Trump faces anemic approval ratings amid the war in Iran and concerns surrounding the economy. 

Vance repeatedly maligned Democrats as “crazies,” referencing some of the more controversial statements recent primary winners have made. And he urged the enthusiastic crowd to put aside policy differences with GOP candidates to keep “the party of common sense” in power.

“It’s so much more than having good politicians in Washington,” he said. “It’s about sending a message to the Democratic Party that if you send your crazies, we’re going to send you packing.” 

At one point during his speech, members of the crowd chanted “48” — an apparent signal of support for Vance to become the 48th president. Vance responded: “We got to take care of business this November — then we’ll worry about what comes next.” 

‘Birthright’

Vance infused the recent birth of his fourth child into his speech. He and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, welcomed son Alec Neel Vance in July.  

And he portrayed what he called Republicans’ support for Americans’ “birthright” as a major theme heading into November. 

“I believe that our founders built this nation on a promise that echoes our creator: That every American child is born an heir — is born with a birthright,” Vance said, adding that “that birthright, ladies and gentlemen, is what this November is all about.” 

Several times, Vance accused immigrants living in the country illegally of stealing what should belong to U.S. citizens. He said that Democrats, particularly former President Joe Biden, encouraged that theft.

“My little boy, he is now our fellow citizen, though he doesn’t know it,” he said. “And I think about what the Democrats have said about our shared birthright as Americans, or frankly, the lack thereof.” 

Vance said the birth of his youngest son shifted his focus to the future.

“Now, because we got a new kid around, I can’t help but look at the future of this country through the eyes of the future of my son,” he said. “And I can’t help but think about what it is that we’re fighting for and what it is that we want for all of our children.” 

Vance honors Charlie Kirk

The vice president also paid tribute to his late friend and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot while speaking on a Utah college campus one year ago Thursday. 

Vance praised Kirk as a devoted husband and father, addressing Kirk’s two young children, saying: “For those of us who loved your dad, we knew him as something even better than a great man. He was a good man.” 

Later in his speech, Vance urged voters to “do what Charlie did: Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater — don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.” 

‘Trump’s most loyal puppet’

Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee, blasted Vance as “Donald Trump’s most loyal puppet,” noting that the vice president is “working in lockstep to enact an agenda that has hiked prices and made life unaffordable for working families,” in a statement Thursday night.  

“Vance has defended even their most disastrous policies, proving his loyalty to Trump over the American people,” Witmer said. “Vance will continue to gaslight Americans, but voters know the truth: Trump and Vance have tanked the economy, plunged the country into more endless wars, and failed to make life more affordable for everyday Americans.”

Vance is slated to deliver remarks Monday at an industrial manufacturing facility in Olathe, Kansas, during an event hosted by Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. 

On Monday, he will also visit a federal law enforcement facility in Kansas City, Missouri, where he is set to speak on the Trump administration’s sweeping anti-fraud effort, which he has helmed. 

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman made a surprise video appearance Wednesday at the GOP convention in Dallas, praising Republican Sen. Dave McCormick while vowing the pair of Pennsylvanians would continue working with President Donald Trump to “defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley.” 

The brief, pre-recorded appearance, which wasn’t advertised on the convention’s schedule, showed a deepening rift between Fetterman and mainstream Democrats. The video boosted speculation that Fetterman could switch parties.

“Yes, I’m a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a common-sense Democrat,” Fetterman said in the video, where he stood in front of a U.S. Steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania, roughly 10 miles outside Pittsburgh. 

Fetterman also distanced himself from a wave of progressive Democrats, some affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, who have won primaries this year.

“I’m always going to stand with America,” he said. “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life.”

In addition to a more ideological divide with Democrats over issues such as Fetterman’s strong support for Israel amid the continuing war in Gaza, Fetterman has taken heat from former aides who told The Wall Street Journal that he is indifferent toward his job.

Wednesday’s video introduced McCormick before the GOP senator took the convention stage. 

Fetterman lauded McCormick as “the kind of senator that gets the job done” and is “going to fight for Pennsylvania.” 

“I have this opportunity to introduce this great American, a great senator, and yes, he’s in a different party, but I’m proud to count him as my great friend,” he added. 

Dems mock video

Democratic members of Congress criticized Fetterman’s cameo at the convention.

“A year ago I labeled John Fetterman ‘Trump’s favorite Democrat,’” U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, posted to social media. “Tonight, he yet again proves why.”

Delaware Democratic U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride compared Trump’s presidency to a historic disaster.

“Being a Democratic politician who decides to speak at Trump’s midterm convention is like boarding the Titanic after it hit the iceberg,” she wrote.