Politics

President Donald Trump formally announced the creation of what he called a “Super Intelligence Force,” an artificial intelligence task force that he says will work to promote AI dominance while also protecting American lives and interests. 

“The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence, which many say is bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet, and will protect the interests, and improve the lives, of all Americans,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Sunday.

Trump’s announcement was thin on details, with the president not outlining any specific action or oversight the task force will have on AI development — an issue about which some tech CEOs have raised concerns and called for federal regulation. 

“The Super Intelligence Force will coordinate the Federal Government’s engagement with Consumers, Public Interest Groups, Religious Organizations, Critical Infrastructure Providers, and Super Intelligence Companies,” Trump added. 

An ABC News request sent to the White House for more information about the task force’s objectives did not immediately receive a response.

Last month, Trump said he would create an AI task force amid rising concerns about the technology. Sunday’s formal announcement comes after the president met with top tech CEOs at the White House last week, where he said he and six companies signed a “constitution” establishing standards on how to self-police their technology. 

Trump said the task force will be led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, as well as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, and Director of the Office of Personnel Management Scott Kupor. 

Clayton, who is expected to serve as the White House’s new AI czar, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Saturday that global dominance in AI makes the U.S. more equipped to address risks from adversaries, echoing the president’s support for the technology’s continued growth. 

“The risk of not being first is high,” Clayton told The Wall Street Journal. “Not being first increases the identified, and unidentified, risks, particularly from our adversaries. Being first will better enable us to address those risks on behalf of the American people.”

Clayton said of the AI task force, “I expect there will be mechanisms developed in dialogue, just like there are in other industries.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Clayton cited risk models for the financial industry that have been developed in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission. He told the newspaper that the task force would examine current law and discuss possible actions that Congress could take. 

Clayton also expressed confidence in the group that the president has appointed to run the AI task force, citing the “diverse skill sets” and “common commitment” of its members. 

“These are all serious people who have addressed opportunities and risks in the past and are committed to doing this so that America wins the AI race and we win it through the benefit of the American people,” he added.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

President Donald Trump formally announced the creation of what he called a “Super Intelligence Force,” an artificial intelligence task force that he says will work to promote AI dominance while also protecting American lives and interests. 

“The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence, which many say is bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet, and will protect the interests, and improve the lives, of all Americans,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Sunday.

Trump’s announcement was thin on details, with the president not outlining any specific action or oversight the task force will have on AI development — an issue about which some tech CEOs have raised concerns and called for federal regulation. 

“The Super Intelligence Force will coordinate the Federal Government’s engagement with Consumers, Public Interest Groups, Religious Organizations, Critical Infrastructure Providers, and Super Intelligence Companies,” Trump added. 

An ABC News request sent to the White House for more information about the task force’s objectives did not immediately receive a response.

Last month, Trump said he would create an AI task force amid rising concerns about the technology. Sunday’s formal announcement comes after the president met with top tech CEOs at the White House last week, where he said he and six companies signed a “constitution” establishing standards on how to self-police their technology. 

Trump said the task force will be led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, as well as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, and Director of the Office of Personnel Management Scott Kupor. 

Clayton, who is expected to serve as the White House’s new AI czar, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Saturday that global dominance in AI makes the U.S. more equipped to address risks from adversaries, echoing the president’s support for the technology’s continued growth. 

“The risk of not being first is high,” Clayton told The Wall Street Journal. “Not being first increases the identified, and unidentified, risks, particularly from our adversaries. Being first will better enable us to address those risks on behalf of the American people.”

Clayton said of the AI task force, “I expect there will be mechanisms developed in dialogue, just like there are in other industries.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Clayton cited risk models for the financial industry that have been developed in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission. He told the newspaper that the task force would examine current law and discuss possible actions that Congress could take. 

Clayton also expressed confidence in the group that the president has appointed to run the AI task force, citing the “diverse skill sets” and “common commitment” of its members. 

“These are all serious people who have addressed opportunities and risks in the past and are committed to doing this so that America wins the AI race and we win it through the benefit of the American people,” he added.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

President Donald Trump is heading to Grand Island, Nebraska, for a rally on Monday evening, the latest in a campaign travel swing that includes notable stops in red states and one that comes as both parties eye critical races in the state.

