During a CBS News town hall, a man whose wife was among the first American service members to die in the U.S.-Iran war pressed Vice President JD Vance on whether the Trump administration will hold people accountable for "mistakes" and "fundamental failures."

Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve from Minnesota, was one of six people killed in an Iranian drone attack on an outpost in Kuwait on March 1 — one day after the U.S. began striking Iran. It remains the deadliest attack on U.S. forces during the Iran war.

Since then, the families of people impacted by the attack have raised questions about whether the U.S. military did enough to protect Americans stationed at Kuwait's Port of Shuaiba. CBS News has reported on concerns that the facility wasn't adequately fortified and lacked capabilities to shoot down incoming drones, and that the Army chose not to rebase troops further from Iran and ignored a request to bulk up medical support.

Nicole Amor's husband, Joey Amor, asked the vice president about the attack during a "Things That Matter" town hall hosted by "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil, which aired Saturday evening.

"Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that," Amor said, adding that "my wife has told me things before she passed."

He continued: "There's a failure in the leadership. And I want to know how this administration is gonna start holding those leaders accountable for the actions and the deaths of the soldiers that we honor and that we love."

Vance responded by calling Nicole Amor "a precious human being who served her country honorably," and said, "I want to know about" any failures that may have taken place.

"Because if there were failures, and I don't doubt there were, I just … literally the first time I've heard of this is this conversation, and I want to fix that stuff. I do not want this stuff to happen," Vance told Amor, later adding that as vice president, "you live in a bit of a bubble" and "sometimes information doesn't filter up to me."

Vance promised to "figure out what exactly happened and what exactly we can do better."

The vice president said some changes are already in the works.

He noted that cheap, easy-to-manufacture drones have transformed warfare, and "we have changed a lot of our tactics to try to suppress that drone fire, to try to protect our troops to make it so that more people don't have to pay the ultimate sacrifice."

Vance also acknowledged, "There are issues with … where troops were located that we realized was a huge mistake, and that we could do better on. And we have changed that."

"Now, I'm not gonna get into the details, because God forbid, I don't want the Iranians to learn something else [that] they're gonna use to target somebody else's wife or somebody else's mother," Vance said. "But man, I promise you, this is not something I'm gonna forget. And I want to talk to those soldiers, and I want to talk to you to better understand what we can do."

The United States wants Israel to do more to deter attacks committed by settlers in the West Bank, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sald on Saturday.

"We're very disturbed by those images and what we're seeing," Rubio sald. "We've asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff."

His comments to reporters came after the widespread dissemination of video showing multiple individuals attacking Heidi Levine, an American photojournalist with the Washington Post. Levine was one of at least two people injured in the Friday Incident, which took place as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian civilians.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemned the beating of a Washington Post journalist while working in the West Bank and demanded a “full investigation, arrest and prosecution” of the attackers.

Heidi Levine, a US citizen, was attacked Friday morning by Israeli settlers, according to Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray. In a separate incident Saturday, a group of diplomats was attacked by settlers in the West Bank, according to several European governments.

“Attacking a female photographer is despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards,” Huckabee said in a social media post Saturday. “Dishonorable act of senseless violence.”

Israel has put out mixed messages on the incidents. The Israel Defense Forces called the violence intolerable and said the attacks would be investigated but noted that the diplomats’ visit wasn’t coordinated with security officials. Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Levine to apologize for the attack and urged a probe, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the circumstances remain unclear and require more evidence.

Settler violence has been on the rise recently in the West Bank. The UK, France, Canada and others announced measures last month imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements, which the US said it wasn’t going to join. In August, settlers besieged the home of an American citizen in the West Bank.

In Saturday’s incident, a group of European diplomats were attacked and preliminary evidence indicated that Israeli settlers were responsible, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a social media post. The Polish diplomats inside the diplomatic convoy were unharmed and there was no indication they were specifically targeted, the ministry added.

The mayor of a French town was also assaulted “by extremist settlers” in Saturday’s attack, according to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who said Israeli authorities needed to stop these acts of violence.

Netanyahu’s office cautioned against assigning responsibility before the investigation is complete, saying available footage does not establish the full sequence of events. It also stressed the lack of prior coordination with the IDF and warned against using the incident to broadly condemn Jewish residents of the West Bank.

“We expect the Israeli authorities to provide urgent and detailed explanations, identify those responsible and ensure that they are held accountable,” Poland’s foreign affairs ministry said. “We also expect effective measures to be taken to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”

White House Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is facing the very real possibility of having her citizenship stripped.

Homan joined The Big Weekend Show on Saturday to talk about the probe into Omar, after federal agents raided her Washington, D.C. home earlier this week.

The progressive lawmaker is being investigated over claims she and her dad lied about her birth year on her immigration papers in order to obtain citizenship when her family ditched Somalia in the 1990s, according to Fox News. Homan said the feds have a “strong case” and he didn’t want to spill too many details on air — but he believed she could be given a one-way ticket outta the USA at some point.

“She’ll be held to the same standards you and I are held: if she violated the law, then she should be held accountable,” he told the show.

Co-host Tomi Lahren followed up and asked, “Would this involve denaturalizing and then deporting her, if it does turns out there is some kind of immigration fraud?”

“Of course,” Homan answered. “If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before, it’s a long, tedious process, but it’s been done before. I’ve been involved with those investigations before, and certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen.”

His answer comes three days after The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday:

The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father, some of the people familiar with the probe said. Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995.

Omar has denied any wrongdoing. Following the raid, she posted on X it was clearly an attempt by President Donald Trump to “target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” she added. “I will not be silenced.”

Trump and Omar have bashed each other plenty of times over the years, including the president saying last year he did not want more Somalis like Omar moving to the States.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said. “Some will say that is not ‘politically correct.’” I don’t care. Their country is no good for a reason.”

Federal agents collected garbage in hopes of obtaining the DNA of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and her family before this week’s raid at her Washington, D.C. home, sources told NewsNation.

Investigators historically have used secretive “dumpster diving” to obtain DNA when search warrants were not possible or would have tipped off investigatory targets. It is legally permissible for law enforcement to collect trash that has been discarded for pickup and comb through it for genetic material.

Multiple sources familiar with the probe tell NewsNation that potential DNA evidence is critical to the investigation into Omar. They say the case is broader than the public may assume based on longstanding accusations surrounding her immigration history or marital status.

The investigation encompasses family members of the congresswoman, with evidence expected to go before a grand jury, sources said. Relatives of the lawmaker have been named in some of the subpoenas issued by federal prosecutors, NewsNation reported.

Federal agents seized Omar’s phone during a widely publicized search Monday at her Washington residence. NewsNation has learned that more than a dozen raids actually occurred simultaneously.

The case is being coordinated within the Minneapolis office of Homeland Security Investigations, suggesting it may be related to public benefits fraud committed by some members of the Somali immigrant community in the region.

The 44-year-old Omar, who seeks a fifth term in Congress, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a child in 1995. She was naturalized in 2000.

She originally was investigated by the Department of Justice under former President Biden before the case was closed. Parts of that investigation were reopened and expanded under the administration of President Trump.

Omar, a frequent political foil for Trump, said she believes the DOJ has been weaponized against her. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Real America’s Voice Friday its case into the lawmaker is “about enforcing our nation’s laws.”

Early in September, President Trump gathered Republicans running in competitive races for a dinner in the White House Rose Garden. Prime aged beef burgers were on the menu as the president made a pledge to spend the final month before the midterms campaigning for the approximately 30 Republican candidates in attendance.

"I'm going to go to every one of those 35 places and we're going to see if we can get everyone elected," Trump said confidently.

The White House hasn't clarified which 35 places the president was talking about that night. Since then, Trump has campaigned with fewer than a third of those candidates. Rather than focus on swing states and swing districts as the president said he would, his travel schedule has taken him to a lot of Republican territory.

Trump's itinerary is both a reflection of where he can help (and where he can't) but also of a shifting landscape where even red state Republicans need a boost.

On the tarmac between rally stops in Arizona and Montana this week, Trump attempted to spin his visits to states he won decisively just two years ago as a matter of gratitude.

"So, I do it to thank them," Trump said. "I also do it because we have some great people there that are running and I want to make sure they win."

He went on to bemoan the drop in Republican turnout in years when he isn't on the ballot, something Trump and his team are trying to counteract with an October campaign rally blitz that has taken him to Ohio (twice), Texas (twice), Oklahoma and even Tennessee.

"What the hell am I doing in Tennessee?" Trump mused from stage to wild cheers.

Earlier this week, the president took an eight hour flight to Alaska to campaign for Republicans, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich, both of whom face races that are too close for comfort in a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024.

"This is worth the 8 hours in a plane," Trump said to an adoring crowd. "And don't forget I've got 8 hours going back. Give me credit for that."

