Key events
Following Kirk shooting, new poll shows drop in positive direction of the country among Republicans
A new Associated Press-NORC poll shows that there has been a significant drop, among Republicans, that the country is heading in a positive direction.
51% of Republicans said the country is heading in the wrong direction, in a poll conducted between 11 and 15 September. A 22-point increase from the 29% of Republicans who expressed the same feeling in June of this year.
For Democrats, 92% say the country is heading in the wrong direction – a number that’s stayed consistent since Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term.
More broadly, 39% of adults approve of the way Trump is handing his job as president, while 60% disapprove.
Congress prepares to vote of funding bills to avert government shutdown
Today, lawmakers in the House will vote on legislation, known as a “continuing resolution” (CR), to prevent a looming government shutdown at the end of September.
The bill, introduced by Republicans, would fund the government until 21 November. According to Politico, House GOP whip Tom Emmer was confident, as of Thursday, that his party had enough votes. “We’re going to pass this,” he said in an interview.
A reminder, Republicans only have a very thin majority in the lower chamber, and have already heard push back from some members on certain provisions in the bill.
Democrats have, almost unanimously, said they’re bucking the CR as is, taking issue with its lack of health care provisions. “The House Republican-only spending bill fails to meet the needs of the American people and does nothing to stop the looming healthcare crisis,” senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a joint statement.
Democrats in the lower chamber also released their own legislation that would keep the government funded until the end of October.
For their part, GOP lawmakers only need a simple majority for their CR to advance to the Senate, where Democrats can use the filibuster to tank it if it lacks 60 votes. However, that requires Schumer to ensure that moderate members of his party don’t end up voting for the legislation if the threat of a shutdown inches closer.
This is the problem the top Democrat faced the last time this happened, back in March, when Schumer ended up voting for the Republican-written bill that kept federal agencies funded. At the time, Schumer faced immense pressure from his Democratic colleagues in the House to push back, but ultimately believed a shutdown would carry “consequences for America that are much, much worse”.
Trump expected to focus on TikTok and trade in call with Xi Jinping
The president doesn’t have any public events scheduled today, according to the White House.
He’s due to sign executive orders at 3pm EST, but that is closed press for the time being. We’ll let you know if that opens up.
In less than an hour, Trump is expected to have a call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. It’s the first time the pair have spoken since June, and Trump said to reporters yesterday that they’ll focus on TikTok and trade on their call. “We’re very close on all of it,” the president added.
When we have a readout we’ll make sure to bring you the latest lines.
US president Donald Trump suggested that TV networks which cover him “negatively” could be punished by the government, after celebrating ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaking to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the UK, the president said major US networks were “97% against me”, though he did not offer evidence to prove this figure or detail how this conclusion was evaluated.
Taiwan’s top representative in the United States met privately in Washington this month with a little-known group of intelligence advisers.
The meeting with Alexander Yui, Taiwan’s de facto US ambassador, was described by two sources with knowledge of the matter and amounted to one of the higher-level Taiwan-US contacts to date during Donald Trump’s second term, Reuters reports.
It was also an unusually sensitive meeting for the previously obscure group, the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), which includes members who have jobs outside of the federal government and has historically played a low-key role in policymaking.
A White House official downplayed the encounter, saying it was not an official, sanctioned PIAB gathering but rather an informal conversation between some PIAB members and a foreign diplomat that was put together by a mutual contact.
Kamala Harris critical of Joe Biden in new book: ‘angry and disappointed’
David Smith
Kamala Harris has revealed she was left “angry and disappointed” when Joe Biden called her hours before her US presidential debate with Donald Trump to suggest powerful associates of Biden’s brother refused to support her.
The former vice-president and Democratic nominee recounts the episode – and other criticisms of Biden – in her campaign memoir 107 Days, obtained by the Guardian before its publication next week.
Harris writes that in September she was in a hotel room in Philadelphia, poised to take on Trump in a potentially decisive debate, when the then president called to wish her good luck – and to ask if she would be back in Philadelphia before the election.
Harris wondered why Biden would ask such a non sequitur. According to the book, he told her: “My brother called. He’s been talking to a group of real power brokers in Philly.” He offered several names and asked if Harris knew them. She did not.
