Trump claims he’s ‘doing great’ as his approval rating sinks to record low 32%
Before boarding a flight to Nebraska, Donald Trump answered more questions from reporters, speaking about his polling numbers and efforts to remove bombers from a UK airbase.
“I’m doing great,” Trump told a reporter, who’d asked about recent polls showing the president losing support among Latino voters. “You’re CNN, you’re fake news.”
According to a NBC News/Telemundo poll release Sunday, 59% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number that supported the party two years ago.
A new Reuters poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. According to that poll, just 24% of Hispanic Americans approve of Trump’s performance .
Speaking about work to move US bombers off a UK airbase, Trump said: “There was some threats and rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy, but why should we leave them there.”
Responding to a question about whether there was a risk that Iran had brought combat drones into the UK, Trump said: “I can’t tell you that, but if they did they’ll suffer greatly.”
Updated at 17.20 EDT
Key events
Responding to backlash over taxpayer-funded, pro-Trump ads, Donald Trump says he will “pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”, a political action committee.
In a social media post, Trump characterized the ads as “a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” and called them “a rather standard thing to do”.
Last week, two congressional Democrats asked federal watchdogs to investigate whether the Trump administration illegally used taxpayer money to air television
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, and George Whitesides wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the office of special counsel (OSC) on Wednesday, describing the commercials as “desperate pre-election propaganda”.
A coalition of Democratic attorneys general for 16 states announced a lawsuit today against health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, over changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The lawsuit addresses changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made in January, when it stopped recommending seven vaccines for children, including ones that protect against hepatitis B, influenza, RSV and meningitis.
The lawsuit also challenges Kennedy’s decision to fire all voting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
“For decades, these vaccines have kept millions of children out of the hospital and saved countless lives,” said New York attorney general Letitia James. “Families deserve guidance grounded in science, and these abrupt changes put children’s health at risk.”
The coalition includes attorneys for the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
Pennsylvania is currently experiencing the largest measles outbreak in more than three decades, with more than 1,000 cases reported.
Updated at 18.39 EDT
Facing record low approval ratings, Donald Trump says he will pay all adult US citizens if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
In a social media post, the president wrote: “If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2026 Midterm Elections, I’m going to give all Adult Citizens in the United States of America, $5,000. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to signing those checks!”
New polling from the New York Times/Siena college shows four key Democratic gubernatorial candidates leading in their respective races against Republicans in key red states that have become more competitive in recent weeks. The races are in Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Alaska.
A new Reuters poll also shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%.
Dennis Hastert, the longest-running Republic speaker of the House of Representatives, has died. He was 84.
Hastert, who served as speaker from 1999 to 2007, later served time in federal prison related to allegations that he molested high school athletes while working as a teacher and wrestling coach before his time in Congress.
Here’s our full report:
The FBI has arrested a California real estate agent at Los Angeles International Airport, accusing her of surveiling the president of Taiwan’s family on behalf of the Chinese government.
Federal prosecutors allege that Wanying Zhang, a 34-year-old real estate agent from Irvine, surveiled the house of Taiwan’s president’s son, Ting-Yu Lai. Zhang allegedly sent photos, videos and license plate information to a Chinese government official. She has been charged with working for China as an unregistered agent.
The news comes amid ongoing probes into foreign influence in the United States. A California court will hold a sentencing hearing tomorrow for a California mayor who has pleaded guilty to working as an agent for China.
Earlier today, the justice department announced that it has filed denaturalization actions against 40 individuals accused of offenses ranging from acting as an agent for a foreign government to committing voluntary manslaughter.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a disaster emergency over an ongoing measles outbreak.
“No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Hochul said. “That is why I have taken steps to increase the number of health professionals who can vaccinate and test. These emergency measures will protect New Yorkers and support our community partners as they work tirelessly to address the spread of this disease.”
According to the state’s measles dashboard, there have been 108 cases in the state this year, with 101 of those reported outside New York City.
Neighboring Pennsylvania is reporting the largest measles outbreak in the nation, with more than 1,000 cases this year.
Republican senator Thom Tillis said voting to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary was the “biggest regret of my career” and added that he “should’ve stopped” Robert F Kennedy Jr. from becoming health secretary.
The remarks come in Tillis’s new book, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” set to publish tomorrow.
“I know for a fact that there are others like me,” Tillis writes, “Republicans who agreed to go along with the early demands of the Trump team no matter how ridiculous they were, believing that failing to do so would mean the end of their political career, and who now see that things have gone way too far.”
The retiring senator from North Carolina adds that he can count at least 30 Republican colleagues who have “expressed reservations (to put it mildly) about many of the president’s actions in private.”
Donald Trump says the United States is monitoring the situation at a Russian plague institute, where an employee has died of pneumonia.
Plague outbreaks continue to occur worldwide, with most cases localized to Africa, Asia and South America. An average of seven plague cases occur every year in the western United States, predominantly in Arizona and New Mexico.
“We’ll help,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we’re always willing to help.”