In fact, he made two more stops on the way back and spent the night at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

The Republican National Committee has announced he'll be campaigning in Kansas Monday, which has a toss-up U.S. Senate race, something few would have anticipated even a month ago.

Republicans are on defense in a lot of states where they've traditionally won without much trouble. Trump's team is picking locations where he can activate the Republican base in places where he's done well in the past.

"Just a lot of excitement, a lot of momentum building up on the ground here," said RNC Chairman Joe Gruters in a call with NPR from a Trump rally in Arizona. "It's turnout, turnout, turnout. How do you get the base to show up? You put the president on the ballot. You put him out there."

Trump frequently implores his supporters to vote as if he were on the ballot. It's a novel political strategy that runs counter to the norm for unpopular presidents whose parties face significant midterm headwinds. Trump claims the polls are wrong about his underwater approval rating.

As for Trump's message, it doesn't change much from stop to stop. There are the greatest hits: his past election wins, his One Big Beautiful Bill, and a walk down memory lane from right before he launched the war with Iran when gas prices were cheaper. He teases a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans win the House and the Senate, an idea he first rolled out at the unconventional Republican midterm convention, but has faced resistance from elected Republicans. On most stops he talks about a specific project or deal he has planned for the state.

On Tuesday, Trump is set to campaign in Greenville, North Carolina. Republican campaign committees have already started canceling ad reservations meant to help Trump's handpicked Republican Senate candidate there, Michael Whatley. It's a sign they see that race as moving out of reach.

There's also a congressional district in Eastern North Carolina that was redrawn to favor Republicans as part of Trump's mid-decade redistricting push. It shouldn't be competitive, but it's now rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report.

"I think it's going to backfire on them this year in every way shape and form," said Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. "He's trying to drum up any amount of support that he can at the last minute. But I don't think that North Carolinians are going to fall for it again."

President Donald Trump said in a brief phone interview Saturday that his White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, will remain in the job and cited his administration’s success as a reason.

“She’ll be there until the end,” the president told NBC News, as he flew to Kentucky for a midterm campaign rally. “She’s done a great job.”

Wiles is the president’s longest-serving chief of staff and the first woman ever to hold the position. Speculation has been swirling recently that Trump might be considering a replacement.

He batted that down and denied he is “unhappy” with Wiles.

“Just the opposite,” he said. “Look, we’ve got maybe the most successful first two years in the history of the presidency.”

Trump’s comments follow his affirmation Friday that he wants Wiles to stay put. He told reporters there was “zero chance” that he will replace Wiles, who has worked on all three of his presidential campaigns.

The week has been a turbulent one for the White House, which is hoping to stave off losses in the upcoming midterm elections. On Friday, the president ousted his newly minted press secretary, Katie Zacharia, amid a shaky inaugural press briefing and reports that she billed herself as a lawyer even though she failed the bar exam.

Trump’s approval rating has tumbled ahead of the midterms, and he has been crisscrossing the country in hopes of rallying his base and preserving Republicans’ thin majority in the House and Senate.

He sounded an upbeat note about the GOP’s prospects as he spoke from Air Force One.

His rallies, he said, are “having a huge impact on the election. Everything is turning, it’s amazing. We have a big crowd today.”

Wiles is the president’s fifth chief of staff, counting his first term. Trump has affectionately called the 69-year-old Wiles the “ice maiden.” She comes from sports royalty: Her father was Pat Summerall, the famed NFL television announcer.

Her job is among the most exhausting and demanding in government. In March, Wiles announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After treatments, she said last month she was cancer-free.

Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about White House chiefs of staff, said that he is not surprised that Trump is retaining Wiles.

“Even as the wheels are coming off on the Trump White House, I think that Trump needs her!” Whipple said in an interview. “She has a kind of magic hold over Trump.”

Whipple, who interviewed Wiles for a profile in Vanity Fair magazine last year, said, “Susie has run the West Wing effectively and certainly better than any of her predecessors. That’s true because she’s a good manager and because when she speaks, everyone understands that she’s speaking for Trump.”

Yet he said that Wiles remains a “disappointment,” contending she hasn’t told Trump hard truths that he may not want to hear.

Wiles was remarkably candid in her interview with Whipple. At one point, she described Trump as having an “alcoholic’s personality,” even though he doesn’t drink. She drew a comparison to her late father, who she said suffered from alcoholism. She described herself as a “little bit of an expert in big personalities,” adding that Trump “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

After the article was published, Wiles dismissed it as a “disingenuously framed hit piece.”

The chief of staff job “has always been mission impossible” in the Trump presidential years, Whipple said. “It was for Trump’s first four chiefs during Trump 1.0. With Susie Wiles, I always thought there was the possibility that she could make a difference and in my view she has not.”

Federal safety regulators said Friday they were investigating a California crash in which authorities say a Tesla driver injured two highway patrol officers after falling asleep with driver-assistance software engaged.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in an email to NBC News that it was aware of the crash and had contacted Tesla and the California Highway Patrol to obtain additional information about it.

According to the patrol, the crash happened Tuesday night on Interstate 80 in Fairfield, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco.

The patrol said its officers were stopped on the highway investigating an earlier crash when a 22-year-old Sacramento man drove his Tesla through a set of warning flares and cones and into a patrol vehicle with two officers inside.

The Tesla driver told investigators that he was using driver-assistance software and had fallen asleep at the wheel, according to the patrol, which also released several videos of the crash. The two officers were treated for injuries at a hospital and released, the patrol said.

An NBC News investigation in August found a growing pattern of Tesla drivers falling asleep, sometimes intentionally, while relying on driver-assistance software to control their car for them, according to police reports, videos posted online and interviews with drivers. Authorities say the practice violates state laws in California and elsewhere requiring drivers to pay attention, and it runs contrary to Tesla’s owners’ manuals, which tell drivers to supervise its semi-autonomous software at all times.

Falling asleep in a Tesla is not supposed to be technically possible, according to the company. The cars have in-cabin cameras that monitor eye and head movements, and the vehicles are supposed to alert drivers if they detect inattentiveness. But some Tesla drivers said in interviews with NBC News that the driver-attention system is flawed — and sometimes fooled by sunglasses.

A spokesperson for the California Highway Patrol said Friday that its investigation remained active. The spokesperson declined to comment on whethercriminal charges would be filed. The patrol has not released the name of the Tesla driver.

“Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles,” the patrol said in a video message Thursday.

Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the crash.

A spokesperson for the Solano County district attorney, whose jurisdiction includes the crash site, said the office had not yet received a report on the crash.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles declined to comment on the crash, citing ongoing litigation. The department has previously said that Tesla’s description of its software, with terms such as “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving,” is misleading. Tesla has sued over the decision, calling it baseless.

NHTSA has previously investigated Tesla over its failure to ensure that drivers pay attention. In 2024, NHTSA found that Tesla’s Autopilot software “invited greater driver confidence” than its “true capabilities” warranted, creating a “critical safety gap” in which drivers failed to pay attention. It said at the time that Autopilot had “played an apparent role” in at least 467 collisions and 14 fatalities.

Despite those crashes, Musk has asserted that Tesla vehicles “can drive themselves.”

In August, NHTSA said that Tesla vehicles require a fully attentive driver.

“The human behind the wheel is fully responsible for driving the vehicle and complying with all traffic safety laws. Deliberately bypassing safety controls is irresponsible, and sleeping behind the wheel is illegal and puts everyone’s lives at risk,” the agency said in a statement at the time.

NHTSA has an open investigation into alleged failures with Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” software, including how it handles low visibility. A House Democrat last month called on regulators to also investigate drivers intentionally falling asleep at the wheel.

Katie Zacharia took just three questions from the media in her five-day stint as Donald Trump’s press secretary. But her abrupt defenestration on Friday provided one final service to the president and his administration: temporarily deflecting attention from a string of other White House mis-steps.

In the past few days — time which was meant to be devoted to shoring up struggling Republicans on the midterms campaign trail — the president has been forced to fire his envoy to Greece amid allegations of graft, stop his defence secretary from livestreaming an execution by firing squad and rubbish claims that chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose daughter the FT revealed worked for lobbyists engaged by a pro-Russian Balkan entity, would be next to depart.

Beyond Washington, Trump’s party has been forced to funnel funds to candidates in traditional strongholds such as Florida and Nebraska, as polls continue to predict Republicans will be wiped out in the House and possibly lose their majority in the Senate next month.

In Kansas, where Democrats have not won a Senate race since 1932, Republicans increased ad spending from $5mn to $21mn to help an incumbent retain his seat while reducing spending in the swing state of North Carolina.

In a bid to bolster their prospects, Republican candidates have been openly breaking with the president on issues such as tariffs.

“What are you supposed to do?” one Republican pollster said. “You’ve got a president that has 38 per cent approval ratings. People, when you ask them why they disapprove of the president, they say tariffs, the Iran war, gas prices and corruption . . . I don’t know [that] people feel that this economy is working for them.”