Last week, Trump held rallies in Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio; Nebraska is similarly red-leaning. Trump won the statewide vote in Nebraska three times by around 20 points each time. In 2020 and 2024, the Democratic candidate each time got one electoral college vote from Nebraska because Nebraska splits its electoral college votes.

But in the Senate race this year in Nebraska, incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts, first elected to the Senate in 2024 in a special election after previously serving as Nebraska’s governor, is facing a closely watched general election matchup against independent Dan Osborn, a union steamfitter who ran a closer-than-expected race for Senate in 2024 against GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.

Early in-person voting in Nebraska begins on Monday, the day of the rally.

Ricketts has argued that he’s best suited to keep delivering for Nebraska and that his opponent is secretly a Democrat.

There is no Democrat on the ballot for Senate in Nebraska, as the Democrat who won the Senate primary withdrew. Democrats are rallying behind Osborn as one of a few red-state independents running for Senate this year, although Osborn has insisted he won’t caucus with either party.

Ricketts has alleged that “Democrat Dan,” as he nicknamed Osborn during a recent debate, is trying to mislead voters while planning to effectively serve  as a Democrat.

Ricketts has also faced newfound scrutiny after an ad released by an outside group last week featured a woman who called out his vote in 2022, while governor, to pardon a man who served a prison sentence for sexually assaulting her. Ricketts told reporters after the ad was released, “The pardon was granted nearly three decades after the crime, and anyone who knows me knows that I have always protected Nebraskans. That is my job, and it always has been.”

Osborn, meanwhile, has argued that he will be a fully independent voice for Nebraska and that voters there need change.

He also recently apologized for leaked audio from a campaign event where he maligned hypothetical Trump voters as having lives that “suck,” saying he was trying to discuss the anger he said Trump tapped into during his presidential runs.

ABC News has not independently obtained the audio; Osborn has not disputed the remarks.

Trump, in a recent video he posted on his social media platform, praised Ricketts as someone who “will always put Nebraska first, and he’ll always put America first,” while slamming Osborn as someone who “will say anything to win. He’s dying to get to Washington so he can betray you, but we will not let that happen.”

There’s also a major U.S. House race in Nebraska, although it’s not in the congressional district where Trump is going on Monday. Grand Island is in the state’s 3rd District, represented by Rep. Adrian Smith and favored to remain Republican-held.

But the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha, is a top target for Democrats. Incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring; Omaha City Council member Brinker Harding, a Republican, and businesswoman Denise Powell, a Democrat, are running.

Ricketts has indicated during recent interviews that he will attend Monday’s rally, telling media outlets on Wednesday, “We will welcome President Trump to Grand Island on Monday, and we will be talking about the things we’ve done between Senate Republicans and the president to put more money back in people’s pockets.”

Harding, however, will not be at the rally, his spokesperson confirmed to ABC News on Thursday, because of “previously scheduled events.” Harding has Trump’s endorsement, although he has also sought sometimes to show where he disagrees with Trump.

Given Nebraska’s agriculture industry, the rises in the prices of fertilizer and fuel because of the war with Iran hurting trade have become major issues, as has the administration’s temporary lift on beef tariffs, which both Ricketts and Osborn have criticized.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

President Donald Trump is heading to Grand Island, Nebraska, for a rally on Monday evening, the latest in a campaign travel swing that includes notable stops in red states and one that comes as both parties eye critical races in the state.

Last week, Trump held rallies in Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio; Nebraska is similarly red-leaning. Trump won the statewide vote in Nebraska three times by around 20 points each time. In 2020 and 2024, the Democratic candidate each time got one electoral college vote from Nebraska because Nebraska splits its electoral college votes.

But in the Senate race this year in Nebraska, incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts, first elected to the Senate in 2024 in a special election after previously serving as Nebraska’s governor, is facing a closely watched general election matchup against independent Dan Osborn, a union steamfitter who ran a closer-than-expected race for Senate in 2024 against GOP Sen. Deb Fischer.

Early in-person voting in Nebraska begins on Monday, the day of the rally.

Ricketts has argued that he’s best suited to keep delivering for Nebraska and that his opponent is secretly a Democrat.

