The Latest: Trump rallies for Darline Graham in South Carolina’s US Senate race

Oct. 21, 2026, 8:47 PM ET

President Donald Trump is in South Carolina Wednesday to boost U.S. Sen. Darline Graham, whose stumbles in her first campaign since replacing her late brother have Democratic voters hopeful — but not necessarily optimistic — that their candidate can break Republicans’ grip on the state.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to allow the Trump administration to immediately enforce new medical restrictions for transgender people in prison. An executive order by Trump had called on the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so that federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” The new policy, blocked earlier by a lower court, would halt surgeries, taper off hormones and end social accommodations like makeup and wigs.

Elsewhere in U.S. politics, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy ’s team confirmed late Tuesday that it produced a controversial advertisement featuring the estranged mother of Amy Acton. His campaign added that it will spend $4 million to promote it despite facing bipartisan rebuke for dredging up the painful childhood of his Democratic opponent in Ohio’s governor’s race. Vice President JD Vance said during a campaign visit to Ohio on Wednesday that he is “disgusted” by the Republican pushback against the ad.

Here's the latest:

Trump wrapped up his remarks in South Carolina

The president ran through many of his regular rally points, including showing a video of a CNN reporter describing polls showing his high support among Republicans, and bringing an athlete on stage—in this case, Holyfield.

He wrapped up after about an hour and a half.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall says the Ukraine war has caused high diesel prices, not the Iran war

Marshall, who is seeking a second term, responded during a televised debate Wednesday night to Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton’s call for suspending federal fuel taxes as long as the war with Iran continues.

Hamilton said suspending fuel taxes is only a temporary solution and that Congress must act to force Trump to end the war.

Marshall responded that he’s not opposed to suspending fuel taxes and that he wants the war to end as quickly as possible, though he didn’t commit to trying to force an end.

Marshall also said, “The real problem with the cost of diesel in particular is, No. 1, the Ukraine war, and because the diesel production has gone down.”

Hamilton responded, “Nobody believes that.” He blamed the war in Iran and accused Marshall of “selling out” Ukraine.

Trump laments another prize he didn’t win — the Pulitzer Prize

The president was recounting how he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize despite his efforts to try to end wars, a subject he brings up frequently while insisting he doesn’t mind that he didn’t win.

Trump on Wednesday at one point referred to it as the “Pulitzer” and then a few moments later added: “I didn’t get the Nobel Prize,” he said. “I should have gotten the Pulitzer for writing too.”

It’s not clear what work of his writing he felt deserved the honor.

Trump muses on changing the names of bodies of water

The president drifted from subject to subject and has spent only a fraction of his remarks on the race in South Carolina.

At one point, he began recounting how he signed orders to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

He told the crowd how he had been looking for a river to rename, including possibly the Hudson River or the Mississippi, but said he was focused more on renaming either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.

“I’m not going to put either Trump or America on any other ocean,” he said.

Trump, interrupted by a string of protesters, seems to marvel that one may have been punched by a rally attendee

The president was interrupted by about 10 protesters in the first half hour of his remarks in South Carolina, with one of the last having a bit of a melee on the floor.

Trump said “Wow” and, “I loved that. I watched that.”

As the protester was removed by security, Trump said that one of the rally attendees threw a punch and said that he reminded him of Evander Holyfield, the boxer who accompanied the president to the rally.

“He got whacked,” Trump said.

El-Sayed and Rogers face off in final Michigan Senate debate

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers are facing off Wednesday night in their final debate for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, following a contentious first meeting earlier this month that featured repeated personal insults and name-calling.

The first half of Wednesday’s debate remained contentious but focused more on policy. Rogers, who has balanced loyalty to Trump with criticism of some of his policies, called the president’s tariffs a “mixed bag” while praising his approach to border security.

El-Sayed, meanwhile, sought to tie Rogers closely to Trump, accusing the Republican of having “cheer-led” the war in Iran.

“Those playing MAGA bingo at home, you just heard like three of the buzzwords,” El-Sayed said after Rogers spoke.

Trump takes the stage at South Carolina rally

Trump has begun his remarks in a livestock arena in Pendleton, part of the campus of South Carolina.

Within minutes, at least two protesters had shouted to interrupt his remarks. They were escorted out by police.

Darline Graham calls Andrews ‘a fraud that’s prescribing bad medicine’

Referencing her Democratic opponent’s status as a physician, GOP Sen. Darline Graham said Annie Andrews is “spreading blatant lies about her record” in “slick ads.”

Graham also accused Andrews of being “the most radical liberal candidate to ever run for office” in South Carolina.

Campaigning to succeed her late brother, Graham called herself “a little bit tougher” than Lindsey Graham on immigration.

“It’s simple,” she said, to swelling applause. “If you’re here illegally, you’ve got to go.”

Trump is en route to the rally site in Pendleton to stump with Graham.