Meanwhile, the architects of Trump’s midterms strategy, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, temporarily left the US to advise the pro-Russian Republika Srpska government in the Balkans, with the US president threatening to “terminate” them if he uncovers conflicts of interest.

Maga Inc, the group with which LaCivita and Blair now work, did not respond to a request for comment on their roles.

While the US president was dismissing Zacharia on Friday following her shaky appearances on Fox News, the price of oil touched $110 a barrel for the first time since May on worries about a further flare-up in the Middle East.

European leaders also expressed frustration with Trump for cutting a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on diesel reserves and for failing to stop the temporary slowdown of Starlink satellite connections in Ukraine.

Two people close to the administration said the White House was even more brittle than it appeared from the outside and predicted a wave of further employee departures following the midterms.

Trump denied Wiles, who has just recovered from cancer, would be one of them, saying on Friday that there was “zero chance” of her leaving the administration.

But opponents of Wiles are already talking up Trump’s deputy chief of staff and immigration hawk Stephen Miller as a potential replacement, as well as Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who has used his position to accuse many Trump enemies of mortgage fraud. Pulte denied on Saturday that he was seeking Wiles’s job.

“Trump won because of immigration . . . Miller’s the guy who actually figured out how to implement it,” Greg Bovino, Trump’s former border patrol tsar, said on X. 

“If that’s the issue that got the votes, it makes sense to put the person who built the plan in charge of running the building,” he added. “If someone’s not going to help get mass deportations moving, they probably shouldn’t be in the way.”

In a statement, the White House said “no one is distracted by FAKE NEWS”.

“This team is strong, united, and focused on . . . winning the midterms. The anonymous ‘sources’ peddling this nonsense are self-serving opportunists focused on themselves. We’re focused on the President and the American people,” a spokesperson added.

Other Trump allies were more sweeping in their criticism. Conservative commentator Todd Starnes rebuked White House staff on Friday, alleging many were focused on self-promotion and not on protecting the president.

“If you are not up for the job, resign. If you are using the White House as a stepping stone to Fox News, resign. If you are using the White House to pay off credit card debt, resign. If you are using the White House to grift for your non-profit ministry, resign,” he wrote in a post on X.

Matt Walsh, a rightwing podcast host, reserved his ire for the administration’s handling of the planned execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. 

“This kind of sloppiness is inexcusable,” he wrote. “You need to go into something like this very thoughtfully . . . instead we get a casual announcement of a public execution and then a casual retraction on social media.”

Late on Friday evening, in an appearance at a Republican fundraiser, Trump predicted that his tax cuts and military interventions in Venezuela and Iran would ultimately help his party over the line on November 3.

“Presidents rarely, Democrat or Republican, rarely, rarely win the midterms,” he told assembled donors at his Mar-a-Lago home. But, he added: “The administration’s been amazing. We’ve saved our country.”

A key element in the Trump administration’s broad plan for securing peace in Ukraine is a proposal that would turn years of American energy policy upside-down.

Europe, the U.S. pitch goes, should resume buying more Russian gas — a move that would be an economic boon for Moscow and give it renewed influence in the region.

President Trump’s peace envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have brought up the idea in talks with Ukrainian and European officials, including with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last month, according to people familiar with the talks. To help entice Russia to end the war in Ukraine, the Americans have argued, Ukraine should consider restarting pipelines that used to carry Russian natural gas to Europe.

European officials in the talks have recoiled at the idea, which would undo the European Union’s years of efforts, backed by Washington, to rid itself of Russian gas. But Trump officials see Russian gas exports as a potential part of a peace settlement, given the revenues that would flow to Ukraine and what they see as the inevitable desire for cheaper energy by European voters, the people said, discussing sensitive diplomacy on the condition of anonymity.

The disconnect underscores the unusual — and, critics say, fatally flawed — nature of Mr. Trump’s renewed diplomatic effort to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rather than pressure President Vladimir V. Putin or try to strengthen Ukraine’s war effort, the administration has spent significant time exploring economic incentives for Russia and raising them in talks with Europe and Ukraine.

U.S. and Russian officials have been talking about potential business deals since last year, but their prospect has not appeared to do anything to get Mr. Putin to budge from his core demands. And given how much European and Ukrainian leaders oppose returning to a reliance on Russian gas, the proposal may end up further complicating the Trump administration’s efforts to end the war.

In a statement, the White House said that the war was “driving up energy prices across Europe and creating significant economic hardship in both Russia and Ukraine.”

“The United States has been working closely with Ukraine and our European partners on a comprehensive peace proposal that includes economic incentives for both Russia and Ukraine as part of a final settlement,” the statement said. “Our objective is not simply to end the fighting, but to create the conditions for lasting peace, economic recovery and greater stability across the region.”

Mr. Trump on Friday exempted Russia from new sanctions passed by Congress, a week after lifting sanctions on Russian diesel, his most significant steps yet in easing economic pressure on Russia. Mr. Putin’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, described the diesel deal as just the beginning of what could result from his talks with Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff.

“I think we will be announcing some important initiatives in the near future,” Mr. Dmitriev said at an energy conference in Moscow on Friday. “The ice has finally broken, after all.”

Mr. Dmitriev said Russia and the United States were discussing a wide range of projects, including data centers running on Russian nuclear power. The sale of the international assets of the Russian energy giant Lukoil to an investor group that includes the U.S. government is also part of the talks, The New York Times reported this month.

But the proposal to bring back Russian gas exports to Europe, which Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff see as a potential part of a final peace package, may be the most audacious and divisive part of the plan. For American companies, it could reduce demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas in Europe. For European governments, it could boost populist politicians already urging an end to aid to Ukraine and a renewal of ties with Russia.

“We want natural gas and crude oil from Russia to relieve German consumers and German businesses,” Alice Weidel, a leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, said in Parliament in Berlin this week. As Washington and Moscow negotiated deals “to their mutual advantage,” she said, sanctions on Russia were “ruining our own economy.”

Mr. Zelensky, who has attacked Mr. Trump in recent days for pulling back support for Ukraine and doing deals with Mr. Putin, alluded to the negotiations in an interview with The Financial Times this week.

“The question will be when will the next deal be?” Mr. Zelensky said. “Maybe it will be gas. Definitely it will be gas.”

Ukraine stopped transporting Russian gas in January 2025, losing around $1 billion in annual transit fees. The European Union has pledged to end all Russian gas imports by next year. Last year, 13 percent of the E.U.’s gas imports came from Russia, compared to 45 percent in 2021.

But as the White House has grasped for new ideas to end the war in Ukraine, and as Mr. Trump frets over high energy prices ahead of the midterm elections, the administration has been increasingly considering deals that would ease Russia’s ability to export its fossil fuels.

Enabling Russia to restart gas exports to Europe, the people involved said, is a longer-term plan being discussed by Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff. The envoys see such exports as among the economic incentives in a broader settlement that would involve negotiations over the future Russia-NATO relationship, security guarantees for Ukraine and an agreement over territorial control.

Some European and Ukrainian officials expect the United States to seek a stake in Russian gas exports, giving American companies or the government a cut of the profits, according to people familiar with the talks.

An American investor, Stephen P. Lynch, has sought to buy a sabotaged Russian undersea gas pipeline to Germany, Nord Stream 2, starting in the Biden administration. U.S. control of the pipeline, he argued, would benefit American interests and European security when, sooner or later, Russian gas flows through it are restored.

Mr. Lynch said he was not currently part of any Nord Stream negotiations and did not have a Treasury Department license to be involved. But Nord Stream has also come up in the discussions between the United States and Russia, people familiar with the talks said. Reuters reported this month that U.S. and Russian officials had discussed bringing a U.S. investor into Nord Stream.

The White House, in its statement, said that Nord Stream had not been “a subject of recent discussions.” It added that “any arrangement involving it would require close coordination with our European partners as part of a comprehensive peace agreement.”

One of the people familiar with the talks said the Trump administration sees restarting the undersea pipeline as “low-hanging fruit” in the event of a peace deal. European officials may have forsworn Russian gas publicly, the person said, but European voters, like American voters, will eventually want cheaper energy.

It is an echo of the Kremlin’s position. Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said in a voice message in response to questions about the gas talks: “Resuming energy cooperation in whatever form is in our interest, but right now, it may even more be in the interest of the Europeans themselves.”

The German government has been at the forefront of pushing back against restarting Russian gas pipelines, even though Germany had been the biggest buyer of Russian gas before Mr. Putin’s 2022 invasion. When the idea came up again in Ukraine talks hosted by Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner in Florida last week, Günter Sautter, the top security adviser to Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, was particularly forceful in his opposition, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

A European official familiar with the Germans’ stance said this week that the German government views Russian gas sold through an intermediary as indistinguishable from gas straight from Russia — and thus, off-limits as part of peace negotiations.

