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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Aug 18, 2026

ABC and Disney Sue the FCC on First Amendment Grounds, Calling Brendan Carr's Forced Early Review of Eight Broadcast Licenses an "Existential Threat" — and the Commission's Lone Democrat Says She's Glad They Did

On August 18, 2026, ABC, its parent company Disney, and the eight local stations whose licenses are at issue sued the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to halt an early license-renewal proceeding the agency opened in April. None of the eight licenses were due to expire before 2028, and the complaint says the commission had not demanded an early renewal like it in more than fifty years. The suit frames the proceeding as retaliation: "Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts." It points to President Trump's public demands that ABC lose its licenses, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's threats against the network's broadcast licenses, an inquiry into its workplace diversity practices, and agency scrutiny of Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico's appearance on "The View." Carr, in interviews the same day, called the case meritless and said "Disney seems a little jumpy right now." Anna Gomez, the commission's only Democrat, broke with her chairman and publicly welcomed the lawsuit, saying the FCC has spent months waging "a campaign of censorship and control." A dozen Senate Democrats — led by Ed Markey, Maria Cantwell, Chuck Schumer and Ben Ray Luján — had already written to Carr in May calling the early-renewal order "an egregious abuse of power."

“Disney seems a little jumpy right now. From our perspective, we're going to continue to follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Perhaps Disney is concerned or worried about how the record is developing.”
Brendan Carr (R) · Aug 18, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

Jon Ossoff Names Trump's Personal Aide in an Atlanta Campaign Speech — and the White House Answers With Obscenities From Its Communications Director and Press Shop

At a campaign event in Atlanta on August 16, 2026, Sen. Jon Ossoff — on the ballot in November — attacked President Trump's engagement with the job by name-checking Natalie Harp, the executive assistant who travels with him and handles his dictated posts and messages. Ossoff tied it to the Iran war and the USS Abraham Lincoln's record deployment: the president, he said, "sleeps through his meetings, he golfs, and trades stocks," and wants to "build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar," a reference to the Qatari-donated aircraft. The White House response was unusually personal and profane. Communications Director Steven Cheung and spokesman Davis Ingle each issued statements attacking Ossoff's character rather than rebutting the substance, and Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) defended Harp by invoking her cancer history. Trump, asked about the attack in the Oval Office on August 17, dismissed Ossoff as a "Pee-wee Herman lookalike." The exchange is a marker for the Georgia Senate race and for how the administration handles criticism aimed at the president's personal staff — a subject the White House has otherwise kept off the record.

“Natalie Harp survived bone cancer because President Trump allowed her the "right to try." Now she's an extremely hardworking and trusted assistant. Any other insinuation is vile.”
Brandon Gill (R-TX) · Aug 18, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

On the Day the Iran Peace Memorandum Expires, Trump Threatens to "Bomb the Shit Out Of" Oman — the Ally Mediating the Strait of Hormuz Talks — and Kaine Says He Will File a War Powers Resolution

The 60-day negotiating window created by the Islamabad memorandum of understanding that Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed on June 17, 2026 ran out on August 16-17, 2026 without a final agreement. Asked on August 17 by Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst about talks between Oman and Iran on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump said: "If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them." Oman is a US free-trade partner and has spent the war acting as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran. Trump said later the same day that Oman had not "behaved very well" but that the US would "handle them very easily," said Washington would not seek an extension of the memorandum, told Iran to "put up the white flag of surrender," and repeated that the US now controls the Strait of Hormuz "with the blockade." Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) announced within hours that he will introduce a war powers resolution barring military action against Oman when the Senate returns from its August recess in September. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) responded that Democrats "may just need to file war powers resolutions for the 192 other countries," and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked publicly when Republicans would "concede the man has lost his mind." No congressional Republican publicly criticized the Oman threat on the day it was made. Jared Kushner, who met Hamas leaders in Egypt the day before as part of the administration's regional diplomacy, said Iran was "not showing any interest in doing something that makes sense for us."

