US Politics

Our politics and foreign policy reporters will answer your questions live in a Q&A on Tuesday 6 OctoberThe war with Iran has had major implications for Americans’ wallets, government spending and US foreign policy. It’s also been key in reshaping the political landscape as it enters its seventh month before the 2026 US midterms.We’ll be hosting a live midterm election Q&A on Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 12pm EDT on the Guardian US site, with a panel of our politics and foreign policy reporters to help readers understand the costs of the war and political consequences for Trump and candidates running in November.The makeup of the Democratic party, plus key races to watchWho are the groups financially backing the candidates in the midterms? Continue reading… More

FBI accuses Chloe Freeman of federal misdemeanor in case of undocumented Mexican migrant arrested in MichiganThe federal government is charging a Michigan nurse accused of illegally helping an undocumented immigrant, who was being treated in a hospital, escape from immigration officials, court records unsealed this week show.An FBI agent’s declaration submitted in a federal court accuses Chloe Renae Freeman, 33, of “instigating or assisting escape”, a federal misdemeanor, by helping a patient leave an Ann Arbor hospital while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in May. The patient, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, had been arrested about two hours earlier by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border patrol agents. Continue reading… More

Twelve years after US mission against IS began, Trump hails ‘great day for America’ and calls Iraq war ‘a quagmire’The Pentagon has announced it has formally completed its withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, two years after the withdrawal was agreed to and 12 years since the US mission to fight the Islamic State started.After the announcement, Iran and its allies celebrated the departure as a victory, while Iraqi security experts worry that the withdrawal could give IS and others a chance to recover. Continue reading… More

FTC move is first official US enforcement ⁠action on rogue AI agents, following surge in incidents first reported in JulyThe US’s main trade regulator is conducting an industry-wide investigation ⁠into Anthropic, OpenAI and other ⁠AI labs ​to uncover the potential dangers their technology poses to consumers.The investigation by the Federal Trade Commission is the first official US enforcement ⁠action that delves into rogue AI agents, following a surge in incidents first reported in July that have stoked fears among the public that uncontrolled AI could one day ⁠harm humans. Continue reading… More

Trump criticized $2.4bn rehab amid attempts to pressure then Fed chair Jerome Powell into lowering interest ratesAn internal watchdog said the Federal Reserve mismanaged costs associated with a $2.4bn renovation of its Washington DC headquarters, but noted that no criminal violations occurred, according to a report released on Wednesday.For over a year, Donald Trump has centered his attacks against the Fed and former chair Jerome Powell around the renovations, including a months-long Department of Justice criminal investigation that was dropped in April. Continue reading… More

Steve Hilton’s long-shot campaign for governor is courting Golden state voters with unapologetically populist messageSteve Hilton stands almost no chance of becoming California’s next governor, but that isn’t stopping him from campaigning as though he was just one step away from pulling off the impossible.The former Downing Street political adviser and Fox News host refuses to be daunted by the rancid political environment for Republican candidates this year, or by opinion polls that tell him he is lagging 20 percentage points or more behind his Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra. Continue reading… More

Brazil will head to the polls on 4 October for the first vote in its presidential race. The incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is neck-and-neck with Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for plotting a military coup. There are fears and accusations that the US is interfering in the election, and these follow similar allegations in a string of elections across Latin America won by Donald Trump-backed candidates in what is being called ‘the orange wave’.The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, explains the tactics Trump and his administration have been using in recent months and what impact another Bolsonaro government could have on the region, and the world Continue reading… More