Trump claims he’s ‘doing great’ as his approval rating sinks to record low 32%
Before boarding a flight to Nebraska, Donald Trump answered more questions from reporters, speaking about his polling numbers and efforts to remove bombers from a UK airbase.
“I’m doing great,” Trump told a reporter, who’d asked about recent polls showing the president losing support among Latino voters. “You’re CNN, you’re fake news.”
According to a NBC News/Telemundo poll release Sunday, 59% of Latino voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number that supported the party two years ago.
A new Reuters poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. According to that poll, just 24% of Hispanic Americans approve of Trump’s performance .
Speaking about work to move US bombers off a UK airbase, Trump said: “There was some threats and rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy, but why should we leave them there.”
Responding to a question about whether there was a risk that Iran had brought combat drones into the UK, Trump said: “I can’t tell you that, but if they did they’ll suffer greatly.”
Key events
Summary
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump said he was ‘doing great’ as his approval rating sank to a record low 32%. The president made the remarks as he headed to Nebraska, to campaign for a Republican senator there. At the Nebraska rally, Trump signed an executive order to “allow anyone to purchase tax-free red-dyed diesel for any reason”, which was personally delivered to the stage by his aide, Natalie Harp.
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Responding to backlash over taxpayer-funded ads, Trump said he will “pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”, a political action committee. Last week, two congressional Democrats asked federal watchdogs to investigate whether the Trump administration illegally used taxpayer money to air television ads promoting the president ahead of November’s midterm elections.
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Pennsylvania is reporting the largest measles outbreak in the nation, with more than 1,000 cases this year. The governor of neighboring New York Kathy Hochul has declared a disaster emergency over an ongoing measles outbreak there. The news came the same day that a coalition of Democratic attorneys general for 16 states announced a lawsuit today against health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, over changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.
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Politico has been barred from traveling on Air Force One for Donald Trump’s trip to Nebraska, according to a report by CNN. This comes after the administration previously stopped CNN from similarly traveling with the president, despite a federal judge putting a temporary block on Trump’s overall ban on Politico, CNN and MS Now from the White House. According to CNN, Politico was set to serve as the out-of-town print pool today – the newsroom tasked with covering the president’s movements that feeds to the wider US/global press. However, a Politico spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the outlet had been excluded from traveling with Trump.
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Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down as White House press secretary in August, is joining Fox News as an on-air contributor, according to an announcement from the network. Leavitt, 29, the youngest press secretary in White House history, left the administration after the birth of her second child earlier this year. Suzanne Scott, Fox News’s CEO, said in a statement that Leavitt’s “firsthand experience in the White House and on the presidential campaign trail gives her a distinct understanding of today’s political landscape”. Scott said Leavitt would begin providing on-air analysis on 1 November, ahead of the midterm elections.
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Earlier today, the supreme court heard the first arguments of its 2026-27 term, in a case that focuses on whether states can sue oil companies for the impact of climate change on their communities. The lawsuit was filed by local officials in Boulder, Colorado, against Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil. The energy companies argue that only federal law can be used to address this issue. Boulder is one of dozens of local governments that have filed lawsuits against energy companies that demands compensation for past and future harms to the environment. Notably, only eight of the court’s nine justices will hear today’s arguments, after Samuel Alito recused himself from the case after facing calls to step aside due to stock holdings in oil companies.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio said there was no direct link between the sudden removal of US bombers from a UK airbase and a suspected Iranian plot at the site last week. “I wouldn’t just directly tie that to the move that was made,” Rubio told reporters, when asked about the B1 bombers. “The Department of War is constantly reallocating resources where they need to be,“ Rubio added, noting that the US has confidence in the security of all its bases.
A US citizen who was shot by an immigration agent last year has sued the federal government, alleging the agent lied about the shooting and shot into her car from behind.
Initially, federal prosecutors said that Marimar Martinez used her vehicle to box in Customs and Border Protection agent Charles Exum’s SUV during an immigration raid in Chicago last October. Exum then shot into Martinez’s vehicle, leaving her with seven gunshot wounds. But a month later, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Martinez.