“The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 18, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

Sixteen Senators Tell Rubio the Administration Has Never Once Used the Levinson Act on the Five Americans Sitting in Russian Prisons — "All to Be Used as a Pawn in a Larger Conflict"

On August 12, 2026 sixteen Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio about five U.S. nationals held in Russian custody: Andre Khachatoorian of California, David Barnes of Texas, Olga Jezler of New York, Alexsandr Antonov of California, and Charles "Chuck" Zimmerman, a Roanoke Valley native. The letter's central complaint is procedural and specific: the administration has not designated any of them "wrongfully detained" under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, the 2020 statute that unlocks the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and the interagency machinery built to get Americans home. Only Stephen Hubbard carries that designation. The letter landed days after Robert Gilman was released following more than four years in Russian detention — proof, the senators argued, that direct engagement works — and it asks Rubio to negotiate for the remaining detainees separately from the broader talks on Russia's war against Ukraine, rather than letting their cases ride on the diplomacy. Several have been in custody for years: Khachatoorian since 2021, Barnes since 2022, Jezler since 2022, Antonov since 2025. The State Department's answer was that it "continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detention for indicators that it is a wrongful detention" in every case, and that consular assistance continues regardless of whether a determination has been made. Rubio himself has not responded publicly. The signers are all Democrats, which is the story's main limitation as an oversight matter — no Senate Republican has joined the letter.

“The continued detention of Americans in Russia underscores the need for sustained engagement and a renewed urgency to obtain their release, including in independent and direct negotiations with the Russian government separate from the broader ongoing negotiations on Russia's war against Ukraine.”
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) · Aug 18, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

Trump Orders U.S. Navy Blockade of Strait of Hormuz

Hours after the Islamabad peace talks collapsed without a deal on April 12, 2026, President Trump announced the U.S. Navy would "immediately" begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint for 20% of global energy supplies. Trump ordered the Navy to interdict "any and all ships" entering or leaving the strait and to seize vessels that have paid tolls to Iran. Oil prices surged above $100/barrel. The blockade is backed by a mine-clearing operation and a 40+ nation coalition led by the U.K. Iran's Revolutionary Guard warned the U.S. would be "trapped in a deadly vortex" if it made the wrong move. Senate Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner questioned the logic: the strait was open before the war started.

“NEW U.S. Territory”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 18, 2026

Grassley and Ron Johnson Say the FBI Used a Fake Classification Marking — "Round River" — to Wall Off Biden Family Records From Congress, and Demand Blanche, Patel and Clayton Release Them

In a letter dated August 17, 2026, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson asked Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to release records tied to "Operation Round River," an FBI effort that whistleblowers have said sought to discredit derogatory information about Hunter Biden as disinformation ahead of the 2020 election. The senators' central allegation is procedural: documents obtained by Grassley's office carry classification banner markings that list "Round River" itself as a classification code. Grassley wrote that this made it appear the FBI under then-Director Christopher Wray was treating Round River as a Special Access Program when, by every account the committee has received, it was not one — the practical effect being to bury the material in a compartment neither Congress nor the public could reach. The senators asked for the underlying records to be declassified to the fullest extent permitted by law, including a December 2019 email. As of publication no responsive statement from the Justice Department, FBI or ODNI had been reported, and no Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee had responded on the record.

“To date, the available records cause serious concerns about how federal law enforcement and the Intelligence Community used its resources to downgrade allegations of criminality relating to the Biden family apparently without sufficient investigation. The records also cause concern about how federal records were stored and managed.”
Chuck Grassley (R-IA) · Aug 17, 2026

Israeli Settlers Besiege a Palestinian-American's West Bank Home for Nine Days, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee — a Champion of the Settlement Movement — Calls Them "Israeli Terrorists"

Beginning Sunday, August 9, 2026, dozens of Israeli settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes in Ras al-Ayn, on the edge of the West Bank village of Qusra near Nablus, pitching a tent outside, throwing stones, cutting water and electricity lines and blocking the roads. Fifteen people were trapped inside as food and water ran out. One of the houses belongs to Loui Ridi, a 46-year-old Palestinian American who grew up in Qusra and now lives in Toledo, Ohio; he watched the siege on his home security cameras for seven nights before boarding a flight from Detroit and reaching the house on the evening of August 17. On August 13, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank who as a matter of practice calls the territory Judea and Samaria — posted that the embassy had asked the IDF and Israel Police to "remove the Israeli terrorists doing this," calling the siege a "horrific act of terror" with "no excuse for such thuggish behaviour." He simultaneously defended the broader settler movement, drawing a line between "settlers" and a small minority of "unsettlers." The rebuke was unusually sharp for the ambassador, and came six days after Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called on him to resign over what Van Hollen described as a pattern of failing to defend American citizens killed or mistreated in the West Bank — nine Americans killed there since January 2022, with no one held responsible. Washington privately pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn the siege publicly; he did not, two months out from an Israeli election in which settler voters matter to his coalition. On August 17, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the siege "unacceptable" and urged the Trump administration to compel Israel to protect Palestinian civilians.

