The Latest: Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns, vows to challenge allegations of improper conduct
Kimberly Guilfoyle has resigned as ambassador to Greece and says she'll vigorously defend herself against allegations of improper and possibly illegal conduct. Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, dropped the news during a brief first press conference.
President Donald Trump’s diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats as fueling Russia’s war against Ukraine, violating existing U.S. laws and drawing the U.S. closer to Russia. It joins a growing list of instances where the president has sided with Putin, often at the expense of Ukraine — and U.S. interests.
Most Americans think Donald Trump is profiting off the presidency in unethical or illegal ways and is focused more on his wealth than helping people like them, a new AP-NORC poll finds.
Trump on Tuesday is planning to devote a big chunk of his dwindling time ahead of crucial midterm elections to fly all the way to Alaska, attempting to bolster a Republican incumbent senator in another sign that the GOP fears losing control of Congress.
The Latest:
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is again accusing his main challenger in his reelection bid of being aligned with national Democrats that are resistant to expanded oil and gas development in the state amid environmental concerns.
Sullivan, speaking at a rally Tuesday, insisted Democrat Mary Peltola would represent a step back in the state’s efforts to produce more of its resources.
But Peltola has repeated her support of the large Willow oil project, greenlit during the Biden administration, and taken credit for helping get it approved while she was in the U.S. House. She also has said she isn’t beholden to national Democrats and would put “Alaska first.”
Sullivan was one of several speakers at a rally being headlined by Trump in Wasilla. Trump has yet to take the stage.
Bernadette Wilson is one of three Republicans, along with Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Kreiss-Tomkins finished first in the August open primary, followed by another Democrat who withdrew from the general election.
Wilson finished third in the primary but was first among Republicans. She had 10% of the vote.
Alaska has ranked choice general elections, and Republican party leaders have urged their voters to rank GOP candidates and leave the Democratic candidates blank. Some Republicans see that as the best shot at winning the governor’s race.
Trump, meanwhile, has railed against ranked voting and criticized the other Republicans in the race, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and Treg Taylor, a former state attorney general.
Alaska last elected a Democratic governor in 1998.
Current Gov. Mike Dunleavy is barred from seeking a third straight term.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Uzbekistan and India next week on a trip intended to promote greater security and investment ties with Central and South Asia.
The State Department said Tuesday that Rubio would attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the “C5” — a group that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — in Samarkand and then travel to Mumbai from Oct. 17 to 22.
Rubio will “highlight how strategic cooperation through this diplomatic platform promotes a more peaceful and prosperous future for the United States and the countries of Central Asia,” the department said.
In Mumbai, Rubio will headline a commercial event with major U.S. and Indian investors being promoted by U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.
Rubio’s trip was announced as tensions in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine have mounted in recent days without overt direct involvement from the top U.S. diplomat, who last week visited Iceland, Greece and Portugal.
Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said when he was asked where President Donald Trump should hold a rally, he suggested the Matanuska-Susitna valley region.
Sullivan told reporters that if the GOP can turn out voters in the conservative region that includes Wasilla, “we’re going to win.”
Sullivan spoke before the start of the rally that Trump is headlining in support of him and Rep. Nick Begich. The region is known for its conservative politics.
Sullivan is seeking a third term and a strong challenge from Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. He wore jeans and a blue Marines cap.
Vice President JD Vance rallied on behalf of Sullivan and Begich last week in Fairbanks.
The fines Tuesday on America’s second-biggest bank amount to the third-largest in the department’s history.
Treasury said Bank of America also reached an $11.6 million settlement with the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control over “apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs, including on Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism.”
The Louisiana Secretary of State’s office said its election division in Baton Rouge evacuated Tuesday after an employee opened a package containing white powder.
The substance has not been identified, and law enforcement is investigating the incident, the secretary of state’s office said. No one was injured.
The elections division is expected to reopen tomorrow, said secretary of state spokesperson Trey Williams.
It’s not the first time election workers have received mysterious white substances in the mail. Voting centers and government buildings in six other states received fentanyl-laced letters in 2023, leading election officials to request overdose reversal medication as a precaution.
Election workers nationwide have faced threats, harassment and intimidation since former President Donald Trump and his supporters began spreading false election claims after he lost the 2020 election.
Wisconsin elections officials are preparing guidance for local clerks to help them know what to do if federal law enforcement officials show up at the polls on Election Day.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which oversees elections in the battleground state, released draft guidance on Tuesday that is to be voted on at a commission meeting Thursday.