There is no Democrat on the ballot for Senate in Nebraska, as the Democrat who won the Senate primary withdrew. Democrats are rallying behind Osborn as one of a few red-state independents running for Senate this year, although Osborn has insisted he won’t caucus with either party.

Ricketts has alleged that “Democrat Dan,” as he nicknamed Osborn during a recent debate, is trying to mislead voters while planning to effectively serve  as a Democrat.

Ricketts has also faced newfound scrutiny after an ad released by an outside group last week featured a woman who called out his vote in 2022, while governor, to pardon a man who served a prison sentence for sexually assaulting her. Ricketts told reporters after the ad was released, “The pardon was granted nearly three decades after the crime, and anyone who knows me knows that I have always protected Nebraskans. That is my job, and it always has been.”

Osborn, meanwhile, has argued that he will be a fully independent voice for Nebraska and that voters there need change.

He also recently apologized for leaked audio from a campaign event where he maligned hypothetical Trump voters as having lives that “suck,” saying he was trying to discuss the anger he said Trump tapped into during his presidential runs.

ABC News has not independently obtained the audio; Osborn has not disputed the remarks.

Trump, in a recent video he posted on his social media platform, praised Ricketts as someone who “will always put Nebraska first, and he’ll always put America first,” while slamming Osborn as someone who “will say anything to win. He’s dying to get to Washington so he can betray you, but we will not let that happen.”

There’s also a major U.S. House race in Nebraska, although it’s not in the congressional district where Trump is going on Monday. Grand Island is in the state’s 3rd District, represented by Rep. Adrian Smith and favored to remain Republican-held.

But the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha, is a top target for Democrats. Incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring; Omaha City Council member Brinker Harding, a Republican, and businesswoman Denise Powell, a Democrat, are running.

Ricketts has indicated during recent interviews that he will attend Monday’s rally, telling media outlets on Wednesday, “We will welcome President Trump to Grand Island on Monday, and we will be talking about the things we’ve done between Senate Republicans and the president to put more money back in people’s pockets.”

Harding, however, will not be at the rally, his spokesperson confirmed to ABC News on Thursday, because of “previously scheduled events.” Harding has Trump’s endorsement, although he has also sought sometimes to show where he disagrees with Trump.

Given Nebraska’s agriculture industry, the rises in the prices of fertilizer and fuel because of the war with Iran hurting trade have become major issues, as has the administration’s temporary lift on beef tariffs, which both Ricketts and Osborn have criticized.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

To walk deep into the mountain forests at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, is to encounter the fragrant majesty of century-old ponderosa pine trees famous for lining ski slopes, National Park trails and residential neighborhoods.

Now, those iconic Colorado trees — already under strain from record heat and prolonged drought — are threatened by a rapidly growing outbreak of silent killers: the mountain pine beetle.

The size of a grain of rice, the native forest insect can attack a tree in a matter of weeks, feeding upon its critical tissues and effectively strangling it from within.

“Once a tree has been attacked, it’s likely to die,” said Sarah Hart, a forest ecologist with Colorado State University. “For managing large landscapes, we really don’t have particularly effective strategies to stop it.”

WATCH: Outbreak: Hidden Costs of the Climate Crisis at 7 and 9 p.m. ET Monday on ABC News Live PRIME, streaming on Hulu, Disney+ and ABC News apps.

More than 700,000 acres in Colorado are affected, officials say. Climate change is blamed for supercharging the emerging outbreak, with no end in sight.

Some state officials have called them “zombie forests”: ponderosa that appear to be healthy but are under existential threats from a changing climate that may result in extinction in some areas. 

“We’ve had this dearth of precipitation, above-average temperatures — It’s kind of like attacking the bank when there’s no security guard,” said Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service. “These trees are standing there with not a lot of defenses.”

The cost of responding to the pine beetle outbreak, along with the financial impacts from other climate-change influenced environmental threats, are at the heart of a major Supreme Court case being argued Monday in Washington.

The City of Boulder and Boulder County, Colorado, in 2018 sued major fossil-fuel producers Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy, seeking financial damages under state public nuisance law.

Their complaint alleges the companies “knowingly caused and contributed” to climate change by promoting fossil fuels “while concealing and/or misrepresenting the dangers,” including “devastation” to forests from an “epidemic” of mountain pine beetles.