Germany’s energy costs have soared since 2022, and current and former German officials acknowledge that buying Russian gas again would bring those prices down. But they say doing so would cost Germany and Europe dearly in security terms, including by making it vulnerable to a future gas cutoff by Moscow.

“Europe, and especially Germany, should never again be dependent on Russian gas,” Robert Habeck, who was the German economy minister when the war began and managed the transition off Russian gas, said in an interview. “Because we have seen how unreliable Russia was.”

But German leaders are under pressure at home over the war — and over gas imports in particular. The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which leads national polls with close to 30 percent support, has pitched a renewal of Russian gas imports as a way to fight inflation and boost the German economy.

In the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD this month elected the first far-right speaker in a German statehouse since 1945, lawmakers passed a largely symbolic measure this week that calls on the federal government to end sanctions against Russia and cease military aid to Ukraine. AfD representatives voted for the bill, along with lawmakers from a Russia-friendly party founded by a former leftist, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.

European leaders are increasingly worried about the similar messages coming from their countries’ populist parties, Mr. Trump and the Kremlin. Mr. Merz and other European leaders have publicly criticized Mr. Trump’s lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel, saying the move broke the West’s economic pressure campaign against Moscow.

Mr. Habeck, the former economy minister, said it was possible Germany could live with the resumption of a relatively small amount of gas imports from Russia. But he said that it was crucial for Europe to own and operate its own energy infrastructure in the years to come, and that it would not matter — in security terms — if an American intermediary transported Russian gas.

“In the old days, I would be glad if an American company would be part of the ownership,” Mr. Habeck said. “Now I’m afraid, because we see that Trump seems to have more sympathies with Vladimir Putin than he has with the Ukrainians.”

The White House investigation into a dispute between two prominent Trump supporters, Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon, centers on a bank transfer from the Democratic Republic of Congo to a Texas defense company, people familiar with the matter said.

Mrs. Mildon, a former personal lawyer for President Trump, stormed into the Oval Office last week accusing Mr. Grenell of siphoning millions of dollars from a business transaction in 2025 organized by a Turkish investor who later became her husband. Part of the money, she claimed, was meant to be set aside for a donation to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts but was never delivered to the institution. Mr. Grenell ran the Kennedy Center at the time.

Mr. Grenell previously denied all accusations, calling them absurd. He declined further comment. Mr. and Mrs. Mildon didn’t respond to requests for comment. The White House also did not respond.

The dispute and resulting investigation have unfolded at a time of internal turmoil for the Trump administration, with the dramatic exit of his new press secretary and officials with ties to the president.

Mrs. Mildon and Mr. Grenell had once been close friends but have fallen out in recent months over Mr. Mildon’s business dealings. Their feud became public in recent days, after The New York Times began to inquire about Mr. Mildon’s business activities and his contributions to the Kennedy Center. The questions prompted Mrs. Mildon to relay her accusations directly to Mr. Trump last Friday.

Mrs. Mildon initially told White House officials that the money, $17.6 million, came from her now-husband, Turhan Mildon, whom she married last month. The initial set of documents that her husband’s lawyer submitted to the White House, however, redacted the name of the sender, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The White House later learned that the transfer was made from a bank account affiliated with the Congolese government, the people said. Mr. Mildon has previously acknowledged to The New York Times, through a spokesman, that he serves as an adviser to the Congolese president and holds a diplomatic passport of the country.

Mr. Mildon also has extensive business holdings in Venezuela and has discussed his role in that country with Mr. Grenell. At the time of the bank transfer, Mr. Grenell was serving as Mr. Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela.

The transfer was sent last May to TX-AT, a Texas security and defense firm. Mr. Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence during Mr. Trump’s first term, previously acknowledged consulting for the firm in 2024. But he said he had no connection to it at the time the transfer was made and denied any connection to the transfer.

The purpose of the underlying business deal is unclear.

TX-AT did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Mr. Mildon built deep connections with the Congolese elites and acquired major business interests in the country since arriving there as a 20-something entrepreneur in 2021. He has previously said that he has met the Congolese president, Félix Tshisekedi, at an event in Istanbul and immediately jumped on the plane to explore investment opportunities in the resource-rich African country.

His company Milvest has since won several major government construction projects, including for the Kinshasa Financial Center. Mr. Mildon has previously said that he also owns mines in Congo.

Several senior Congolese politicians attended Mr. and Mrs. Mildon’s wedding in Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York last month, as did various senior Trump administration officials. Among them was Will Scharf, the White House counsel who is leading the administration’s inquiry into the disputed payment.

The Congolese foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, the National Institutes of Health was preparing to allow health care companies to compete for a multimillion-dollar follow-on to a decade-old contract funding epidemiological studies.

A “full and open competition” was the NIH’s plan when a 10-year, $112 million contract awarded to Social & Scientific Systems Inc. in June 2016 was nearing its expiration.

The government typically prefers to solicit bids from multiple potential contractors when such a need arises so that healthy competition can keep costs down.

But the Department of Government Efficiency got in the way.

“Although planning for the recompete was underway in calendar year 2025 … Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ caused unforeseen circumstances beyond the control of the acquisition office causing significant delays to the acquisition process,” an NIH spending document obtained by The Washington Sun reads.

“Between 2025 and 2026, several delays occurred due to staffing changes, organizational transition and other internal realignments,” the document continues.

As a result, instead of the “full and open competition” the agency had hoped for, it handed Social & Scientific Systems Inc. a two-year, no-bid, $20 million extension to its current work to carry out “research on the effects of the environment on human health.”

“Unfortunately, all efforts made to recompete are out of date and need to be updated and resubmitted for reviews,” the document reads. “The current recompetition has not yet begun and requires full two years to ensure proper attention is made to the process to satisfy acquisition rules, regulations and guidelines.”

The NIH noted that if it were to switch awardees now, the “costs associated with transition are estimated at approximately $9 Million.”

The document itself received sign-offs from NIH officials in April and June when the contract was extended, but it was only posted to a government website this week.

DOGE, the brainchild of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, set out to revolutionize what the pair viewed as a woefully inefficient federal bureaucracy. Instead, DOGE’s chaotic implementation sometimes resulted in a breakdown of agency action meant to reduce taxpayer spending.

President Donald Trump was reportedly interested in former Fox News host Maria Bartiromo for the job of White House press secretary before Katie Zacharia stepped into the role for a few days.

Axios, citing two administration sources, reported that Trump wanted Bartiromo as the press secretary replacement for Karoline Leavitt, but Bartiromo “signaled she was not going to take the job.” CNN’s Scott Jennings was reportedly also “in contention” for the position, but he was not offered the gig.

Fox News Media has abruptly parted ways with longtime anchor Bartiromo in September after 12-and-a-half years, a move that shocked the media world.

“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 ½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” the network said at the time in a statement.

Like Jennings, Bartiromo is a loyal and vocal supporter of the president on the airwaves. Reports suggested Bartiromo’s exit was tied to her allegedly sharing confidential internal guidance about the network’s coverage of the president with the White House.

Bartiromo’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, did not immediately respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.

Trump posted after her exit that her fans “will not be happy.”

Zacharia was announced as the new press secretary on Oct. 9 and officially began on Oct. 12 before losing the gig on Oct. 16. During her brief time in the job, she held a disastrous press conference that lasted just 14 minutes, faced major questions about whether she ever passed the bar exam, and she was grilled by Fox News’ Sean Hannity on the air just hours before news of her being out hit headlines.

Trump said on Friday he spoke to Zacharia and suggested she “reconsider” the position amid her growing controversies. He also said he’d possibly find a way for her to stay in the administration “in a more pleasant form.”

The president told Fox News’ Peter Doocy that he is in “no rush” to name a new press secretary after Zacharia.

Zacharia took to social media on Friday evening to post a photo of herself with Trump in the Oval Office.

“President Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man,” she wrote. “I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to. It was an honor to work for him.”

Giovanna Perez loaded her four kids into the car on September 21 and drove from their home in Weslaco, Texas, to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. She had a 9:30 a.m. appointment to pick up the ID cards that would allow them to access military medical insurance, facilities, and commissary stores. Her husband, Pedro Gutierrez, had recently enlisted in the Army and left a month earlier for basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

Perez approached the military guards at the gates with some trepidation. Her parents illegally brought her across the U.S. border from Mexico when she was 6 years old. Now 35, she and Gutierrez have been together since they were 17 and have carefully kept her immigration status a secret. Gutierrez is a U.S. citizen, but marriage does not give legal status to someone who is in the country unlawfully. When the Obama administration started the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to protect immigrants like Perez who had arrived as children, she did not apply, for fear that the government might someday use the information against her family.

Perez told us that her husband believed that joining the Army would allow him to serve his country, give his family access to health care—including the costly medications his son takes—and potentially protect his wife from deportation. He had already submitted her application for a benefit called Parole in Place, which offers a path to legal residency for the close relatives of service members. Officials at Fort Benning had assured him that she would have no trouble getting IDs for herself and the children, and that it didn’t matter that she didn’t have a Social Security number, Perez told us.

