The Latest: Supreme Court rebuffs Trump restrictions on medical care for trans inmates
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to allow the Trump administration to immediately enforce new medical restrictions for transgender people in prison. An executive order by President Donald Trump had called on the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so that federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” The new policy, blocked earlier by a lower court, would halt surgeries, taper off hormones and end social accommodations like makeup and wigs.
Meanwhile, Trump plans to visit South Carolina on Wednesday to boost U.S. Sen. Darline Graham, whose stumbles in her first campaign since replacing her late brother have Democratic voters hopeful — but not necessarily optimistic — that their candidate can break Republicans’ grip on the state.
Here's the latest:
The president doesn’t land in South Carolina for several hours, but dozens of people carrying anti-Trump signs are lining the road to the livestock arena where he will appear with Sen. Darline Graham, shouting at rally attendees as they enter the venue.
“This whole ‘Trump’ thing ain’t working,” read one sign. Another proclaimed that Trump’s “America First” policy platform is “un-Christian.”
Some of the people behind a barricade separating them from the roadway in rural South Carolina waved American or pride flags. One held a red and yellow flag of the former Soviet Union.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris rallied about 200 hospitality workers Wednesday afternoon in Las Vegas, encouraging them to campaign for Democratic candidates ahead of Nov. 3.
“Please keep fighting,” she said. “It’s making a difference. You are making a difference.”
The Culinary Workers Union, which represents 60,000 Nevada hospitality workers, is a critical political powerhouse for Democrats, knocking on thousands of doors every election.
She joined Democratic governor candidate Aaron Ford and Democratic Rep. Dina Titus at the union’s headquarters, where the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to Harris, whose birthday was yesterday.
Harris said for her birthday she wants Attorney General Ford and Titus to win. Ford hopes to oust Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo in one of the most competitive governor races.
“It’s going to be tight,” Harris said. “It will not be easy, but we don’t want to have any regrets on the 14th day about what we could have done these 13 days, right?”
Trump was asked about the widely criticized ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, calling her “a liar.”
“The fact is I know nothing about it. But I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House. Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, “doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter. And I think the mother is a witness to things, also. So who knows,” he went on.
Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted for raping Acton as a child.
Still, Trump called it “a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much,” adding: “I don’t think that has anything to do with with Vivek.”
Ramaswamy has claimed credit for the ad and has said he will spend $4 million to promote it.
The president said criticism of his decision to put on hold the sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy is coming from “people who don’t know how life works.”
Trump argued that holding off enacting the legislation named after South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham helped pave the way for Wednesday’s release of Stephen Hubbard, an American who had been jailed for more than four years in Russia on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.
Graham, who had championed the tougher sanctions package, died in July.
“If you would have put those sanctions on or whatever you want to call them, you could forget about him,” Trump said of Hubbard. “You’d never see him again. He’d be back in jail for 25 years.”
Trump added that his team is also “very close to a deal” to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“When you’re close to a deal and you have very delicate negotiations, you don’t put sanctions on,” he said.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it resume building a border wall project through the Big Bend region of Texas.
The government filed an emergency appeal asking the justices to lift a lower court decision halting construction. That ruling marked a setback to one of President Donald Trump’s signature projects.
The administration has been racing forward with construction on a border wall and other infrastructure from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
But in the Big Bend region, the administration has run into opposition from ranchers, residents, business owners and environmentalists who argue the projects are a waste of money in an area of historically low illegal immigration and say construction could harm the region’s beautiful landscapes.
Opponents have filed numerous lawsuits seeking to stop the project, which in the Big Bend consists of a mixture of walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology.
The $1,000 contribution on Monday from author Ron Chernow is listed among more than 160 donations in a report filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission by Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton’s campaign.
Chernow wrote the acclaimed, best-selling 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary under President George Washington, who also published dozens of essays defending the U.S. Constitution to help get it ratified in 1788. Chernow’s book helped inspire the acclaimed 2016 musical “Hamilton” on Broadway.
Adam Hamilton is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall to become the first Democrat in Kansas to win a Senate seat since 1932. He is the founder and senior pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church.
U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff called Vladimir Putin a “humanitarian” after the Russian president freed a U.S. citizen, Stephen Hubbard, who’d been jailed for more than four years.