Many states deciding control of the Senate are seeing big boost in early voting, AP analysis shows

Voter turnout is soaring compared with the last midterm election in many of the states that are expected to decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to an Associated Press analysis of early voting two weeks before Election Day.

In Texas, early voting is up 74% compared with 2022. In Kansas it’s more than doubled. Maine, North Carolina and Ohio also have seen increases of more than 30% in early in-person and mail voting compared with the same point in 2022.

Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held Senate seats in each of those states. In most of them, Republicans are accounting for a smaller share of advance voters than they did four years ago.

Midterm elections typically favor the party out of power in Washington. With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, it’s a distinctly different environment than 2022, when Democrats were in charge.

▶ Read more

McMaster says being South Carolina governor has been ‘best job I’ve ever had’

Speaking ahead of the president at Wednesday’s rally near Clemson, Gov. Henry McMaster thanked South Carolina voters for his 10 years in the state’s top spot, a time frame he said “seems like it’s gone by so fast.”

McMaster was lieutenant governor in 2016 when he became the first statewide-elected official in the country to endorse Trump’s presidential bid.

They have been close allies ever since, and McMaster ascended to the governor’s office when Trump selected then-Gov. Nikki Haley to be his United Nations ambassador.

McMaster on Wednesday called Trump “the most incredible man I ever met in my life.”

Trump administration again targets offshore wind farms

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to let it reconsider a major federal permit granted for a large offshore wind farm, making it the fourth project the Republican leadership has targeted in recent months.

The Interior Department wants to reconsider its own approval for the construction and operations plan for the New England Wind project off Massachusetts.

The plan was approved in 2024 during the Biden administration. The Justice Department said the approval ignored major adverse impacts of the project.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, warned that the administration now risks derailing a legislative effort to speed up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects. The Senate reached a bipartisan deal in September on a permitting bill, which has not yet been voted on.

The administration is using executive orders, agency actions and the courts to try to stop development of offshore wind, which Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable.

Thousands of California voters receive duplicate ballots in vendor error

About 7,800 voters in Central California received duplicate mail ballots because of a vendor error, but election and campaign officials expressed confidence that the mistake would not impact results on Election Day.

The bulk of the duplicate ballots arrived at homes in the city of Tulare in the state’s farm belt, most of which is located in the highly competitive 22nd Congressional District, where Republican Rep. David Valadao is being challenged by progressive Democrat Randy Villegas.

Tulare County election officials faulted a “printer vendor error” and instructed voters to submit one ballot and destroy the other.

Valadao campaign strategist Robert Jones said, “We are confident that this won’t impact the results of the election.” Villegas said in a statement, “I have confidence in our election process.”

Mark Kelly says Democrats will hold ‘the corrupt president’ accountable

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and his wife, Gabby Giffords, spoke to a crowd of Democrats preparing to knock on doors on behalf of state legislative candidates outside Phoenix.

He said the political system is geared toward the rich and powerful, not normal Americans, and called Trump the most corrupt person to ever hold public office in the country.

“When we win elections, we can hold them accountable,” Kelly said. “We can end the corruption in Washington, D.C., the corrupt president and his family.”

Kelly is a potential 2028 presidential candidate. Giffords was a member of Congress when she was shot in the head in an attempted assassination.

Dozens of protesters line up along entrance to Trump’s South Carolina rally

The president doesn’t land in South Carolina for several hours, but dozens of people carrying anti-Trump signs are lining the road to the livestock arena where he will appear with Sen. Darline Graham, shouting at rally attendees as they enter the venue.

“This whole ‘Trump’ thing ain’t working,” read one sign. Another proclaimed that Trump’s “America First” policy platform is “un-Christian.”

Some of the people behind a barricade separating them from the roadway in rural South Carolina waved American or pride flags. One held a red and yellow flag of the former Soviet Union.

Kamala Harris encourages hospitality workers to get out the vote ahead of midterms

Former Vice President Kamala Harris rallied about 200 hospitality workers Wednesday afternoon in Las Vegas, encouraging them to campaign for Democratic candidates ahead of Nov. 3.

“Please keep fighting,” she said. “It’s making a difference. You are making a difference.”

The Culinary Workers Union, which represents 60,000 Nevada hospitality workers, is a critical political powerhouse for Democrats, knocking on thousands of doors every election.

She joined Democratic governor candidate Aaron Ford and Democratic Rep. Dina Titus at the union’s headquarters, where the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to Harris, whose birthday was yesterday.

Harris said for her birthday she wants Attorney General Ford and Titus to win. Ford hopes to oust Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo in one of the most competitive governor races.

“It’s going to be tight,” Harris said. “It will not be easy, but we don’t want to have any regrets on the 14th day about what we could have done these 13 days, right?”

Trump reacts to Ramaswamy ad, says ‘the mother is a witness to things, also’

Trump was asked about the widely criticized ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, calling her “a liar.”