The memo to the state’s roughly 1,800 local clerks who administer elections tells them what to do if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Department of Homeland Security officials, FBI agents or local law enforcement shows up at the polls.
A hotly contested race for governor tops the Wisconsin ballot this year.
Wisconsin’s chief elections officer Meagan Wolfe says clerks are well trained in how to deal with law enforcement at the polls and “I’m not expecting any problems at our polling places.”
“We expect everything to be in accordance with the law,” she said at a news conference.
The Democratic Georgia senator was at home Tuesday to vote early and urge support for Keisha Lance Bottoms’ campaign for governor.
But Warnock was scheduled to travel out-of-state again immediately. He’s headed to South Carolina, Mississippi and North Carolina in the coming days. He just returned to Georgia from a swing that included Nevada, Ohio and Michigan.
The itinerary includes several states with early 2028 Democratic presidential primaries. South Carolina will lead off Democrats’ calendar. Warnock has not ruled out a White House bid.
Bottoms said Tuesday she had no concerns about Warnock’s jet-setting even as many Georgia Democratic candidates could use his support.
“He can walk and chew gum at the same time,” she said. “It speaks to the influence of Georgia that we have a senator who is being asked for and sought after around the country because people know the power of his voice.”
The Georgia Democrat likes when Trump urges voters to think about the midterms as him being on the ballot one more time.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Warnock said Tuesday, standing beside Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Warnock said Trump’s stand-in on the Georgia ballot is Bottoms’ opponent, he said:
“Rick Jackson is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is Rick Jackson.”
Jackson, a billionaire first-time candidate, will appear Friday with Trump in Dalton, Georgia.
At a September rally, Jackson pointed at Trump and said he wanted “to be this guy’s favorite governor.”
But that’s a risky pitch. Trump won Georgia twice. But he lost it in 2020 as an incumbent.
Outgoing Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won in 2018 and 2022 after Trump’s first election. But Republicans have lost every Georgia U.S. Senate race in that same span.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has recalled the top U.S. envoy to Nicaragua for consultations after the Nicaraguan government rejected the Trump administration’s choice to be the new American ambassador to the country.
As ties between Washington and Managua have grown increasingly tense, the State Department said Tuesday that the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua would be returning home for “critical consultations” following Nicaragua’s denial of agrément for President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the new U.S. ambassador. Diplomatic protocol requires a host government to accept, or grant agrément, to an incoming ambassador before they can take up their post.
The government’s “decision demonstrates their complete unwillingness to engage in productive diplomatic dialogue,” the department said in a statement.
“Maintaining open diplomatic channels is the cornerstone of international relations,” it said. It added that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his co-president wife Rosario Murillo had demonstrated “the hypocrisy of their rhetoric of mutual respect and their desire to engage in political theater at the expense of the Nicaraguan people.”
Relations between the U.S. and Nicaragua have soured demonstrably since Trump took office for his second term, notably after the early January U.S. operation to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power.
The Democratic nominee for governor said Tuesday she’d push lawmakers to repeal Georgia’s ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, even if her party doesn’t have full control of the General Assembly.
“This is a life and death issue,” Bottoms said. “It’s impacting not just women who are seeking to terminate pregnancies but women who are suffering miscarriages” because physicians fear criminal penalties, she added.
Republicans control both legislative chambers, and their caucuses still support the law. Democrats have an outside shot at flipping control of the Georgia House in November. Bottoms essentially conceded Republicans would keep a Senate majority, even if Democrats pick up seats and she defeats Rick Jackson.
But she said Democratic gains would put pressure on Republicans in an abortion-rights debate.
“I am not surrendering that we won’t get it done,” she said. “We’re going to keep pushing until we get it done.”
There are questions about whether Democrats should prioritize legislation or oversight of the Trump administration should they take control of the House and Senate in January.
Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat running for reelection to the Senate, said Tuesday that Congress can manage both.
“We urgently need to restore checks and balances,” he said after voting early.
That means “repealing the tariffs that have driven grocery prices to their record highs,” “repealing health care cuts that have doubled health insurance premiums,” and “ending this disastrous war” in Iran.
All three moves would involve Congress asserting its constitutional powers to counter Trump’s aggressive interpretation of executive power.
Ossoff, who has made Trump’s personal business dealings a focus of his reelection campaign, added that Democrats also would “exercise vigorous oversight of the most corrupt presidential administration in history.”
The vice president repeated a lot of the same attack lines against candidate James Talarico that Trump has used, including adopting his nickname, “Talafreako.”