When reporters asked Trump about Witkoff’s description of Putin as a humanitarian, the president said “well I guess you could say for that particular purpose” of releasing Hubbard, but added, “I wouldn’t say anything one way or the other.”
“We have been pretty happy with Russia” for staying out of the Iran war, Trump continued, noting that the U.S. is still trying to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
“So the last thing I want to do is upset an apple cart,” he said, “where we’re getting close to settling a war.”
Hubbard’s younger sister said she spoke with her brother on the phone after his release and described him as in disbelief.
“He was just laughing because he was just, he said ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Patricia Hubbard Fox said during a phone interview as she headed to Denver’s airport to catch a flight to San Antonio to meet her brother.
“He really thought he was going to die in prison,” she added, saying her brother suffered beatings and starvation in prison.
Hubbard Fox said her brother was in perfect health when he was “kidnapped” in 2022 and accused of fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces following Russia’s invasion. Now, she said, he likely has post-traumatic stress disorder from the ordeal and suffers from an enlarged heart.
The State Department is ordering some diplomats and the families of U.S. government employees to leave Saudi Arabia following a series of deadly attacks in the country by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and rising fears of an escalation in hostilities.
The department said Wednesday it had ordered the departure of non-essential staff at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates. The embassy had been badly damaged at the start of the Iran war and had been operating with only a skeleton staff for months, although in recent weeks some diplomats had returned.
”Iranian-supported Houthis have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions. The hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area,” the department said in a new travel alert.
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated White House event, Trump said the release of Stephen Hubbard came together quickly after Trump asked Vladimir Putin to release Hubbard during a phone call last week.
“I hear he’s in pretty good shape,” Trump said. “He went through a lot. I spoke to him this morning. He is the happiest man around.”
Trump called the 74-year-old Hubbard a “very high quality, innocent man.”
A retired teacher from Michigan, Hubbard was jailed in Russia for more than four years on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.
The president, sitting at a table with Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth among others, said that every American with an aging parent or young child feels “anxiety” about their loves ones’ vulnerability to online criminals.
Americans reported losing $20 billion to cyber-enabled crimes last year, but that’s likely an undercount, the president continued, touting the government’s “national campaign to destroy this menace.”
That includes “fraudsters, hackers and scammers,” as well as perpetrators of sextortion. That’s when a scammer gets ahold of a someone’s — often a teenager’s — sensitive photos, and use them as blackmail for money.
“It sounds so sinister,” he said, “I guess it is.”
The Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned Karnakis and Karnakis, a Greek and Panamanian-based law firm it accuses of supporting Tehran’s illicit shipping activity and allowing it to generate revenue to fund its military, weapons and nuclear program.
Also targeted were Singapore and UAE-based shipping agents that U.S. officials say directly aid Iran’s shadow fleet network.
“Whether you are conducting illegal oil transfers at sea or sitting in the corner office of a law firm, if you are supporting the Iranian regime, we will find you and sanction you,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
These are the latest targets as part of the Trump administration’s wider-ranging economic campaign against Iran, which after months has failed to make Tehran capitulate to U.S. terms regarding its nuclear ambitions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday on X that Iran remains open to diplomacy, if the United States demonstrates a willingness to build trust and reach a resolution.
“But if US chooses war over diplomacy, it’ll certainly result in an even greater strategic failure,” he added.
He echoed remarks he wrote in the Financial Times but gave no details of talks with Washington through mediators on Iran’s recent seven-day proposal to end the war and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that mediation efforts are welcomed, but that the final decision on acceptable terms rests with Trump.
“The United States will not support any deal that creates a pathway for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon. As long as President Trump is in office, they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
The Democratic candidate was speaking at a rally in Houston, hitting the point he’s repeated throughout this race, that “billionaire megadonors are trying to buy this election” by donating to his opponent, Republican Ken Paxton.
But this time, Talarico got more specific. “Actually, it’s just one billionaire megadonor.”
“In all likelihood,” Talarico continued, if the audience had seen a television attack ad against him, or received negative mailers or texts, “that was Elon.”
Just before Talarico’s rally, Musk posted on his social media platform X, “There is something deeply wrong with Talarico.”