Harris writes: “Then he got to his point. His brother had told him that those guys were not going to support me because I’d been saying bad things about him. He wasn’t inclined to believe it, he claimed, but he thought I should know in case my team had been encouraging me to put daylight between the two of us.”
The then vice-president asked Biden to put the group in touch with her directly. But he was not done with the call. He sought to rewrite the history of his own disastrous debate performance against Trump three months earlier.
Maya Yang
The indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has prompted impassioned calls for a boycott against Disney, ABC’s parent company, and other major media conglomerates that have refused to air Kimmel’s show.
Boycott calls grew after ABC announced it would indefinitely suspend the popular show following complaints from the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr. Carr’s complaints stem from Kimmel’s recent monologue in which he addressed the killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk by saying:
Many in Maga land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Carr, who was appointed by Donald Trump earlier this year, said Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick” and that ABC had violated its “public interest” broadcast obligations. ABC’s suspension of the show also came after Nexstar Media, one of the US’s largest owners of TV stations, said it “strongly object[ed]” to Kimmel’s comments and would pre-empt, or halt, any of the show’s episodes set to air on its stations “for the foreseeable future”.
Meanwhile, the conservative TV conglomerate Sinclair announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s time slot on Friday. It also called on Kimmel to issue a formal apology and make a personal donation to Kirk’s family and his rightwing political advocacy group, Turning Point USA.
Overnight, calls to boycott ABC and Disney emerged, with Nelini Stamp, organizing director of the pro-labor union political group Working Families Party, sharing a viral boycott resource guide online that says:
Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t suspended because of what he said. He was suspended because the FCC threatened his employer. That’s state-sanctioned censorship and it is a giant red flag … Authoritarianism isn’t coming, it’s already here. Today it’s Jimmy. Tomorrow it’s the rest of us.
Sam Levin
A Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent in June was acquitted on Wednesday after US immigration officials were accused in court of lying about the incident.
The not guilty verdict for Brayan Ramos-Brito is a major setback for the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in southern California and for Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who has become a key figure in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The 29-year-old defendant, who is a US citizen, was facing a misdemeanor and was the first protester to go to trial since demonstrations against immigration raids erupted in LA earlier this summer.
Border patrol and prosecutors alleged that Ramos-Brito struck an agent during a chaotic protest on 7 June in the south Los Angeles county city of Paramount outside a complex where the Department of Homeland Security has an office. But footage from a witness, which the Guardian published days after the incident, showed an agent forcefully shoving Ramos-Brito. The footage did not capture the demonstrator assaulting the officer.
The jury delivered its not guilty verdict after a little over an hour of deliberations, the Los Angeles Times reported. Bovino testified earlier in the day and faced a tough cross-examination from public defenders.
Bovino was one of four border patrol agents who testified as witnesses, but was the only one to say he saw the alleged assault by Ramos-Brito, according to the LA Times. Videos played in court captured the agent shoving Ramos-Brito, sending him flying backward, and showed the protester marching back toward the agent, the paper reported. The videos did not capture Ramos-Brito’s alleged assault.
There were multiple factual discrepancies in DHS’s internal reports on the protest, which initially led to charges against five demonstrators, the Guardian reported in July. A criminal complaint suggested Ramos-Brito and others had attacked agents in protest of the arrests of two sisters, but records showed the women had been arrested in a separate incident that occurred after Ramos-Brito’s arrest.
A supervisor later documented the correct timeline and “apologized” for errors, records showed.
DC Democrat challenges long-serving House delegate amid age concerns
Chris Stein
Washington DC’s long-serving delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is under renewed pressure to step down after a city council member announced on Thursday he would challenge her in next year’s election, saying the federal district needs its “strongest fighters” as it faces unprecedented interference from Donald Trump and the Republican party.
Robert White’s decision to jump into the race for the non-voting role in the House of Representatives comes amid mounting concern over the 88-year-old Norton’s ability to continue doing the job at a tense moment for the city.
Trump in August ordered a temporary federal takeover of the Washington DC police department and dispatched national guard and federal agents onto its streets to fight what he called an “out-of-control” crime wave, a claim city leaders disputed.
In a video announcing his candidacy, White, an at-large council member who made an unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2022, referred to Norton as “our lion on the Hill” but implied it was time for new leadership.