“The ongoing siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank by violent, lawbreaking settlers is unacceptable. Enough.”
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) · Aug 17, 2026

Vance Says the "Goal No. 1" of the Iran War Is Cheap Gas and Iran's Nuclear Program Is Goal No. 2 — Four Days Later Trump Posts That the Number One Goal "Is, and Always Will Be" the Bomb

Nearly six months into the war with Iran, the administration gave two different answers in four days about why the United States is fighting it. On Thursday, August 13, 2026, in a Fox News interview with Will Cain, Vice President JD Vance ranked the war's objectives: "That's goal No. 1: keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country," adding that "obviously, goal No. 2 is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon." The framing was a shift — the war had been publicly justified since February on nonproliferation grounds — and it came as Washington threatened an indefinite naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and new economic pressure on Tehran, with gas prices rising at home. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the ordering aboard Air Force One the next day and said both goals were equally important to the president. Then on Monday, August 17 — the day the 60-day US–Iran memorandum of understanding expired without a deal — Trump posted on Truth Social at 6:18 a.m.: "The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon," publicly reversing his vice president's ranking without naming him. Congress was in August recess when the exchange played out, and no member of Congress went on record about the contradiction in the days that followed.

“The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 17, 2026

After Bulldozers Reach Santa Elena Canyon, CBP Halts Border Barrier Construction Inside Big Bend National Park — With a Republican Senator, a Republican Border Sheriff and the Texas Governor All Against the Project

On August 16, 2026, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced he was pausing all construction activity for the border barrier inside Big Bend National Park while he traveled to West Texas for what he called a personal, on-the-ground evaluation. Video of crews clearing pristine Chihuahuan Desert wilderness near Santa Elena Canyon had circulated for days, and the project was already facing litigation, including a suit by the Lipan Apache and a petition for a temporary restraining order filed by Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez. The opposition was not partisan. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) had written to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on August 7 asking him to halt work until stakeholders were consulted, citing a bipartisan group of Texas border sheriffs, county judges and private landowners, and arguing that Big Bend's 1,000-foot riverbank cliffs and canyon terrain are their own deterrent. Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican, said he had been urging Scott to visit for months because the original plan was flawed. Gov. Greg Abbott said Mullin had assured him no barrier of any kind would go up in the park at all, and that drones and fiber optics would secure the area instead. Democrats treated the pause as incomplete and, in Abbott's case, belated. Gutierrez called it a good thing but pressed for a full stop, accusing CBP of having characterized the clearing already done as mere surveying. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa said Abbott had known about the project for months and said nothing while the bulldozers worked.

“Good thing, for sure.”
Roland Gutierrez (D-TX) · Aug 17, 2026

After Killing Hundreds in Boat Strikes, the US Military Expands Its Anti-Cartel Campaign Onto Land in Latin America as Hegseth Announces Joint Operations With Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala

In the year since the US military began bombing boats it accused of carrying drugs off Latin America's Caribbean and Pacific coasts, it has killed more than 200 people in over 60 strikes, offering little public evidence that those killed were the "narco-terrorists" the administration says they were. On August 17, 2026, the Associated Press reported that the Trump administration is now extending that lethal campaign from the sea to land, pursuing arrangements that would put US forces on the ground in allied nations across the region. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the expansion during a trip to Panama. At the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition meeting in Panama City on August 12, 2026, he said Colombia's newly inaugurated president, Abelardo de la Espriella, had requested that the US join Colombia's fight against narco-terrorism and had authorized joint military operations; Colombia became the 19th member of the administration's "Shield of the Americas" initiative. Hegseth said Honduras and Guatemala had agreed to joint operations as well, following Ecuador, which launched joint missions with US forces in March 2026. Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo publicly denied reaching any such agreement, saying it would be illegal without his congress's approval. The following day, August 13, at a jungle warfare drill in Panama, Hegseth described what the land phase would look like: the same effect as the boat strikes, applied ashore, with traffickers treated as targets on par with ISIS or al-Qaida. The administration has designated 20 Latin American criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations, and the campaign has already included the January 2026 US operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Congress has never authorized force in the campaign. Sen. Tim Kaine, who has repeatedly forced war powers votes, wrote to President Trump on August 3, 2026 that more than 65 kinetic operations had killed more than 220 people and urged him to halt what Kaine called an illegal operation. In May 2026, Reps. Greg Casar, Jesús "Chuy" García and Sara Jacobs led 17 colleagues in demanding the Pentagon suspend the joint US-Ecuador operations after reporting that a bombed site was a civilian dairy farm. Republicans including Rep. Maria Salazar have defended the joint operations as legally grounded in existing bilateral security agreements. Analysts warn the ground campaign risks civilian casualties and a sovereignty backlash in partner countries that could outlast the administration.