Exxon and Suncor, which declined interviews for this story, argue in court papers that the Boulder lawsuit is based on a “dubious theory,” insisting local harms from the global phenomenon of climate change cannot be pinned on individual companies.

They’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss the case out.

“National issues should be decided at the national stage, and that means Congress needs to be the one to decide what are the rules for who pays, who ultimately pays, what are standards for imposing those costs,” said Michael Williams, solicitor general of West Virginia, which has joined 25 other states backing Exxon and Suncor.

“If these suits go forward, higher gas prices are maybe the smallest consequence. I think it’s even bigger than that and you’re going to see some of these industries potentially shutter entirely,” Williams said.

Boulder city and county officials declined interview requests about the case.

Longtime Boulder resident Paul Chinowsky, a civil engineer specializing in climate impacts, said he doesn’t want the oil companies to go bankrupt but agrees they should chip in for alleged harms from their product.

“Let’s be real. We can’t live today without some level of fossil fuels, but we need regulation,” Chinowsky said in an interview in his neighborhood on the outskirts of Boulder.

“We see streets getting resurfaced. We see drainage systems getting updated, and we think of it all as, well, this is just a part of regular maintenance. Climate change is putting an accelerator on that,” he said.

Boulder and Boulder County say in court documents that they’ve spent millions on road repairs, storm drainage improvements and utility upgrades to keep pace with other environmental threats amplified by climate change.

“It’s become a significant element of the city’s budget,” said John Tayer, CEO of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. “There are direct costs associated with the change in climate. Just everything from rising heat, which leads to greater air conditioning costs. It can slow down outdoor work because of the risk to the workforce from heat exposure. It’s across the board.”

Then there is the mountain pine beetle.

Driving from Boulder along Interstate 70 into the Front Range, rust-colored clusters of dead ponderosa pine streak the mountainsides. From above, the scale of the crisis is even more dramatic.

Bark beetles killed more than 54 million acres of pines across the West in the early 2000s, an area the size of the state of Utah. The new outbreak is expected to be much worse for communities in fire-prone areas. 

“We’ve seen a lot of sporadic wildfire activity when you have a lot of dead trees like this,” said Dan Gibbs, a veteran wildland firefighter who heads Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, “Bark beetle-kill timber burns differently than I would say a green, alive forest.”

Teams of state foresters are scrambling to clear beetle-killed trees from hillsides near residential communities to reduce fuels for fire, one dead tree at a time. The cost to state taxpayers: $10,000 per acre, Gibbs said.

“Fire hazard, impacts to recreation, impacts to watersheds — the [dead trees have] a huge ripple effect on almost daily life of Coloradans and visitors,” he said.

If the nation’s highest court allows Boulder to sue Exxon and Suncor for damages, it won’t halt a pine beetle outbreak that state officials say will last from years to decades. But supporters of the case hope it brings increased accountability — and more funding to protect Colorado’s ponderosa pines and the people who love them.

“Oftentimes the people and the organisms that are facing the most dramatic impacts of climate change are not the ones who are benefiting from what’s causing climate change,” said Hart. “I do think that there should be greater accountability for those negative effects.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

To walk deep into the mountain forests at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, is to encounter the fragrant majesty of century-old ponderosa pine trees famous for lining ski slopes, National Park trails and residential neighborhoods.

Now, those iconic Colorado trees — already under strain from record heat and prolonged drought — are threatened by a rapidly growing outbreak of silent killers: the mountain pine beetle.

The size of a grain of rice, the native forest insect can attack a tree in a matter of weeks, feeding upon its critical tissues and effectively strangling it from within.

“Once a tree has been attacked, it’s likely to die,” said Sarah Hart, a forest ecologist with Colorado State University. “For managing large landscapes, we really don’t have particularly effective strategies to stop it.”

WATCH: Outbreak: Hidden Costs of the Climate Crisis at 7 and 9 p.m. ET Monday on ABC News Live PRIME, streaming on Hulu, Disney+ and ABC News apps.

More than 700,000 acres in Colorado are affected, officials say. Climate change is blamed for supercharging the emerging outbreak, with no end in sight.

Some state officials have called them “zombie forests”: ponderosa that appear to be healthy but are under existential threats from a changing climate that may result in extinction in some areas. 