At the gates of the Navy base, guards told Perez they had no record of her appointment. She remained calm as they directed her to a nearby office to get a visitor’s pass. That’s when two military officials took the family into a room for questioning. “In my head, I thought it was just protocol for the safety of the base, but it started getting weird,” Perez said. As she answered, she told us, one of the military officers appeared to be relaying her responses to someone through text messages.

Two other men entered the room. They wore khaki pants, she said, not military fatigues. The patches on their shirts said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It appeared to Perez that they’d been waiting for her, at the base or somewhere nearby. The men told Perez to report to the ICE office in Harlingen, Texas, in three days. Her older children, ages 17, 15, and 11, were confused. “My kids were just, like, What’s going on?” Perez told us. “Are they gonna detain you? Why are they doing this to us? I thought you were supposed to be safe.”

Perez didn’t know what to tell them, and she had no way to call her husband. When she went to the ICE office three days later, she was booked and issued an order to appear in immigration court. She suspected the military shared her information with ICE. And now the government was trying to deport her.

Perez’s attorney, Alex Martinez, told us he’s trying to determine whether other families have been targeted in similar ways. He suspects that the government has been using Parole in Place to gather information for immigration-enforcement purposes—the opposite of what military recruits are led to believe.

“There’s no bigger betrayal to our soldiers than to use their trust in a program, set out by our government to protect their families, and ultimately use it to destroy their families while they’re serving our country and putting their lives on the line,” Martinez told us. “You’re stabbing your own soldiers in the back.”

The Associated Press in August identified at least 50 cases in which close family of active-duty service members were arrested by ICE. What’s different about Perez’s case is that U.S. military personnel appeared to be working with ICE to identify a potential target and use a long-standing military-recruitment tool—the promise of legal status for loved ones—to facilitate an arrest.

ICE confirmed to us in a statement that Navy personnel had reported Perez to immigration officers when the family arrived at the base. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE “value the contributions of all those who serve in the U.S. military,” the statement said. “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws. Military service by an immediate relative does not automatically grant parole, lawful status, or immunity from immigration enforcement."

Perez told us the ICE officers seemed to be expecting her, told her they knew that Gutierrez had applied for Parole in Place, and asked questions about a trip her son had taken with his grandmother to Mexico years earlier.

Neither the Army nor the Office of the Secretary of Defense responded to requests for comment, but one defense official told us that there have been “varying degrees of cooperation between military installations and the Department of Homeland Security” for more than a year. The official declined to be named because he, like others we spoke with, was not authorized to talk publicly about this issue. Another official told us that DHS often made such requests to installations at a local level, but there were inconsistent degrees of cooperation. The Navy declined to comment.

Within months of President Trump’s second inauguration, military mental-health specialists began telling us that service members within their units were fearful about how the administration’s crackdown on immigrants could affect their families. They described spouses afraid to go on base while their partner was deployed, family members too scared to leave their home, and uniformed service members accompanying loved ones to immigration appointments or hearings with the hope that their presence would make immigration officials or judges pause. Such worries, the specialists said, were becoming a distraction for those serving, particularly during deployments. It was an early sign of a break in a long-standing bargain: A government that asks Americans to take extraordinary risks would not add stress that could distract service members from their missions.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth frequently touts the military’s surging recruitment numbers. Less often mentioned is the military’s success in recruiting from some of the country’s most heavily Hispanic communities, including the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where Perez and Gutierrez live. Hispanic recruits accounted for nearly 27 percent of new Army soldiers last year, up from just less than 20 percent in 2020, according to Army statistics. This population remains key to the Army meeting its recruiting standards even as service members from these communities have reported that their families have been targeted by ICE.

Military law enforcement cannot provide direct support to civilian law enforcement, under the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law that was intended to keep the military from meddling in the affairs of southern states. But to secure an installation, military police can inspect those who enter. “Anytime somebody makes an appointment on a military base, that information could get shared throughout the federal government,” Margaret D. Stock, an immigration lawyer and former Army Reserve officer who helped develop the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, told us. Under the Trump administration, those who serve, along with their families, are no more protected from immigration enforcement than those submitting their data to any other government agency. “The military is no longer immune from this,” Stock said. Some troops are asking for overseas assignments where they can live with their family members, far from ICE agents.

In April, ICE officers arrested the 22-year-old wife of a U.S. soldier when the couple moved to an Army base in Louisiana. The woman, Annie Ramos, was born in Honduras and had a previous deportation order issued in absentia when she was a toddler. Ramos was released after Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Democrat, spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on her behalf.

Bobby Pulido, a Democratic candidate in the Rio Grande Valley who is running for Congress, has cited her case as an example of ICE overreach by the Trump administration. “The scary part is they’re doubling down on it. They don’t care,” Pulido said in a video clip with Perez that his campaign posted on social media on Wednesday.

It used to be that the military was seen as a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship. Military service can qualify noncitizens for expedited naturalization, and the Pentagon has at times recruited people who were not permanent residents. More than 180,000 members of the U.S. military have become naturalized citizens since 2002, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In 2008, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon launched the MAVNI program, which allowed some immigrants who were living legally in the U.S. but were not citizens to enlist based on specialized skills considered vital, including medical expertise and foreign-language proficiency. The program expired in 2017 and was not renewed. The government established the Parole in Place benefit in 2010, allowing family members to remain in the United States and apply for legal status. Approval is discretionary and does not guarantee a green card. But the promise remains a powerful recruiting tool for the armed services in immigrant communities.

Perez said she has no criminal record and no previous deportation orders. She met her husband at a quinceañera party when they were teenagers in Laredo. Gutierrez drove commercial trucks but decided to enlist in the Army to secure health-insurance coverage for the family and college-tuition aid for their older children. Fixing Perez’s immigration status was another incentive for him, she told us.

It was in a 20-minute weekend phone call that Gutierrez learned the country he was serving had been trying to deport his wife and separate his family. Had Perez been sent to a detention center, as many immigrants are, Gutierrez would have been forced to leave basic training to care for his children—a governmental loss of not just a new service member but also roughly $50,000 in sunk training costs, according to Army estimates. Perez stays home to take care of their 2-year-old, and she told us she has no idea what would happen to her children if ICE sent her to Mexico. “I have no one,” she said. “I’m by myself.”

Her husband will graduate from basic training on November 5, and Perez and her children plan to drive to Georgia for the ceremony at Fort Benning. They were issued their military IDs, so they should be allowed onto the base. Perez told us that she’s in a discussion group with other military families who are asking a lot of questions about who will be allowed to attend the graduation. Five days after the ceremony, Perez will be due back in court in Texas.

The Trump administration told an appellate court Friday that a president could do whatever he wants with records that include the nation’s most guarded secrets — and potentially even sell them on eBay.

John Bailey, a Justice Department attorney, argued that the 1978 Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional, a conclusion the department made in April. The post-Watergate law says that all official records created or received by presidents are U.S. government property.

Judge Patricia Millett summed up the DOJ’s argument by focusing on how it would impact not just the current president, but the institution of the Executive Office of the President, which she referred to as the EOP.

“You have adopted a position that says the president, whoever it is at the time, on Jan 20th can take every record — every record within the EOP — and destroy it so that the incoming president has no information about national security threats, about planned terrorist attacks, about critical negotiations in an ongoing war, critical economic negotiations for the health of this country’s economy ... has to come in knowing nothing. You have said that is what the Constitution requires in your view,” Millett said.

Bailey replied: “Our position is that, yes, because the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional.”

He didn’t back down, even when Millett tossed out an extreme hypothetical. “Can the president then offer on eBay to sell them, all of our national security secrets, to the highest bidder? They’re his property,” she said. “Can he?”

Bailey stammered at first, but eventually replied, “The Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional would not be a bar to that —”

“Your argument is that these records are his property, correct?” Millett interrupted.

“Consistent with history and tradition, yes,” Bailey said.

“I’m not asking you the source of your argument. I’m asking you your argument. These are his property to do with as he likes, correct?”

“The president’s papers belong to the president, yes,” Bailey asserted.

The arguments came in a legal challenge brought by a watchdog group and historians who fear the wholesale destruction of records when the second Trump administration ends in just over two years.

Congress passed the PRA in the shadow of the Watergate scandal after two centuries of presidents laying claim to their official records. President Richard Nixon stepped down but later sought to assert ownership of White House tapes that documented his misconduct in office.

Trump already has a thorny relationship with the PRA, because of the way he removed classified government records from the White House upon his exit in 2021 and relocated them to his oceanside mansion of Mar-a-Lago when he was a regular citizen. He faced criminal charges related to the records until a judge, whom Trump himself appointed, dismissed the indictment during the height of Trump’s re-election campaign in 2024.

