President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail as he seeks to shore up lagging enthusiasm in his party ahead of next month's midterm elections.
On Friday, he'll attend a rally in Alabama, then travel to Ohio on Saturday. He could have his work cut out for him: Just 26% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Trump's immigration policies, meanwhile, are finding renewed attention in the Supreme Court, which agreed Thursday to review his administration's denial of bond hearings for immigrants during its sweeping crackdown. The justices will consider whether immigrants who've been living in the U.S. have a right to a hearing to determine if they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.
Here's the latest:
Iowa lawmakers to vote on raising tax incentive cap for a $15B steel plant
Iowa lawmakers returned to the Statehouse on Friday to consider expanding the ceiling on state tax incentives in an effort to secure a $15 billion steel plant project for the state.
President Trump announced the plant Monday alongside Iowa elected officials, heralding the project as a major economic and national security investment.
Five weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans seized on the promise of good-paying jobs and a central role for the heartland in the push for American steel manufacturing. It’s celebrated as an opportunity for southeast Iowa, an area along the Mississippi River that once thrived as a hub for industry but has since suffered from shuttered facilities and dwindled populations. Still, the deal and the tax abatements it could carry have also been met with some skepticism in rural Iowa and Des Moines alike.
Hiring slipped and unemployment rose last month in the final jobs report before midterms
U.S. businesses and other employers added just 29,000 job in September, down from a revised 133,000 in August and far fewer than economists had expected. The unemployment rate rose to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%, the Labor Department said.
Job gains in July were revised lower to show employers shed 10,000 jobs that month. Average wages rose 3% in August from a year earlier, the slowest pace in five years. Americans’ paychecks are trailing inflation.
The jobs report underscores the political challenge for Trump and congressional Republicans: Unemployment is low and layoffs are rare, but stubbornly high inflation is eroding consumers' ability to afford things like gas, food, and housing. A recent AP-NORC poll found just 17% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living.
Trump: Europe agrees to release diesel reserves ‘immediately’ as fuel prices hover near record highs
President Trump said Friday that Europe has agreed to release some of its diesel reserves "immediately," as the president and his Republican Party face pressure to address surging prices ahead of November's midterm elections.
Trump announced the action on social media without offering details on which countries were releasing reserves or at what volumes. Trump writes, “Europe has just agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil.” Trump says, “The process will begin immediately.”
The president faces lagging approval ratings as the Iran war and his trade battles have increased U.S. prices for oil and other goods.
Households will pay more for energy because of Trump’s policy changes, think tank says
Households in the contiguous United States will pay thousands of dollars more for energy through 2040 because of federal policy changes since Trump returned to office, according to modeling released Friday by a nonpartisan think tank.
The Energy Innovation analysis found that households will pay an average of $6,500 more for energy, cumulatively through 2040. In five states, households will pay roughly $9,000 more: Oregon, Mississippi, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming.
The California-based think tank says there'll be more demand for natural gas for electricity because the administration is canceling new clean energy projects and there'll be more demand for gasoline for transportation because Trump and Congress are revoking policies that encouraged or created incentives for more efficient and lower-emissions vehicles. Higher demand drives prices up.
Trump administration says it has no plans for ICE officers at polls. Activists are preparing, anyway
With early voting already underway, a question worrying some voters is what role — if any — immigration enforcement officers might have at polling places through Election Day.
Department of Homeland Security officials say they don’t plan to send immigration enforcement officers en masse to patrol the polls and dismissed concerns that they plan to do so as “fearmongering.” Election legal experts say federal law clearly prevents the government from deploying any armed troops, agents or officers to election sites except to “repel armed enemies of the United States,” a high bar to clear.
But organizations who represent Latino, Black and Asian American voters say the rhetoric and ICE's own activity make them worried at a time the number of immigration arrests is soaring as President Trump carries out his mass deportation agenda.
Trump tried to make an ally out of fishermen. Some have started to turn on him
John Evich, a commercial fisherman in Washington and Alaska, has voted for President Donald Trump three times, viewing him as someone who would fight for his industry.
But these days, Evich is weary of the high cost of doing business at sea, with fuel prices rising and trade hostilities with Canada jeopardizing markets for the crabs that he pulls off the ocean floor.
“If somebody came along that was going to do a better job, I would vote for them in a heartbeat,” he said.
Evich’s sentiment, echoed throughout the U.S. seafood industry, is another piece of a political puzzle that’s working against Trump in the midterm elections. Dissatisfaction among commercial fishermen could cause collateral damage for Republicans in competitive races in Washington, Alaska and Maine.
Trump blitzes toward the midterms with campaign rallies across the country
President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail as he seeks to shore up lagging enthusiasm in his party ahead of next month's midterm elections.
He could have their work cut out for him, though.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that only 17% of U.S. adults approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living. Just 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.
Republicans have expressed growing pessimism about their chances in the election, which will determine control of Congress, as the president has repeatedly dismissed concerns about high costs and gas prices as his unpopular war in Iran drags on.
According to Trump, his party has merely done a poor job of public relations in promoting his administration’s accomplishments.
“Maybe we’re doing a bad job selling it,” Trump said while campaigning in Texas.