“We’ve had this dearth of precipitation, above-average temperatures — It’s kind of like attacking the bank when there’s no security guard,” said Dan West, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service. “These trees are standing there with not a lot of defenses.”

The cost of responding to the pine beetle outbreak, along with the financial impacts from other climate-change influenced environmental threats, are at the heart of a major Supreme Court case being argued Monday in Washington.

The City of Boulder and Boulder County, Colorado, in 2018 sued major fossil-fuel producers Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy, seeking financial damages under state public nuisance law.

Their complaint alleges the companies “knowingly caused and contributed” to climate change by promoting fossil fuels “while concealing and/or misrepresenting the dangers,” including “devastation” to forests from an “epidemic” of mountain pine beetles.

Exxon and Suncor, which declined interviews for this story, argue in court papers that the Boulder lawsuit is based on a “dubious theory,” insisting local harms from the global phenomenon of climate change cannot be pinned on individual companies.

They’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss the case out.

“National issues should be decided at the national stage, and that means Congress needs to be the one to decide what are the rules for who pays, who ultimately pays, what are standards for imposing those costs,” said Michael Williams, solicitor general of West Virginia, which has joined 25 other states backing Exxon and Suncor.

“If these suits go forward, higher gas prices are maybe the smallest consequence. I think it’s even bigger than that and you’re going to see some of these industries potentially shutter entirely,” Williams said.

Boulder city and county officials declined interview requests about the case.

Longtime Boulder resident Paul Chinowsky, a civil engineer specializing in climate impacts, said he doesn’t want the oil companies to go bankrupt but agrees they should chip in for alleged harms from their product.

“Let’s be real. We can’t live today without some level of fossil fuels, but we need regulation,” Chinowsky said in an interview in his neighborhood on the outskirts of Boulder.

“We see streets getting resurfaced. We see drainage systems getting updated, and we think of it all as, well, this is just a part of regular maintenance. Climate change is putting an accelerator on that,” he said.

Boulder and Boulder County say in court documents that they’ve spent millions on road repairs, storm drainage improvements and utility upgrades to keep pace with other environmental threats amplified by climate change.

“It’s become a significant element of the city’s budget,” said John Tayer, CEO of the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. “There are direct costs associated with the change in climate. Just everything from rising heat, which leads to greater air conditioning costs. It can slow down outdoor work because of the risk to the workforce from heat exposure. It’s across the board.”

Then there is the mountain pine beetle.

Driving from Boulder along Interstate 70 into the Front Range, rust-colored clusters of dead ponderosa pine streak the mountainsides. From above, the scale of the crisis is even more dramatic.

Bark beetles killed more than 54 million acres of pines across the West in the early 2000s, an area the size of the state of Utah. The new outbreak is expected to be much worse for communities in fire-prone areas. 

“We’ve seen a lot of sporadic wildfire activity when you have a lot of dead trees like this,” said Dan Gibbs, a veteran wildland firefighter who heads Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, “Bark beetle-kill timber burns differently than I would say a green, alive forest.”

Teams of state foresters are scrambling to clear beetle-killed trees from hillsides near residential communities to reduce fuels for fire, one dead tree at a time. The cost to state taxpayers: $10,000 per acre, Gibbs said.

“Fire hazard, impacts to recreation, impacts to watersheds — the [dead trees have] a huge ripple effect on almost daily life of Coloradans and visitors,” he said.

If the nation’s highest court allows Boulder to sue Exxon and Suncor for damages, it won’t halt a pine beetle outbreak that state officials say will last from years to decades. But supporters of the case hope it brings increased accountability — and more funding to protect Colorado’s ponderosa pines and the people who love them.

“Oftentimes the people and the organisms that are facing the most dramatic impacts of climate change are not the ones who are benefiting from what’s causing climate change,” said Hart. “I do think that there should be greater accountability for those negative effects.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes Monday on the eve of the midterm elections to begin a new term that will confront a fresh wave of appeals from President Donald Trump and the prospect of explosive legal challenges to 2026 election results.

The first case for oral argument involves climate change and a blockbuster bid by local governments to sue energy companies for financial damages over alleged harms from fossil fuels — the first-of-its-kind dispute to reach the justices. Potentially billions of dollars are on the line.

This year the court will also decide whether states can ban semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15; deny federal ballots to voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship on state registration forms; and block religious schools from taxpayer-funded programs when they discriminate against LGBTQ+ families.