But Vance also mocked Talarico by saying he was a vegan. Talarico has said he is not a vegan.
Vance’s wife is a vegetarian, something she spoke about at the 2024 Republican National Convention while helping introduce her husband — then Trump’s newly announced running mate.
“Although he’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy, he adapted to my vegetarian diet,” she said at the time.
Georgia’s top Democrats say voters should not take chances by waiting until Election Day to vote.
Bottoms, who’s running for governor against Rick Jackson, noted various Republican threats.
“Rick Jackson has said that the National Guard will be called in. Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act,” she said.
Bottoms was referring to an August audio clip in which Jackson spoke with a voter who expressed concerns Democrats would “cheat” at the polls. In the clip, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jackson told his supporter, “We’ll get National Guard — Gov. Kemp is going to watch it for us.”
Ossoff reminded voters that when Trump lost in 2020 “he tried to seize the presidency and overturn the election.”
“Make a plan to vote right now, and ensure that we win decisively, so no meddling from this White House can foil the will of the people,” he said.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial hopeful Keisha Lance Bottoms are pleased the president will appear with their respective Republican opponents, Mike Collins and Rick Jackson.
“I’m surprised Georgia Republicans want the president here,” Ossoff said Tuesday after casting his ballot on the first day of early voting. “Donald Trump is deeply unpopular in Georgia because he’s a failed president who lied the country into war, who has driven the cost of groceries, fuel, and healthcare to their all-time highs in American history.”
At a different polling site, Bottom said she’s “running against a man who says there’s not a single policy that he doesn’t disagree with Donald Trump on.”
She added: “When Donald Trump says he wants people to imagine that he is on the ballot, I am asking the people of Georgia to do just that.”
There is no clear indication the U.S. intends to withdraw intelligence sharing support for Ukraine, one European diplomat told The Associated Press.
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive geopolitical situation.
The remarks come on the heels of a terse back and forth between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy following the announcement of a US deal to buy diesel fuel from Russia. Trump then went on to declare an “energy ceasefire” – a halt on strikes on energy and fuel production sites in both countries. However, Russia has continued to strike energy sites in Ukraine.
The US previously briefly paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine last spring, cutting off the flow of vital information that has helped the war-torn nation target Russian invaders. That pause came days after a disastrous meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
Trump told reporters that he has not stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine as of Monday.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the order Tuesday to halt tree-cutting at the East Potomac Golf Course until October 26.
That put a further pause on work at the historic D.C. course that has been part of Trump’s plans to remake the city.
Reyes issued the order one day after a tense three-hour hearing in which she harshly criticized the government for having deceived her with its actions over the holiday weekend.
At that hearing, Reyes ordered a 24-hour pause that could be extended to 14 days if necessary. It was limited to one day while the government tries to find a key Trump administration official to discuss why a massive tree-cutting at the park needed to occur over the holiday weekend, with little notification to plaintiffs in a lawsuit trying to halt renovation plans or the judge.
Six Republican senators and six Democratic senators are calling on President Donald Trump to rescind his recent agreement to allow Russian diesel fuel into global markets.
The senators say in a letter to Trump that lifting sanctions on Russia’s diesel exports damages American security interests and is a betrayal of the people of Ukraine.
“This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded,” the senators wrote.
The senators say the president should instead implement new sanctions that were part of a bill Trump signed into law in September that aims to punish the largest buyers of Russia’s oil and gas through tariffs on goods from those countries.
The senators said such economic pressure would enhance the president’s negotiating position “to bring a swift end to this ruinous conflict.”
Guilfoyle has resigned her ambassadorship after allegations of improper conduct and insisted she’ll “vigorously defend” herself.
Trump’s administration said earlier Tuesday it had asked Guilfoyle to leave her post after she faced severe criticism over allegations she engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.
Guilfoyle addressed the allegations directly in a post on X, saying, “These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”
“I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional,” she said. “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”
The State Department has declined to comment on a potential investigation by the department’s inspector general.
The president told reporters “no, we haven’t” stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, saying that America continues to do so in hopes of bringing an end to Russia’s war against the country,.
“There’s a lot of hatred there between the two of them,” Trump said about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The president has allowed Russia to sell diesel fuel despite U.S. sanctions, but he clarified a statement he had posted on social media indicating that the U.S. would be a buyer. “That’s a world deal” he said, adding that Russia would not be selling to America.
Zelenskyy said Tuesday in a post on X that Ukraine did not receive an early warning from its partners as Russian fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Kyiv.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