He also appeared to confuse pneumonia caused by the plague, and pneumonia caused by other viruses, bacteria and germs. “Years ago you could beat pneumonia easier. The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately,” he said.
Updated at 16.53 EDT
Trump claims he’s ‘doing great’ as his approval rating sinks to record low 32%
Before boarding a flight to Nebraska, Donald Trump answered more questions from reporters, speaking about his polling numbers and efforts to remove bombers from a UK airbase.
“I’m doing great,” Trump told a reporter, who’d asked about recent polls showing the president losing support among Latino voters. “You’re CNN, you’re fake news.”
According to a NBC News/Telemundo poll release Sunday, 59% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number that supported the party two years ago.
A new Reuters poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. According to that poll, just 24% of Hispanic Americans approve of Trump’s performance .
Speaking about work to move US bombers off a UK airbase, Trump said: “There was some threats and rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy, but why should we leave them there.”
Responding to a question about whether there was a risk that Iran had brought combat drones into the UK, Trump said: “I can’t tell you that, but if they did they’ll suffer greatly.”
Updated at 17.20 EDT
Speaking to reporters ahead of leaving for his rally in Nebraska, Donald Trump slammed the recent news that election officials in Maricopa county – Arizona’s largest – accidentally sent out more than 3,000 ballots five days ahead of the 7 October mailing date.
“Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county,” Trump said, despite the fact that the area’s recorder – Justin Heap – is a former Republican lawmaker who has repeatedly undermined the integrity of the voting system in Arizona. He defeated Stephen Richer, the GOP incumbent in 2024, who defended his county’s process and routinely pushed back on claims of rampant voter fraud.
In response to the latest news, Heap said that the ballots that were issued early remain valid and do not need to be voided or reissued as the error affected only the timing of the mailing. “The correct ballots were mailed to the correct voters,” Heap said in a statement.
Trump, who has routinely and baselessly undermined mail-in voting – and even signed an executive order to try to curb it last year – still defended his decision to tell Americans to cast their ballot via mail. A reminder that the president has voted by mail on several occasions.
“I’d rather have a vote in person, but they can vote by mail if they want, because we seem to have no choice,” he said, before claiming – again without evidence – that there is “a lot of cheating in vote by mail”.
Updated at 16.27 EDT
Here’s a recap of the day so far
Politico has been barred from traveling on Air Force One for Donald Trump’s trip to Nebraska, according to a report by CNN. This comes after the administration previously stopped CNN from similarly traveling with the president, despite a federal judge putting a temporary block on Trump’s overall ban on Politico, CNN and MS Now from the White House. According to CNN, Politico was set to serve as the out-of-town print pool today – the newsroom tasked with covering the president’s movements that feeds to the wider US/global press. However, a Politico spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the outlet had been excluded from traveling with Trump.
Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down as White House press secretary in August, is joining Fox News as an on-air contributor, according to an announcement from the network. Leavitt, 29, the youngest press secretary in White House history, left the administration after the birth of her second child earlier this year. Suzanne Scott, Fox News’s CEO, said in a statement that Leavitt’s “firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape”. Scott said Leavitt would begin providing on-air analysis on 1 November, ahead of the midterm elections.
Earlier today, the supreme court heard the first arguments of its 2026-27 term, in a case that focuses on whether states can sue oil companies for the impact of climate change on their communities. The lawsuit was filed by local officials in Boulder, Colorado, against Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil. The energy companies argue that only federal law can be used to address this issue. Boulder is one of dozens of local governments that have filed lawsuits against energy companies that demands compensation for past and future harms to the environment. Notably, only eight of the court’s nine justices will hear today’s arguments, after Samuel Alito recused himself from the case after facing calls to step aside due to stock holdings in oil companies.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said there was no direct link between the sudden removal of US bombers from a UK airbase and a suspected Iranian plot at the site last week. “I wouldn’t just directly tie that to the move that was made,” Rubio told reporters, when asked about the B1 bombers. “The Department of War is constantly reallocating resources where they need to be,“ Rubio added, noting that the US has confidence in the security of all its bases.
Updated at 16.03 EDT
Trump attacks media and defends crowd size at his events ahead of Nebraska rally
Ahead of traveling to Nebraska to rally today, Donald Trump took aim at the New York Times’ reporting which highlighted that the president’s recent rally on Saturday was not full, and certain sections of Butler high school gymnasium in Vandalia, Ohio, were “completely empty”.
Trump – who has routinely blasted the press for commenting on the size of crowds at his events – claimed that in Ohio “thousands of people were unable to get in”.
“I never have empty seats – Never have, and never will! Because of their dishonesty, I have cinematographers shooting the various Arenas where I speak,” he wrote on Truth Social. “The Rallies are “HOTTER” than ever. They are all “happenings,” and they never happened before, and will never be duplicated again. The Networks refuse, however, under any circumstances, to show the Crowds, but you can hear the thunderous applause, and know that it represents thousands and thousands of people.”
Updated at 17.21 EDT