Washington, DC

1. Midterm cash shifting
2. Trump’s cross-country travel
3. Zacharia’s rocky start
4. Debate night
5. Russia strategy risks

FIFA paid $4 million for a seven-year lease of “mostly unused” office space in Trump Tower, The New York Times reports.

Congress battle drifts deeper into red territory

The battle for Congress is shifting deeper into red territory as both parties deem some races essentially over. The Democratic group Senate Majority PAC is scaling back ads in Georgia and North Carolina as Republican spending there slows, signs both parties see the Democratic candidates — Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper — as increasingly favored to win. The GOP Senate Leadership Fund is spending more to assist Sen. Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, after boosting spending in Kansas and South Carolina. And the Congressional Leadership Fund, a House GOP leadership-aligned PAC, is redirecting resources from candidates in purple districts, like those represented by Reps. Tom Kean of New Jersey and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, toward GOP incumbents in districts more handily won by President Donald Trump in 2024, like Reps. Monica De La Cruz of Texas and Rob Wittman of Virginia.

— Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu

Trump crosses country in bid to save midterms

Trump is ramping up his midterm travel this week, hitting five states as he looks to boost GOP base turnout ahead of a likely tough election night for Republicans. The president has hit the road almost daily this month, holding rallies in a host of states — including Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Georgia, and Kentucky this week alone. All of his stops were targeted to reach media markets in races that Republicans view as competitive, per a GOP official, including an Ohio House race near the Kentucky border. Trump’s goal remains persuading his loyalists to turn out in an election where he isn’t on the ballot. He’s not alone in the turbocharged itinerary; Vice President JD Vance stopped in Texas earlier today to tout GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who’s in a neck-and-neck battle against Democrat James Talarico.

— Shelby Talcott

New White House press secretary stumbles

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is off to a rocky start after delivering a 14-minute press briefing in her new role today. Zacharia read her opening remarks from a script, ducked a question on Ukraine, and called on just three reporters from friendly outlets. She did, however, break one major piece of news: announcing that Kimberly Guilfoyle was asked by the president to resign as US ambassador to Greece following a string of reports about alleged misconduct. Trump offered praise for his new press secretary after the briefing, telling reporters, “I thought she was very good.” Trump was also asked where Zacharia passed the bar exam, after questions were raised about her legal background. She appeared to respond by saying, “when I moved to China” — further raising eyebrows.

— Lauren Morganbesser

Debate night in Iowa and Maine

Candidates will square off in debates across the country this evening with the midterm elections just three weeks away. The most closely watched contests will take place in Iowa and Maine, two states where the Republican Senate nominees, Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, are touting their ability to work with Democrats as their party’s position degrades. Trump’s sagging approval numbers in each state have given Democrats clear lines of attack; Iowa Democrat Josh Turek and Maine Democrat Troy Jackson used last week’s debates to portray their opponents as corrupt, attacks they may reprise tonight. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will also face GOP challenger Bruce Blakeman tonight in their only televised debate, days after Trump rallied with Blakeman. Recent polls suggest Hochul has a double-digit lead.

— David Weigel

Trump’s Russia strategy could backfire

The contradictory tangle of energy policy actions taken by Trump toward Russia risks repeating mistakes that he and his allies slammed his predecessor for. Trump’s decision to waive sanctions on Russian diesel exports was quickly condemned by a bipartisan group of senators, who argued that the volume was too small to make a difference and extended a “financial lifeline” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The diesel relaxation, former State Department energy diplomat Geoffrey Pyatt said, is “enough of a sweetheart deal to encourage [Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill] Dmitriev and Putin to keep fighting in hopes Trump will deliver Kyiv.” It’s worth remembering that Trump criticized Joe Biden for authorizing a record release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, and for relaxing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the interest of repairing relations with Moscow in 2021.

Austan Goolsbee is worried about inflation. On this week’s episode of Compound Interest, presented by Amazon Business, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago warns that the AI data-center boom is driving up the cost of land, power, construction equipment, and labor, with rising prices threatening to spill over into the broader economy. Liz and Rohan sit down with Goolsbee to discuss those risks, whether hyperscalers even care about interest rates, and what a world where robots do all the jobs would mean for the Fed.

Congress

• A bipartisan group of senators, including six Republicans, wrote to President Trump to ask him to withdraw from his diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson’s wife runs a Christian ministry counseling congressional staffers that has undisclosed donors and financial reporting inconsistencies. — WaPo

Courts

• The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a lawsuit seeking public records about Elon Musk’s DOGE operations.

Global Security

• The head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency said that Iran is trying to hit military sites in the UK and that the suspected plot to attack a US-run military base is “not unique.”
• The Trump administration has withheld tens of millions of dollars in annual funding for a global chemical weapons watchdog, threatening efforts to destroy Syria’s remaining chemical weapons. — WaPo
• Anthropic said small AI models could be months away from self-replicating across internet-connected devices.

— White House press secretary Katie Zacharia during her first briefing earlier today.

Laura McGann, editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor, and Morgan Chalfant, Washington briefing editor

Graph Massara and Lauren Morganbesser, copy editors

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Ashley Gold, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, Nicholas Wu, David Weigel, David Lim