Trump

Core Summary President Trump publicly announced on September 18 that the White House will no longer allow journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to access the White House press area. Trump cited what he described as persistent publication of “untrue” reporting as the justification. This represents the largest single restriction on mainstream media access taken by the Trump administration in its second term and has drawn swift attention from both the American press and the legal community. ...

Core Summary The US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on September 17, 2026, ending a three-year cycle of rate cuts in a unanimous vote. The decision comes as the Iran conflict drives energy prices higher and inflation pressures persist. Despite repeated public demands from President Donald Trump for rate cuts, newly installed Fed Chair Warsh held firm and chose to tighten monetary policy to preserve central bank independence. Markets reacted with a sharp sell-off that gradually stabilized through the session. ...

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks said the Trump administration is responding to AI anxieties with rationality rather than hysteria, arguing that overregulation would strangle innovation while under-regulation risks leaving the U.S. without adequate guardrails.

NBC News reports that former President Donald Trump has publicly argued that artificial intelligence does not need formal regulatory guardrails, asserting that strong presidential judgment alone is sufficient to oversee the rapidly developing technology. The remarks come amid intensifying debate in Washington over whether Congress should codify mandatory safety requirements for frontier AI models.

Senate Republicans on September 14 released the ‘final draft’ of the long-pending Clarity Act for digital assets, while the White House confirmed that President Trump has accepted most of the bill’s ethics provisions. The new draft makes significant adjustments to digital-asset classification, the allocation of regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC, stablecoin reserve requirements and disclosure of conflicts of interest. Industry analysts say the release breaks a multi-month stalemate that had previously been described by industry observers as a Schrödinger-style legislative limbo, and could clear the path for a full Senate vote in the coming weeks.

The Guardian reported on September 13 that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, along with other AI industry leaders, made a rare joint call to slow ‘reckless’ artificial intelligence development, warning that frontier models may pose systemic risks to human civilization. Almost simultaneously, senior officials in the Trump administration publicly rejected any slowdown, arguing that excessive regulation would undermine U.S. global competitiveness in a critical technology. The open disagreement between industry leaders and the White House marks a new phase in the long-running U.S. debate over whether to accelerate or decelerate AI development, and is likely to shape legislative pace, industry self-regulation and cross-border regulatory coordination for the foreseeable future.

The Washington Post and The New York Times reported on September 13 that U.S. President Donald Trump said during a two-day visit to Ireland that a unified Ireland would be a ‘fantastic’ outcome, breaking with decades of U.S. policy on Northern Ireland. Key British allies reacted sharply, with some British political figures describing the remark as a geopolitical bombshell for British domestic politics. The Daily Beast noted that the comments came during a particularly sensitive period for British politics and could widen the strain between the U.K. government and the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

Fox News reported on September 13 that U.S. President Donald Trump predicted the war with Iran will end ‘very soon,’ likely after the November midterm elections. The same round of coverage noted Saudi Arabia facing growing threats from Iran and its allies, and Iraqi security forces seizing a drone-launching platform used to strike a Saudi oil pipeline. Analysts noted that Trump’s latest comments coincide closely with the recent series of strikes on Middle East energy infrastructure.

US Vice President JD Vance delivered the keynote address on the second day of the Republican midterm mobilization convention in Dallas, Texas, openly positioning himself as Trump’s political heir and the future standard-bearer of the Make America Great Again movement. The speech, in style, policy agenda, and strategic direction, demonstrated full continuity with Trump’s agenda while also revealing Vance’s own political ambitions.

US President Trump publicly pledged to send approximately $5,000 per voter from tariff revenue if Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections. The politically charged economic promise quickly drew widespread skepticism from economists and market analysts, seen as the latest attempt to weaponize trade policy.