The April opinion from DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, which issues executive branch legal guidance but has no constitutional authority, reversed course on nearly 50 years of White House administrations abiding by the PRA.

The 52-page memo, signed by Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, a Trump appointee who once interned at the conservative Heritage Foundation, concluded that the law mandating public access to presidential records “serves no identifiable and valid legislative purpose.”

“It exceeds any preservation power because Congress cannot preserve presidential records merely for the sake of posterity,” the memo says.

American Oversight and the American Historical Association sued the next week. In May, U.S. District Judge John Bates temporarily blocked the Trump administration from abiding by the new DOJ legal guidance — essentially ensuring the White House continues to abide by the PRA. The administration appealed the ruling, which led to Friday’s hearing.

At the arguments, DOJ said part of the concern was an attempt to prevent the next presidential administration from exposing internal records that would embarrass Trump.

The revelation was made when the DOJ’s lawyer was arguing about why the current administration would want to control the flow of information to the next president — and the notion that Congress could try to pass a narrower version of the PRA with new restrictions.

“Your honor, if the [next] president’s ideas of his official duties is posting his predecessor’s advisers’ communications to embarrass them for political gain, we think that’s a problem,” Bailey said.

The comment drew a sarcastic response from Millett, who said: “Oh! It’s going to be a motive test! We’re going to have a motive test the afternoon of January 20th? That’s what you want: Is this for good reasons or this is to embarrass a past president? That’s the test Congress is supposed to write into the law?”

Bailey doubled down on that rationale in a later exchange with Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, who once worked as a senior attorney at the DOJ office that issued the new memo.

He stressed that “giving control to a future president” was the primary concern here. “That is the very issue,” Bailey argued. “It is that loss of control that is impairing the executive branch’s ability ... to get candid advice from advisers.”

Pillard said: “That is such a sad and such a partisan view, assuming that the separation of powers doesn’t protect the office of the presidency but only this president. And it’s just never been the case.”

In a call after the court hearing with both advocacy organizations, American Oversight Executive Deputy Director Liz Hempowicz addressed that exchange.

“I don’t think there’s anything in the Constitution about embarrassing the executive,” she said. “The government did not shy away from its concern about partisanship in decisions made in the Presidential Records Act.”

“Today’s argument really, really underscored the stakes of the litigation,” she said.

Sarah Weicksel, who leads the American Historical Association, stressed the importance of safeguarding an accurate account of the most powerful political office on the globe.

“It’s not just a question about this moment,” she said. “This is a question about what is preserved, and what we will be able to learn about ourselves and what future Americans will be able to learn about us in 10, 20, 50, 100 years.”

President Donald Trump is blaming senior aides and political operatives for a faltering midterm strategy, questioning campaign spending, faulting redistricting and second-guessing candidate choices as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress, said three people familiar with internal discussions.

Trump is not on the November 3 ballot but repeatedly tells supporters to pretend that he is, hoping to mobilize voters who might otherwise skip the election. He has embarked on a frenetic campaign schedule while largely avoiding acknowledging his own role in shaping ‌the strategy and how his unpopularity is weighing on Republican candidates in competitive races.

Much of the friction has centered on James Blair, the longtime aide who runs Trump's super PAC MAGA Inc., and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who until now had largely escaped criticism. Trump has faulted Blair's handling of campaign funds, while some White House officials and allies have questioned Wiles' oversight of the political operation.

As Trump questions why campaign spending has failed to improve Republican polling numbers, his advisers are also blaming one another. Wiles has pointed to Blair, while Blair has faulted the White House legislative affairs team, one of the people said.

"What's really happening is a circular firing squad," the person said.

Opinion polls suggest Democrats will win the House of Representatives, while the Senate remains too close to call. Losing the House would hamper Trump's legislative agenda in the final two years of his term and give Democrats subpoena power to investigate ⁠his administration.

Trump defended Wiles on Friday, calling her "smart" and "tough" and saying she would remain in her job. "Susie is here, and she's going to be here for a long time," he said.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle rejected the sources' characterization, saying they were "armchair experts peddling their baseless speculation." Wiles did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has long sought to distance himself from political setbacks. He refused to accept his defeat in the 2020 election and said ahead of the 2022 midterm results that he deserved "all the credit" if Republicans won but "should not be blamed at all" if they lost. More recently, he has reminded audiences that the president's party typically struggles in midterm elections.

But Trump helped devise and drive some of the strategies he is now questioning, including the redistricting effort and candidate choices shaped by his personal loyalties or grievances. His approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency, weighed down by voter concern over high prices and dissatisfaction with the Iran war.

Trump's frustrations with his political team spilled into public view after Blair and Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Trump's 2024 campaign, traveled in early October to Republika Srpska, a self-governing region of Bosnia. The New York Times reported the men received substantial payments to advise the regional government ahead of local elections.

Trump distanced himself from both men, describing them as "outside consultants" in an October 7 Truth Social post and warning that if he found a conflict of interest, he would "terminate them, immediately!"

Senior White ‌House officials questioned ⁠why Blair was taking on lucrative work overseas when he was supposed to be overseeing the final stretch of the Republican campaign, three people said.

One person said Wiles approved the trip without informing Trump, raising questions about how closely she was overseeing his political advisers.

For Trump, the larger concern is that Blair's outside work has distracted him from his political responsibilities, two people said.

In a statement, Blair said: "All of this mudslinging is ridiculous, and counterproductive. President Trump and me are focused on helping Republicans win in November. Every other Republican should be doing the same."

In a separate statement, LaCivita said: "President Trump and his team are and always have been focused on the midterms. That's demonstrated through the money, message and motivation that the president is bringing on the road and all year. Sniping from unnamed cowards who've never been in a ⁠fight is not worth responding to."

With Trump asking why Republican polling in pivotal races has not improved despite MAGA Inc.'s campaign spending, which public records put at $200 million so far, it remains unclear whether he will approve more spending before the election, one of the sources said.

Trump also has pressed political aides and advisers in the past week to explain why the redistricting effort he personally pushed has failed to deliver more clear-cut Republican gains, two sources said.

Texas is a particular concern. Republicans redrew the state's congressional map to gain seats, ⁠but the strategy relies in part on Hispanic voters turning out as they did for the 2024 election. Opinion polls suggest that support may be difficult to replicate amid concerns about the cost of living and Trump's handling of the economy. Some Republicans fear the new boundaries could backfire, leaving incumbents more vulnerable instead of giving the party an advantage.

"The redistricting diced up the Trump voters too much," one of the sources said.

Trump had said Blair was expected to return to the White House after ⁠the midterms, describing his departure as a "short leave of absence." But two sources said his return was now unlikely. "He's not coming back. That is not happening," one of them said.

It was less clear how things would play out for Wiles, who played a central role in Trump's 2024 victory and has been credited by Trump allies and aides with bringing greater discipline to his White House in his second term.

Trump "may be annoyed at certain things but she has effectively kept that machine going," a fourth source close to the White House said.

A divided federal appeals court on Friday upheld a Trump administration decision to unconditionally grant Oklahoma authority over ‌environmental programs on tribal lands within the state.

A 2-1 panel of the Denver-based 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency acted in accordance with a long-dormant provision in a 2005 transportation funding bill that allows Oklahoma to seek authority over environmental regulatory programs in Native American territory.

The provision was dubbed the "Midnight Rider" because it was added late and without discussion to the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act.

Oklahoma did not invoke the provision until 2020, after the US Supreme ⁠Court's 5-4 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which recognized about half of Oklahoma — much of the eastern part of the state — as Native American reservation land beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities.

Later that year, the EPA during President Donald Trump’s first administration approved Oklahoma’s request.

At the request of several tribes including the Pawnee Nation, the EPA under Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew the approval in 2021 and reconsidered the matter. In Biden's final days in office, the EPA again approved Oklahoma's request but with a condition that the state engage in efforts to seek consensus with affected tribes.

But once Trump returned to the White House, the agency issued a new decision last year eliminating that condition, prompting a lawsuit by the Pawnee Nation.

The tribe argued the EPA’s action violated the Administrative Procedure Act, saying the Midnight Rider expired in ‌2009 along ⁠with other parts of the 2005 spending law and that EPA wrongly concluded under Trump that it had no authority to impose conditions when approving Oklahoma's request.

But US Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich, writing for the majority, said the Midnight Rider contained no sunset provision and did not authorize the Biden-era condition.

"Congress’s command that the EPA 'shall approve' a valid request does not authorize the agency to shrink that approval by attaching a condition to it," he wrote.

Michael ⁠Freeman, a lawyer for Pawnee Nation at Earthjustice, called the ruling disappointing and said his client was considering its options.

Tymkovich, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, was joined by US Circuit Judge Robert Bacharach, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.

US Circuit Judge Richard Federico, a Biden ⁠appointee, dissented, saying the EPA had the discretion to impose at least some protections for tribal interests.