It is also considering whether to weigh in on state laws mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms; legal shields for medical providers who mail abortion pills out of state; and, regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

These cases are not expected to be decided before the midterms in November.

“Is the court a Republican court? Is it resolving disputes in the name of justice or some broader set of principles? I think it’s a very live question,” said Genevieve Lakier, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. “This term, like the last, is going to provide fuel to the fire of that question.”

The justices will decide the legality of the Trump administration’s rapid deportation of immigrants to third countries — without giving them a chance to raise fears of persecution — and the indefinite detention of immigrants awaiting deportation proceedings without a chance for release on bond.

The president also has personal appeals before the court. He wants the justices to invalidate an $83 million civil judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit; revive a conspiracy claim against Hillary Clinton and the DNC from the 2016 campaign; and allow defamation claims against CNN from the 2020 election to go forward.

“The Supreme Court’s term is, in part, going to involve a lot of election drama,” said William Baude, a prominent conservative law professor at the University of Chicago and member of the Federalist Society. “The 2026 midterm elections are upon us, and the court has already had several pieces of litigation related to that, and has more to come at any moment.”

A majority of Americans believe that the justices are motivated mainly by politics in their decision-making and that this court — with a 6-justice conservative supermajority — rules often for Trump, a Marquette University poll found last month.

But many scholars, and the justices themselves, argue that public perception is not matched by reality.

The court ruled against Trump last term on nearly every major policy priority to reach them, striking down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs program, birthright citizenship executive order, deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities, removal of a Federal Reserve governor, and implementation of Postal Service mail-in ballot rules.

On dozens of other matters that reached the court on the emergency docket, however, the conservative majority has been much more deferential to the president. By one analysis, he has won about nine times out of ten.

“I don’t see this as a court that is just like, ‘We’re just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.’ You know, quite the opposite,” Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal minority, told a judicial conference over the summer. “I think that that is a bad rap.”

Former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who served in the Obama administration, said the Court has been deliberate in asserting its independence from the president.

“It’s doing so at a time in which there really is a pretty darn serious constitutional clash going on,” Verrilli said last month. “Though, I think it’s certainly right it is not a MAGA court.”

Veteran court watchers note, however, that every term comes with surprises.

“Will the court continue to hold the line against the president’s never-ending assault on the rule of law? Will the court otherwise break down 6-3 in favor of conservative positions?” said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes Monday on the eve of the midterm elections to begin a new term that will confront a fresh wave of appeals from President Donald Trump and the prospect of explosive legal challenges to 2026 election results.

The first case for oral argument involves climate change and a blockbuster bid by local governments to sue energy companies for financial damages over alleged harms from fossil fuels — the first-of-its-kind dispute to reach the justices. Potentially billions of dollars are on the line.

This year the court will also decide whether states can ban semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15; deny federal ballots to voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship on state registration forms; and block religious schools from taxpayer-funded programs when they discriminate against LGBTQ+ families.

It is also considering whether to weigh in on state laws mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms; legal shields for medical providers who mail abortion pills out of state; and, regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

These cases are not expected to be decided before the midterms in November.

“Is the court a Republican court? Is it resolving disputes in the name of justice or some broader set of principles? I think it’s a very live question,” said Genevieve Lakier, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. “This term, like the last, is going to provide fuel to the fire of that question.”

The justices will decide the legality of the Trump administration’s rapid deportation of immigrants to third countries — without giving them a chance to raise fears of persecution — and the indefinite detention of immigrants awaiting deportation proceedings without a chance for release on bond.

The president also has personal appeals before the court. He wants the justices to invalidate an $83 million civil judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit; revive a conspiracy claim against Hillary Clinton and the DNC from the 2016 campaign; and allow defamation claims against CNN from the 2020 election to go forward.

“The Supreme Court’s term is, in part, going to involve a lot of election drama,” said William Baude, a prominent conservative law professor at the University of Chicago and member of the Federalist Society. “The 2026 midterm elections are upon us, and the court has already had several pieces of litigation related to that, and has more to come at any moment.”

A majority of Americans believe that the justices are motivated mainly by politics in their decision-making and that this court — with a 6-justice conservative supermajority — rules often for Trump, a Marquette University poll found last month.