Speaking about the lawsuit filed today, Martinez’s lawyers told the Associated Press that they commissioned an expert analysis of the bullet trajectories and determined Exum was not in the path of Martinez’s car. They also added that he fired five shots in less than a second, including from behind her vehicle.
California senator Adam Schiff called for the White House to show proof it had stopped using taxpayer dollars to fund pro-Trump ads, following Donald Trump’s announcement today that he would pay for the ads himself or with money raised by a pro-Trump political action committee.
“Let’s see the proof this illegal waste of your taxes is over for good. And that he pays the money back. We don’t want the U.S. taxpayers to be the latest contractors to get stiffed,” Schiff said in a social media post.
A Nicaraguan exile and asylum-seeker, who was imprisoned and tortured after protesting against the government, has been jailed after he was deported to Managua today.
Jeffrey Jarquín, 35, was detained by Nicaraguan authorities in 2018 after protesting against the government of husband-and wife co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Jarquín was held in the maximum-security prison El Modelo where he was tortured in cells the Organization of American States called “tiny hell”.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, about 62,000 Nicaraguans fled the country following the 2018 protests, out of fear for their lives. Jarquín claimed aslyum in the United States and was living in Miami when he was detained by immigration agents earlier this year. Jarquín was held in Alligator Alcatraz before he was deported today.
According to a family member, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, Jarquín was detained as soon as he stepped off the plane in Nicaragua and taken back to the same prison where he was tortured in 2018
To date, more than 800,000 people have fled the country fearing reprisal for speaking out against the government. In July 2026, Ortega declared Nicaragua would no longer hold elections.
Pete Hegseth has recommended that Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for killing 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, be killed by US army firing squad.
Donald Trump has approved the recommendation, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media post.
“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” Parnell wrote.
Hasan, who was an Army psychiatrist, would become first US soldier to be executed in more than 60 years.
Donald Trump signed an executive order to “allow anyone to purchase tax-free red-dyed diesel for any reason” during his rally in Nebraska. His aide, Natalie Harp, personally delivered the executive order to the stage.
Before signing the order, Trump asked the crowd if they knew what red-dyed diesel was. “I don’t know what the hell that is,” he said. “Whatever it is it’s supposed to be very good.”
Red-dyed diesel is tax-exempt fuel typically used for farming.
After Harp left the stage with Trump’s signed order, the president remarked that Harp “reminds me of the ‘Price is Right,’” calling the 35-year-old “perfect”. He added, “We should go on television with this show.”
Trump is now speaking at a campaign rally in Nebraska, where he’s hoping to drum up support for Republican senator Pete Ricketts.
The president is, so far, repeating common refrains, including that he won the 2020 election and that he will make America “greater than ever before”. We’ll bring you anything new and noteworthy.
FBI director Kash Patel, 46, announced his engagement to country music singer Alexis Wilkins, 27, in a social media post Sunday.
Wilkins shared a photograph of her wearing a ring with the caption “Went and got the law involved.”
In April, the FBI began investigating a New York Times reporter after the newspaper published a story alleging that Patel used FBI resources to provide protection and transportation for Wilkins.
Responding to backlash over taxpayer-funded, pro-Trump ads, Donald Trump says he will “pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”, a political action committee.
In a social media post, Trump characterized the ads as “a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” and called them “a rather standard thing to do”.
Last week, two congressional Democrats asked federal watchdogs to investigate whether the Trump administration illegally used taxpayer money to air television ads promoting the president ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, and George Whitesides wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the office of special counsel (OSC) on Wednesday, describing the commercials as “desperate pre-election propaganda”.
A coalition of Democratic attorneys general for 16 states announced a lawsuit today against health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, over changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The lawsuit addresses changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made in January, when it stopped recommending seven vaccines for children, including ones that protect against hepatitis B, influenza, RSV and meningitis.
The lawsuit also challenges Kennedy’s decision to fire all voting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
“For decades, these vaccines have kept millions of children out of the hospital and saved countless lives,” said New York attorney general Letitia James. “Families deserve guidance grounded in science, and these abrupt changes put children’s health at risk.”
The coalition includes attorneys for the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
Pennsylvania is currently experiencing the largest measles outbreak in more than three decades, with more than 1,000 cases reported.