"This court should not so readily acquiesce to the total displacement of the tribes as the first sovereigns of their land absent a clear statement from Congress to the ⁠contrary," he wrote.

The United Nations aviation agency has found Lebanon's main airport lacks valid certification, according to a report summary seen by Reuters, in a setback to US President Donald Trump's move to revive direct US-Beirut flights.

Trump made the announcement in July and signed an order last month ‌for the US government to allow direct flights from the US to Lebanon, reversing a four-decade-long suspension after TWA Flight 847 was hijacked and forced to land in Beirut in 1985.

While the US Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration would still need to conduct safety reviews before flights could resume, the Lebanese embassy in Washington called Trump's order "a significant first step toward restoring direct air service between Lebanon and the United States."

However, the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) technical assistance mission to Lebanon in July identified shortcomings at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport and in the aviation system.

The findings, which two senior industry officials familiar with the matter expect to delay the resumption of service, complicate efforts to ⁠follow up on an order Trump signed after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. Washington has backed Aoun as it pushes for Iran-backed Hezbollah to be disarmed.

The agency sent its internal report, made at the request of the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA), to Lebanon in September.

Beirut airport's firefighting resources are equipped for single-aisle planes, but not twin-aisle jetliners used for long-haul flights, according to a summary of ICAO's report. The airport also lacks an emergency plan, and its conditional certification has expired, the report said.

"This is a serious and time-critical matter that must be addressed immediately to preserve the airport's operational status," the summary said.

The report also found the Lebanese regulator LCAA lacks qualified inspectors to oversee air traffic control licensing, and has no fully established, operational and independent aircraft accident investigation authority with clearly defined roles.

Such concerns were flagged during a two-day workshop last month where officials from ICAO, Lebanon's government, the FAA and others discussed efforts to revive direct air service, according to the industry officials and an agenda of the meeting seen by Reuters.

Lebanon's Minister of Public Works and Transport Fayez Rasamny said Lebanon was ‌taking steps ⁠to address the concerns, with efforts to certify the airport starting on Saturday. The LCAA expects to issue conditional certification in the coming days.

"Most of the issues highlighted in the report had already been identified by the LCAA, and corrective action had already been initiated," Rasamny said in a statement, adding that progress had been delayed by war. Israeli forces remain in southern Lebanon and have continued strikes despite a US-brokered framework agreement signed in June between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah, which was not party to the deal, has rejected it.

The FAA declined to comment. ICAO said it cannot comment on matters concerning specific countries, ⁠but said it conducts targeted analyses for member states.

The US State Department advises Americans not to travel to Lebanon given safety concerns. It said the FAA advises caution for flights operating in Lebanese airspace due to heightened military activity in or around Syria, including the risks of errant long-range surface-to-air missiles originating from Syrian territory.

Foreign airlines have avoided large swathes of Middle East airspace because of ⁠missile and drone threats since US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February triggered regional hostilities, with an airport in Saudi Arabia the latest site to come under attack.

Lebanon and its national carrier have been praised domestically for maintaining air navigation services and flights, helping to prop up an economy that depends on tourism and remittances.

Three US airline officials told Reuters on the condition ⁠of anonymity they do not think any American carriers would resume flights to Lebanon in the near term, citing security concerns.

While there are no direct flights between Beirut and the United States, such service exists between Lebanon and some large European cities.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said it was aware of the ICAO report and added that EU airlines must conduct their own assessment of an airport's safety and operational readiness before launching services.

Mexican airlines will be able to launch new flights to the US from Mexico City's two international airports after the US Department of Transportation lifted restrictions imposed over aviation disputes between the two countries, Mexico's government ‌said on Friday.

The decision allows airlines to establish routes to the US from Mexico City's Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA) and Benito Juarez International Airport, according to a statement from the ministries of foreign affairs and communications and transportation.

The US Department of Transportation said the move reflected steps taken by Mexico to address concerns over its compliance with a 2015 bilateral air transport agreement.

The ⁠department said it would continue to require Mexican carriers to file schedules for flights to and from the US and obtain approval to operate services using large aircraft.

A US official said two other orders related to the dispute remain in place and that Washington would closely monitor Mexico's compliance with its commitments.

The official said the decision was separate from an ongoing Federal Aviation Administration review of Mexico's aviation oversight efforts conducted in August.

The FAA restored Mexico's top air safety rating in September 2023, allowing Mexican airlines to expand existing US routes and launch new services. Mexico had ‌been downgraded ⁠in May 2021 after the US regulator found the country did not meet international aviation safety standards.

The downgrade was a major blow to Mexican carriers, as US airlines were able to scoop up market share.

In May, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Mexican government had agreed to improve aviation access to Mexico City.

President Donald Trump's administration had ⁠reached an agreement with Mexico on a plan to address US concerns over its compliance with a 2015 air transport agreement between the two countries, Duffy said.

In October last year, the US froze the expansion of Mexican ⁠airlines' passenger and cargo services from the two airports, alleging Mexico had not complied with the bilateral aviation agreement since 2022, when it rescinded slots held by US passenger airlines and forced US ⁠all-cargo carriers to relocate operations.

Mexican airlines welcomed Friday's decision. Carriers Viva and Aeromexico (AERO.MX) said it would strengthen air connectivity between the two countries.

A US judge on Friday allowed law firm Susman Godfrey to continue representing the American ‌Bar Association in its lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration, rejecting government arguments that the firm's involvement in matters at issue in the litigation created a conflict requiring its disqualification.

US District Judge Amir Ali in Washington wrote in his ruling that the Trump administration had not shown that lawyers at Susman Godfrey would simultaneously appear as witnesses in the lawsuit while also representing the ABA.

Even if there were such a witness, professional attorney ⁠rules would not automatically disqualify the rest of the law firm, wrote Ali, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden.

"That the ABA seeks discovery about communications related to Susman Godfrey does not indicate the lawyers representing the ABA here, who may not have even been involved in the communications, are likely to be necessary witnesses," Ali wrote.

The ABA filed the lawsuit last year, alleging the Trump administration adopted an unlawful policy of targeting law firms and lawyers based on their legal work, hiring, diversity policies and political ties.

Susman Godfrey was among Trump's targets in a series of executive orders targeting ‌law firms. ⁠It is one of three law firms that won court orders last year permanently barring enforcement of the orders against them. The Trump administration's appeal is pending.

The Trump administration in July asked Ali to disqualify Susman Godfrey from representing the American Bar Association.

The administration said that removing Susman would not harm the ABA, because the organization "may have as its choice of counsel presumably any law firm ⁠in the country, or at least most law firms."

The ABA and Susman Godfrey opposed the government’s disqualification effort. They assailed the administration’s bid as "a new chapter in the ongoing effort to intimidate and chill the speech of the American legal profession."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had what he thought was a good idea.

A man convicted of going on a shooting rampage at a Texas Army base in 2009 had been sitting in a federal prison on death row for more than a decade, his execution on hold until a U.S. president signed off. Lethal injection drugs weren’t widely available, and Hegseth recommended to President Trump another option—death by firing squad.

Trump approved the plan, but White House and Pentagon officials said they were surprised days later when Hegseth announced a twist: The firing squad execution would be “public,” the defense secretary told conservative activist Jack Posobiec in an on-camera interview, “because people need to understand that there is serious consequences for these types of things.” The Pentagon later confirmed his intention was to livestream the execution.

The announcement stunned White House and Pentagon aides, triggering a dayslong internal debate on whether such a bloody spectacle broadcast to the public would be a good idea, according to people familiar with the discussion.

Trump told reporters and allies that he wasn’t involved in the initial decision to broadcast the execution. Privately, Trump said he wasn’t aware that the man convicted in the shooting, Maj. Nidal Hasan, had been paralyzed in the attack and used a wheelchair, the people said. Trump didn’t like the optics of U.S. military officers shooting a man in a chair to death on live TV, they said.

Also skeptical that broadcasting the execution would serve as a kind of deterrence, Trump began privately asking individual advisers what they thought, one person said.

Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Johnson had publicly questioned the idea, insisting they had no intention of watching a public execution.

A week later, Trump called off the livestream. In a statement, the White House pointed reporters to Trump’s social-media post that streaming the execution “may have been a strong deterrent for the world to witness how America deals with terrorists,” but that “many good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die.”

The Pentagon said Hegseth and Trump spoke about the decision not to livestream Hasan’s execution before the president announced that he would be walking back Hegseth’s plan.

“The Secretary supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned,” said chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.

Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim, was working as an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood Army base in Texas when he opened fire, killing 13 and wounding dozens more in what is considered one of the worst soldier-on-soldier crimes in U.S. military history. He later admitted to the killings, saying he was trying to defend fellow Muslims. By 2013, he was sentenced to the death penalty.

As Hasan languished on death row in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Pentagon officials were planning an execution by lethal injection subject to presidential approval. But the drug cocktail had become more difficult to acquire, and Army officials discovered earlier this year that it would take several months to obtain the dose intended for Hasan.

Hegseth then recommended that Hasan face a firing squad, which Trump approved on Oct. 2, the Pentagon said.

The following week, Hegseth was giving a televised interview aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with Posobiec, a conservative activist, when he said executing Hasan by firing squad was a “no-brainer.” He said the planned execution would take place Dec. 3 and that it would be made public.

The remarks immediately set off a scramble on both sides of the Potomac as Pentagon officials began reworking long-laid plans for Hasan’s execution. The military hasn’t killed someone by firing squad since World War II, and officials were grappling with a series of new legal and practical decisions.

The number of witnesses to federal and state executions is tightly controlled. Under existing Army regulation, no one under the age of 18 is allowed to witness an execution of a U.S. servicemember, a rule that would be impossible to enforce if the execution were livestreamed on the internet.

Then there was the challenge of transporting Hasan, who is being held in a maximum-security prison, to Fort Hood for the event, and what type of ammunition to use for the execution, according to Pentagon officials.

Hegseth’s comments also set off an internal White House debate that spilled into the open a day later when Vance told reporters he was skeptical the execution would be livestreamed.

“I don’t know that’s actually going to happen,” Vance told reporters the day after Hegseth’s announcement. “Let’s sort of see what—I think it’s going to happen in December when he’s executed.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) told CBS News that there were concerns that footage of the execution would become a “recruiting tool for future terrorists,” while congressional Republicans weighed in with rare public statements against the idea.

“Secretary Hegseth should seriously reconsider this decision,” said Rep. Tom Barrett (R., Mich.), a former Army officer who said he trained at Fort Hood the year before the attack.

“Making a public spectacle out of an already tragic situation is unnecessary and does not serve a public interest,” he added.

This week, tens of thousands of Army officers, defense industry representatives and foreign military officials arrived in Washington for the Army’s largest annual exposition, held at the Convention Center. Attendees furtively discussed the livestream while listening to speeches in the ballroom and watching live equipment demonstrations on the exposition floor.

When asked how the livestream would take place, acting Army Secretary Adam Telle said in a brief interview: “I think we’re planning all that out.”

By Thursday, nationwide polling showed 8 in 10 Americans opposed the livestreaming idea, although a majority backed putting Hasan to death by firing squad.

Later that day, Trump announced that he was reversing Hegseth’s decision, writing on social media that the execution wouldn’t be livestreamed.

“He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump wrote. “That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose.”

The US Federal Aviation Administration and the union that represents air traffic controllers agreed to a deal on workforce changes in return for a much-anticipated 2.8% pay increase.

Under the new agreement with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, controllers will be required to “badge in” and “badge out” of their facilities. Local managers and union representatives will also build shifts around expected workload and operational requirements to “maximize coverage during peak traffic hours,” the Transportation Department said Friday in a news release announcing the deal.

In addition, the department said controller reassignments will focus on locations where staffing needs are most severe.

Bloomberg previously reported that the two sides were discussing a number of potential changes as part of the negotiations, including staggering shifts to create more staff overlap during peak travel times and limiting leave slots available on historically high-traffic days. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford had also previously said he wanted to increase the time air traffic controllers were “on position” actively managing traffic during an eight-hour shift to five hours from four.

The FAA was withholding the 2.8% pay increase approved by Congress in April until the union agreed to demands that the regulator said would increase efficiency.

“By improving how we track work, schedule shifts and allocate personnel, we can make better use of our workforce and respond more effectively to operational demands,” Bedford said in a statement Friday.

Lawmakers in their legislation gave the FAA administrator sole discretion to dole out the money once he determined that certain scheduling and staffing improvements were reached. Two prominent Democrats, however, in September urged the FAA to stop withholding the pay increase, saying the conditions laid out in the April legislation didn’t set a “high bar.”

The delayed pay bump agitated an already-demoralized workforce that’s borne the brunt of recurring government shutdowns. Controllers have also had to contend with a longstanding staffing shortage and outages caused by antiquated equipment that the Transportation Department and the FAA have been working to overhaul.

The pay bump takes effect Oct. 18 and is backdated to the beginning of the year.

“Securing this pay increase took persistent advocacy on behalf of our members, both on Capitol Hill and at the negotiating table,” NATCA President Nick Daniels said in a statement Friday.

California election officials looking into Trump administration demands to verify the citizenship or block the votes of suspected noncitizens said on Friday that the government had sent them lists so sloppily compiled, and on such short notice, that it was difficult, if not impossible, to comply.

Officials said that they received thousands of names lacking critical identifying information like Social Security numbers, and that many of the names were paired with California addresses over which they had no jurisdiction.

“It was basically a data dump,” said Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for Los Angeles County’s registrar’s office.

The method by which the federal government transmitted the list — a thumb drive with a sticky note containing a password — also initially threatened the security of voter rolls, and made elections officials reluctant to use it, Mr. Sanchez said.

The government later sent a spreadsheet that was an unsubstantiated jumble, he said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, defended the government’s demands, saying that the names had been “confirmed from a review of federal databases.”

“The data has been provided to California, and they are free to check the work,” he posted on X on Friday. “But that suggests California is actually interested in complying with federal election laws.”

The complaints from California officials follow a lawsuit filed Thursday by the Trump administration seeking to temporarily pre-empt California, a heavily Democratic state, from counting mail ballots submitted by people it says may not be U.S. citizens, and are thus ineligible to vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 3. The suit names the top voting official in Los Angeles County as well.

The administration has conducted a series of escalating — and largely unsuccessful — legal fights with election officials across the country, aiming to demonstrate a pattern of large-scale illegal voting in U.S. elections. The federal government, by law, plays a limited role in U.S. elections, which state and local authorities supervise and handle.

But the Trump administration has pushed to assume far greater authority over the management of state voter rolls, basing its arguments on allegations of mass voting by noncitizens, despite evidence that it is very rare.

Reviews by election officials and criminal investigators have found small numbers of people voting illegally in each election cycle, but not at anything approaching an election-determining scale. And previous claims by the administration about large numbers of noncitizens voting in states like Nevada have collapsed when scrutinized.

The suit filed this week involves a court order being sought by the Justice Department to prevent the counting of votes by about 20,000 people identified by the Department of Homeland Security “until their citizenship status can be determined.” The roster is a minute fraction of the more than 23 million registered voters in the state, where voting is already underway.

The lawsuit was filed two days after prosecutors wrote to the California secretary of state, Shirley Weber, and Los Angeles County’s top election official, Dean Logan, demanding that they verify the citizenship of the people on the list within 48 hours or prevent their votes from being counted. California officials called that an impossible timeline.

Ms. Weber responded that the demands and deadline “threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote,” that they were “based on unverifiable information” and that the federal government had offered no basis for suspecting that the people on the list were noncitizens and no methodology for its assumptions.

She added that the list, which is drawn from across the state, was not even sent to her office, but only to Los Angeles County, which has no jurisdiction over voters in the state’s 57 other counties.

In court filings, the Justice Department laid out how the Trump administration compiled the California list by comparing a public, commercially available version of the state’s voter roll to federal immigration records. They also state that the government used unnamed “third-party software” to help.

The filings describe a process that has led to mistakes in other states, in part because public voter rolls do not include Social Security numbers or similar unique identifiers.

Also, federal immigration records can be outdated and do not necessarily capture when immigrants become citizens. And a Homeland Security Department whistle-blower said criminal investigators had sometimes reviewed the cases of alleged noncitizen voters in as little as 12 minutes as part of a wider push.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson on Friday defended its methods, saying federal officials had used multiple data sources in addition to the public voter data they pulled to further verify the identity of registrants and eliminate false positives. The additional data included government data and “commercial third-party data,” according to the spokesperson. The spokesperson also denied that the agency had used third-party software, contradicting what the Justice Department said.

Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, said the state would not comply with the demands, but rather would respond in court. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit “a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day.”

In Los Angeles County, voting officials said they had started to examine an Excel spreadsheet federal prosecutors transmitted later with what appeared to be the same list of more than 20,000 names that was said to be on thumb drive.

Mr. Sanchez said the list was from all over the state, not just Los Angeles County, “and there was no sortation by county, city, ZIP code or source verification.”

That spreadsheet, he said, is being examined by county officials to determine how many people on it, if any, are registered voters in Los Angeles. The Justice Department, he added, “made no attempt to engage, other than dropping off the letter” less than 48 hours before the response deadline, and then filing the lawsuit a day after sending the spreadsheet.

“The message we’re trying to put out is, we don’t want this to be a distraction or deter people from voting,” Mr. Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder, said in an interview.

The government’s demands, he added, seem to be “largely performative, and a lot of legal questions remain up in the air that we believe will be best addressed through the litigation. Our focus is in conducting a fair, accurate and transparent election over the next 18 days.”