But many scholars, and the justices themselves, argue that public perception is not matched by reality.

The court ruled against Trump last term on nearly every major policy priority to reach them, striking down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs program, birthright citizenship executive order, deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities, removal of a Federal Reserve governor, and implementation of Postal Service mail-in ballot rules.

On dozens of other matters that reached the court on the emergency docket, however, the conservative majority has been much more deferential to the president. By one analysis, he has won about nine times out of ten.

“I don’t see this as a court that is just like, ‘We’re just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.’ You know, quite the opposite,” Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal minority, told a judicial conference over the summer. “I think that that is a bad rap.”

Former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who served in the Obama administration, said the Court has been deliberate in asserting its independence from the president.

“It’s doing so at a time in which there really is a pretty darn serious constitutional clash going on,” Verrilli said last month. “Though, I think it’s certainly right it is not a MAGA court.”

Veteran court watchers note, however, that every term comes with surprises.

“Will the court continue to hold the line against the president’s never-ending assault on the rule of law? Will the court otherwise break down 6-3 in favor of conservative positions?” said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law Center.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna are heading to California to rally Saturday in support of an initiative that would place a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires in the state.

Their efforts to barnstorm the state come as early voting begins, and millions of dollars have been spent to kill the initiative.

The measure would affect roughly 200 of California’s billionaires, with the money going to cover federal Medi-Cal cuts. Gov. Gavin Newsom has become its most prominent opponent, arguing that the tax could be dodged by billionaires who could leave the state for another.

Prior to arriving in San Francisco, Khanna told ABC News that he and Newsom are “polar opposites” on the issue. Both have openly discussed that they are weighing a presidential bid in 2028.

“He [Newsom] doesn’t want to offend some of the billionaires who he wants to finance his campaigns, and that’s the question: Are we going to be a party for the working class? Are we going to be beholden to our donors?” Khanna said.

The congressman challenged Newsom to a debate, proposing holding town halls and talking to voters about this issue.

“I’m happy to debate him on this any time in the state,” he said.

Asked by reporters earlier this week about Sanders’ visit, Newsom said he has “enormous respect” for the senator, but on this specific issue, “we fundamentally disagree.” 

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Newsom said, “The Governor supports a national tax on billionaires and is proud to stand with teachers, firefighters, reproductive health clinics, and others in opposing this poorly written state measure that will harm California.”

Newsom has shared a counterproposal: a national billionaire tax focused on loans taken against assets.

Tech investors have pushed back hard on the measure. Vinod Khosla warned that the state’s top wealth creators will leave, and Mark Cuban told Khanna he doesn’t understand business.

Khanna pointed to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

“Someone more successful than both of them, Jensen, is perfectly fine paying the tax, and he’s driving the economy more than either of them are these days,” Khanna said.

Asked about whether he was concerned about the proposed tax by Bloomberg Television, Huang said, “I’ve got to tell you, I have not even thought about it once. We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it.”

But billionaires have also been opening their wallets to fight the measure. Building a Better California, the flagship organization fighting the measure, has raised over $252 million, mostly from billionaires, according to public financial records. Top contributors include Google co-founder Sergey Brin (who has given $102 million), venture capitalist John Doerr (who has given $30 million) and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who has given $27 million).

Skeptics of Proposition 40, the official name for the billionaire tax ballot measure, say that the measure could ultimately reduce tax revenue by motivating wealthy Californians to relocate and take their wealth with them. According to an analysis from California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), the tax could generate revenues in the tens of millions in the short term but cause decreases in income tax revenue in the future.

No On Prop 40, a group funded by Building a Better California, is running several digital ads. Some of the ads say that the billionaire tax would lead to a decline in tax revenue, while others claim that the measure will lead to the state legislature approving wealth taxes on non-billionaires.

No on Prop 40’s website lists dozens of groups that are members of its “coalition” opposed to the tax. Among them is the California Farm Bureau.

Steven Fenaroli, a spokesperson for the group, says he thinks the billionaire tax will end up becoming “just another tax on farmers and ranchers.”

“When my members are looking at Prop 40, they see this slippery slope that we seem to have in California,” Fenaroli told ABC News.