“I have never seen my city more vulnerable than we are right now, and in this entire Congress, there is one person whose job it is to protect and stand up for our residents, and we need our strongest fighters,” said White. “I’m ready to take this torch.”
The announcement comes days after Donna Brazile, a former chief of staff to Norton who rose to serve as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that she should not seek a 19th term in the office she has held since 1991.
Though not allowed to cast votes in the House, Norton was known as a tenacious advocate for the rights of the federal district, but has appeared subdued in recent years.
She had been pictured requiring the help of an aide at public appearances, and reads haltingly from prepared remarks at committee appearances, even when the topic concerns contentious proposals to change Washington DC’s laws.
Representatives Don Bacon and Ro Khanna plan to introduce bipartisan legislation that would exempt coffee products from any tariffs imposed after 19 January, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing a copy of the draft legislation.
The exemption would apply to roasted and decaffeinated coffee, as well as coffee husks, skins, and other drinks or substitutes containing coffee, the report said.
Republican Bacon and Khanna, who is a Democrat, said they focused on coffee because they want to help Americans save on a daily staple, according to the report.
“Why are we tariffing American citizens on something that we don’t even grow? It doesn’t make sense,” Bacon told the newspaper. Representatives for Bacon, Khanna and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Coffee is one of the items that are keeping food prices in the United States persistently high since the Trump administration applied a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports at the end of July, including green coffee.
Prices for arabica coffee, the mild variety mostly used by coffee chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, have since jumped around 50% at the Intercontinental Exchange in New York. Brazil used to supply a third of all the coffee used in the US, but shipments have dried up since the tariffs were imposed.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that TV networks which cover him “negatively” could be punished by the government after his celebration of ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
On Air Force One, the president spoke to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the UK. The president said major US networks were “97% against me”, though he did not offer evidence to prove this figure or detail how this conclusion was evaluated. He said he read the statistic “someplace”.
“Again, 97% negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states,” Trump said. “They give me only bad press. I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their licenses should be taken away.”
The president’s claim that US TV networks need to be licensed by the government to operate is, however, incorrect. While local TV stations do require a license from the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC says clearly on its website that it does “not license TV or radio networks (such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox)”.
Trump supported ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, saying that the comedian was “not a talented person” who “had very bad ratings”.
“Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk,” Trump told reporters during his state visit to the United Kingdom, adding “they should have fired him a long time ago”.
According to Nielsen ratings as reported by LateNighter, although Stephen Colbert’s Late Show leads the time slot in total viewers with 2.42 million, Kimmel’s show averaged 1.77 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025 and edged out Colbert in the key 18-49 demographic.
However, there was an 11% drop-off in his show’s viewership the last month. Kimmel also has over 20 million subscribers on YouTube.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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Barack Obama condemned what he called a “dangerous” escalation by the Trump administration over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show. “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama wrote on X.
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The indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has prompted impassioned calls for a boycott against Disney, ABC’s parent company, and other major media conglomerates that have refused to air Kimmel’s show. Boycott calls grew after ABC announced it would indefinitely suspend the popular show following complaints from the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr.
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Kamala Harris watched mortified as her running mate, Tim Walz, fell into JD Vance’s trap in last year’s vice-presidential debate and “fumbled” a crucial answer, she writes in a campaign memoir. The former Democratic presidential nominee also admits that Walz had not been her first choice for vice-president in her book 107 Days, obtained by the Guardian ahead of its publication next week.
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The Trump administration asked the US supreme court to allow it to fire the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, as it continues its extraordinary attack on the central bank’s independence. In a filing on Thursday, Donald Trump’s officials requested an emergency order to remove Cook from the Fed’s board of governors, after an appeals court refused to go along with efforts to oust her.
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Donald Trump accused Vladimir Putin of letting him down in a joint press conference with Keir Starmer during which the US president piled criticism on his Russian counterpart. Trump said he had hoped to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine soon after entering office, but that Putin’s actions had prevented him from doing so.
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Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, has been appointed as the new CEO and chair of the board for Turning Point USA. The organization announced on Thursday that the late CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed at an event last week, had previously expressed that he would want his wife to lead in the event of his death.
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