The barbs followed reporting that Musk contributed $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which gave $158 million to Texas PAC, the largest contributor to Paxton’s campaign.
Musk also provided $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, which supports Paxton.
“On Nov. 3, we are going to send a clear message to the world’s first trillionaire,” said Talarico. “Texas is not for sale.”
A campaign sign that appears to be for Republican Illinois governor candidate Darren Bailey is actually the handiwork of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who is trying to remind voters about his opponent’s political connections to President Donald Trump.
The bright blue yard sign features Bailey’s name in bold white letters across the top, with “Trump” underneath and “endorsed by” in between.
But in small letters at the bottom, it shows that Pritzker paid for it.
Bailey, a former state lawmaker in Illinois, is running in a rematch against Pritzker after losing by 12 points in 2022.
Pritzker has been hammering Bailey for his close ties to Trump, including the yard signs and a new campaign ad showing Bailey speaking at a Trump rally in 2022 when the president first endorsed him.
Bailey’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The vice president was asked by a reporter to explain his comments in a recent interview that he wouldn’t endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection by claiming, “I endorse American candidates,” even though he endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the spring and even campaigned for him in Hungary.
Vance said he has endorsed only one foreign candidate for election and it “didn’t go particularly well,” as Orban lost the election.
But Vance went on and said that was in April and now, “We’re in the middle of an American election cycle where I’m very focused on candidates getting elected in the United States of America.”
He said he wasn’t attacking Netanyahu by not endorsing him but said, “I’m not endorsing any more foreign candidates now or in the future.”
Despite backlash from some of their fellow Republicans for Trump’s envoy calling the Russian President Vladimir Putin a “humanitarian,” Vance said, “I agree with Steve Witkoff saying something nice to a person who just released an American hostage.”
Witkoff made the comments as he thanked Putin for releasing an American who had been jailed for more than four years.
The vice president called Witkoff “a diplomat” and said he was in Russia to get a job done.
“I care much less about what Steve said than about the fact that he is bringing an American hostage home to his family. We should all be celebrating that, not be complaining about what Steve Wikoff said in order to get it done.”
Vice President JD Vance said it was “not really my concern” whether the ad was appropriate and said he’s focused on supporting Republican candidates in midterm races.
“I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vance said in his first public comments on the ad.
He added: “Politics is a tough business. And my message to my fellow elected Republicans is: If you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s team took credit for the ad featuring the estranged mother of featuring of Amy Acton in the Ohio governor’s race.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday said a new ad calling her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson a “freak” and a “creep” because “he has two kids with his cousin” should be taken down.
The ad, which has attracted attention this week, is from the Senate Leadership Fund, which is backing Collins as she seeks reelection. Democrats are hoping Jackson will win the seat in their pursuit to take back control of the Senate.
Collins distanced herself from the ad on Wednesday, saying that the ad “should be taken down” and she “had nothing to do with that ad.”
In a Politico story earlier this year, Collins referenced Jackson having a relationship with his second cousin. Jackson’s longtime partner, Lana Pelletier, released an op-ed Wednesday criticizing Collins and her supporters’ attacks on her family, saying she never thought they “would stoop this low.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to allow the Trump administration to immediately enforce new medical restrictions for transgender people in prison.
The decision leaves in place a lower-court block on the policy. It was adopted after an executive order from President Trump, who’s taken several steps to roll back transgender rights during his second term.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the policy to be enforced.
The Supreme Court has previously allowed other policies for transgender people to move ahead for now, including restrictions on military service and passport sex markers.
Trump’s order called on the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The new policy would halt surgeries, taper off hormones and end social accommodations like makeup and wigs. Prisons would continue to offer mental health services.
Rubio said Ukraine would no longer exist if it wasn’t for U.S. support.
Rubio’s comments to reporters in Mumbai, India, came as the administration has been taken to task for curtailing intelligence sharing and the supply of weaponry for Ukraine. He said the administration would no longer take such criticism without a response.
“We’re no longer going to be defensive about this topic. If it were not for the assistance of the United States, including under the Trump administration, there would be no Ukraine right now,” Rubio said. “Ukraine as a sovereign state would not exist.”
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