“Taken together, the interventions conducted under the banner of the “Donroe” Doctrine appear to follow a partisan playbook: the endorsement of favored candidates, the placement of political allies, the weaponization of tariffs and sanctions, and, where those fail, the application of direct military force.”
Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) · Aug 17, 2026

The Ninth Circuit — Two Trump Appointees Among Them — Rules the Attorney General Cannot Install Unconfirmed U.S. Attorneys by Naming Them "First Assistant" to a Job That Is Already Vacant

On August 17, 2026, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court order disqualifying Sigal Chattah from running the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada, holding that the Justice Department's workaround for keeping unconfirmed prosecutors in place is unlawful. Writing for the panel, Judge Eric Miller — a Trump appointee, joined by fellow Trump appointee Stanley Blumenfeld and Clinton appointee Sidney Thomas — framed the question directly: "These cases present the question whether the Attorney General can make someone an Acting United States Attorney — bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate — by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney. We hold that the Attorney General cannot do so." Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the panel held, automatic succession runs only to a first assistant who already held that post when the vacancy arose. Chattah was named interim U.S. attorney in 2025 under 28 U.S.C. § 546 after Jason Frierson resigned, and was never confirmed — Nevada's two Democratic senators blocked her, citing her record as an election denier. When her 120-day interim term ran out, the department designated her first assistant so she could serve as acting U.S. attorney indefinitely. The Ninth Circuit is the second appeals court to reject that maneuver, after the Third Circuit ruled against Alina Habba's tenure in New Jersey. A Justice Department spokesperson said the department disagreed with the ruling and would appeal to the Supreme Court.

“Sigal Chattah has always been unfit to serve as Nevada's U.S. Attorney, and I'm glad to see the Ninth Circuit agree her appointment is illegal. It's past time for her to vacate the position and leave the U.S. Attorney's office once and for all.”
Jacky Rosen (D-NV) · Aug 17, 2026

A Federal Judge Blocks the Trump Administration From Scrapping the FBI’s Greenbelt Headquarters and Diverting the Money to a Building Across the Street From the White House

On August 17, 2026, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang permanently enjoined the FBI and the General Services Administration from moving the Bureau's future headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, ruling that the agencies "exceeded their authority" and acted unlawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act. The dispute goes back to 2023, when GSA — running a competition Congress had structured in 2022 and 2023 appropriations laws — selected Greenbelt, Maryland, over sites in Springfield, Virginia, and Landover, Maryland, for a new FBI headquarters to replace the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building. In July 2025 the FBI and GSA announced they were abandoning that selection and would instead move the Bureau into the Reagan Building, blocks from the Hoover site. Maryland and Prince George's County sued, arguing the administration could not override a congressionally structured site selection or redirect the construction money Congress had appropriated for it. Judge Chuang agreed, holding that the statutes required GSA to pick from the three short-listed sites outside Washington. Maryland's Democratic officials — Gov. Wes Moore, Attorney General Anthony Brown, Prince George's County Executive Aisha Braveboy, and all eight Democrats in the state's congressional delegation — cast the ruling as a rebuke of an administration that treated a congressional appropriation as optional. The county has estimated the project at more than 7,500 jobs and roughly $4 billion in added GDP. The FBI pushed back hard in a statement, saying "the court has chosen to impermissibly intervene for political reasons" and that "this is not the first time courts have tried to undermine the administration in its goal to make government more cost-effective."

“Maryland and Prince George's County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars. By blocking the Trump Administration's unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”
Anthony Brown (D-MD) · Aug 17, 2026

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