“The fact is I know nothing about it. But I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House. Acton’s birth mother, Donna Arthur, “doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter. And I think the mother is a witness to things, also. So who knows,” he went on.

Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted for raping Acton as a child.

Still, Trump called it “a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much,” adding: “I don’t think that has anything to do with Vivek.”

Ramaswamy has claimed credit for the ad and has said he will spend $4 million to promote it.

Trump defends decision not to move on late Sen. Graham’s Russian sanctions bill

The president said criticism of his decision to put on hold the sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy is coming from “people who don’t know how life works.”

Trump argued that holding off enacting the legislation named after South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham helped pave the way for Wednesday’s release of Stephen Hubbard, an American who had been jailed for more than four years in Russia on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.

Graham, who had championed the tougher sanctions package, died in July.

“If you would have put those sanctions on or whatever you want to call them, you could forget about him,” Trump said of Hubbard. “You’d never see him again. He’d be back in jail for 25 years.”

Trump added that his team is also “very close to a deal” to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“When you’re close to a deal and you have very delicate negotiations, you don’t put sanctions on,” he said.

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift halt on Big Bend border wall

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it resume building a border wall project through the Big Bend region of Texas.

The government filed an emergency appeal asking the justices to lift a lower court decision halting construction. That ruling marked a setback to one of President Donald Trump’s signature projects.

The administration has been racing forward with construction on a border wall and other infrastructure from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

But in the Big Bend region, the administration has run into opposition from ranchers, residents, business owners and environmentalists who argue the projects are a waste of money in an area of historically low illegal immigration and say construction could harm the region’s beautiful landscapes.

Opponents have filed numerous lawsuits seeking to stop the project, which in the Big Bend consists of a mixture of walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology.

▶ Read more

Biographer for founding father Hamilton has contributed to US Senate candidate Hamilton in Kansas

The $1,000 contribution on Monday from author Ron Chernow is listed among more than 160 donations in a report filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission by Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton’s campaign.

Chernow wrote the acclaimed, bestselling 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary under President George Washington, who also published dozens of essays defending the U.S. Constitution to help get it ratified in 1788. Chernow’s book helped inspire the acclaimed 2016 musical “Hamilton” on Broadway.

Adam Hamilton is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall to become the first Democrat in Kansas to win a Senate seat since 1932. He is the founder and senior pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church.

Trump says he’s been ‘pretty happy with Russia’ for not getting involved in Iran

U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff called Vladimir Putin a “humanitarian” after the Russian president freed a U.S. citizen, Stephen Hubbard, who had been jailed for more than four years.

When reporters asked Trump about Witkoff’s description of Putin as a humanitarian, the president said “well I guess you could say for that particular purpose” of releasing Hubbard, but added, “I wouldn’t say anything one way or the other.”

“We have been pretty happy with Russia” for staying out of the Iran war, Trump continued, noting that the U.S. is still trying to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

“So the last thing I want to do is upset an apple cart,” he said, “where we’re getting close to settling a war.”

Sister of imprisoned American Stephen Hubbard says he is in disbelief following release by Russia

Hubbard’s younger sister said she spoke with her brother on the phone after his release and described him as in disbelief.

“He was just laughing because he was just, he said ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Patricia Hubbard Fox said during a phone interview as she headed to Denver’s airport to catch a flight to San Antonio to meet her brother.

“He really thought he was going to die in prison,” she added, saying her brother suffered beatings and starvation in prison.

Hubbard Fox said her brother was in perfect health when he was “kidnapped” in 2022 and accused of fighting alongside Kyiv’s forces following Russia’s invasion. Now, she said, he likely has post-traumatic stress disorder from the ordeal and suffers from an enlarged heart.

US orders some diplomats, family members to leave Saudi Arabia as fears of Houthi attacks rise

The State Department is ordering some diplomats and the families of U.S. government employees to leave Saudi Arabia following a series of deadly attacks in the country by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and rising fears of an escalation in hostilities.

The department said Wednesday it had ordered the departure of nonessential staff at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates. The embassy had been badly damaged at the start of the Iran war and had been operating with only a skeleton staff for months, although in recent weeks some diplomats had returned.

“Iranian-supported Houthis have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions. The hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area,” the department said in a new travel alert.

Trump says Hubbard is doing well after release from Russia

Speaking to reporters at an unrelated White House event, Trump said the release of Stephen Hubbard came together quickly after Trump asked Vladimir Putin to release Hubbard during a phone call last week.

“I hear he’s in pretty good shape,” Trump said. “He went through a lot. I spoke to him this morning. He is the happiest man around.”

Trump called the 74-year-old Hubbard a “very high quality, innocent man.”

A retired teacher from Michigan, Hubbard was jailed in Russia for more than four years on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine.