Trump doesn’t regret endorsing Ken Paxton for Senate

🔮 “Ken Paxton was a great — he was considered the best, or certainly one of the few best, but the best attorney general of the whole country — and now I would have no regrets at all,” the president continued.

🔮 Sources familiar with discussions between the administration and anti-abortion groups told the Washington Examiner they have little confidence that significant action will materialize even after November and said they have heard White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been an obstacle to more aggressive action. This “is exactly what we’re hearing, that Susie’s been a bit of a roadblock,” said one source familiar with the matter.

🔮 Hochul claimed that she had lost faith in Van Houten’s ability to fairly oversee the case and tapped James for the special prosecutor role. “As special prosecutor, the Attorney General will investigate this incident and, if warranted, prosecute any offenses arising from that investigation and present evidence to a grand jury,” Hochul said in a statement.

🔮 It would be such a horror to the system to put a guy, a freak like that in there, would be such a horror to … your state and such a horror to the country.”

🔮 Vance dismissed any concerns that the Florida governorship or U.S. senate could be in jeopardy.

🔮 President Donald Trump defended the legality of the controversial advertisements promoting himself by saying that he is not on the ballot in November, as critics claims they are political in nature and could violate federal law.

🔮 “First, I’ve got to send my best to a couple of patriots who could not be here with us today.

🔮 President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he will rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence.”

🔮 Vice President JD Vance is heading into competitive races this week as President Donald Trump begins his fall campaign push in Oklahoma and Alabama, two reliably Republican states without marquee contests expected to determine control of Congress.

🔮 Republican Iowa Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn, both of whom are in closely contested races, called for an end to the war in Iran, as the public’s anger over rising gas and diesel prices could cost the GOP control of the House and Senate. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) wrote a Washington Post op-ed on Friday criticizing the Trump administration’s deportation of nonviolent illegal immigrants, saying it has led to hardworking illegal immigrants leaving the country. “According to ICE’s own numbers, people with no criminal conviction and with only an immigration violation and no other pending charge are now the single largest group the agency holds in detention,” he wrote.

🔮 Trump, whose case for the award is considered to have been undermined by the Iran war, defended Operation Epic Fury, contending that he has “stopped maybe the total obliteration of the world because Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and that’s a positive thing, very positive thing.”

🔮 “Ken Paxton was a great — he was considered the best, or certainly one of the few best, but the best attorney general of the whole country — and now I would have no regrets at all,” the president continued.

🔮 President Donald Trump insisted there will be no conflicts of interest created by political advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair after reports that they worked for a pro-Russian government in the Balkans before Russia’s election.

🔮 “This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

🔮 Democrats are almost giddy a month before the Nov. 3 elections as polls and prediction markets capture them being on the precipice of controlling Congress, but some are warning the party to pump the brakes, as a premature victory lap could depress turnout in key races and limit victories.

🔮 Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI, and Nvidia would not disclose to the Washington Examiner whether they plan to rename their companies or products, or otherwise adopt Trump’s preferred terminology after the president signed an executive order this week directing the federal government to replace “artificial intelligence” with “super intelligence.”

🔮 “In other words, we’re doing a phenomenal job, but maybe by a combination of things, maybe we’re doing a bad job in selling it,” Trump told a crowd at a factory in Texas.

🔮 President Donald Trump is leaning into transactional politics in the final month of the 2026 midterm campaign, tying his administration directly to economic benefits in states that could determine control of Congress.

🔮 There are several positive economic indicators that President Donald Trump and Republicans could run on, but few are speaking on them on the campaign trail.

🔮 Trump also mentioned a committee to manage AI development, but it is unclear whether that is different from the task force and czar he announced last week, though the president added he would name the czar in “the next three or four days.”