David Lesperance, a tax lawyer who has helped several billionaires relocate from California, said, “My multi-billionaire clients… said, ‘We need to get out of here. That’s over a trillion dollars that have left.”

Yes on 40, the main group backing the measure, has received roughly $32.4 million, the vast majority from Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) and affiliated organizations.

Suzanne Jimenez, SEIU-UHW chief of staff, said the campaign expected to be heavily outspent.

“It was part of our plan,” Jimenez told ABC News. “I think the spending is actually counteracting what they’re intending to do, and it’s actually helping us in our conversations with voters.”

Several labor organizations, including California Professional Firefighters and California Teachers Association, are against the tax. When asked on a press call why labor groups would oppose a tax on billionaires, Sanders pointed to the media pumped out by the billionaire-backed anti-tax campaign.

“In America today, is it possible for a ballot item to win when it is being opposed by a handful of billionaires who are spending over $200 million?” Sanders asked. “That is the question. Do you still have a democracy in this country, or will billionaires rule?”

Khanna said that the fight over taxing the ultra-wealthy is already playing out in races across the country this year, “and you’re going to see that fight explode in 2028.”

“Will it hurt me in fundraising? Yes. Will there be powerful interests with big tech money and AIPAC money against me? Yes. Will it be enough? We’ll see,” he said.

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A group of 15 Democratic mayors governing in Republican-dominated states are building a new political operation that aims to influence national politics as a center-left alternative to both the MAGA movement and what they describe as “far-left dysfunction” from groups like the Democratic Socialists of America.

The organization — Blue Cities/Red States — is led by Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and will launch next week in Miami with a kickoff event hosted by its mayor, Eileen Higgins. The founding mayors lead cities including Atlanta, Jacksonville, Boise, Tulsa and Memphis — governing more than 7 million Americans across 11 red and purple states, according to a memo for the new coalition.

In an interview with ABC News, Bibb said he hopes these mayors will emerge as a kind of testing ground for a post-2024 Democratic message. He suggested that the party can rebuild trust among voters by zeroing in on things such as public safety, affordability, economic growth — things that these mayors often govern on, up against Republicans at times, Bibb said.

“As Democrats talk about closing the credibility gap, these 15 mayors have been closing that gap in their cities — without the cover of a Democratic governor or a Democratic-led legislature,” Bibb said.

Higgins, who was elected as Miami’s mayor in December as the first Democrat to serve in 28 years, also emphasized the group’s focus on working against the political extremes.

“Working for a more united states is a core theme of Blue Cities/Red States, and we do this by pushing back against extremism and promoting a more practical brand of leadership that focuses on results over rhetoric,” Higgins said. “This includes balancing the need to stand up for your community against harmful policies but also finding compromise solutions that deliver results.”

The group plans to have a permanent national platform, fundraising and organizational infrastructure, polling and message testing, and a national paid-media strategy heading into the 2026 and 2028 cycles, according to the memo.

Bibb claimed the group is also in talks with members of Congress about aligning their agendas.

“We want to influence the next speaker, and the next Congress, and the next president. We know what this next Congress should be focused on to address cost and affordability, to address public safety,” Bibb said.

“I think long term, it’s leaders like this that allows us to expand the map. As we saw in 2024, the ‘blue wall’ doesn’t exist anymore. So if you want to win in Idaho and Nebraska and Georgia and Arizona and Missouri and Ohio, we’ve got to invest in mayors, and I think mayors represent the best future for the Democratic Party.”

This group is building out just ahead of the midterms, when Democrats are expected to notch victories that could come as a result of President Donald Trump’s unpopularity rather than their own party’s image, a new Wall Street Journal poll shows.

According to the poll, Democrats received some of their lowest approval ratings in decades since Trump took office last year. They have a 38% favorable rating, just behind the Republican Party’s 39% favorability rating. President Trump’s current approval rating is at 37%.

In the Wall Street Journal poll, Democratic Socialists of America had just a 24% favorable rating.

Bibb said he hopes that by boosting these red-state Democratic mayors, Republicans could learn to trust Democrats.

“You know, poll after poll after poll shows that MAGA Republicans and Democrats agree that affordability is the No. 1 issue, but when you look at Republicans — and specifically MAGA Republicans — they don’t trust Democrats to actually execute. And this coalition is the answer to that question, and that’s our value proposition long term,” Bibb said.

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