LIVE COVERAGEUpdated 6 minutes ago
Live updates: Trump to announce $54 billion Alaska LNG investment from South Korea
Democrats are eyeing Nebraska as a potential Senate pickup in November.
What to know today
- TRUMP LNG ANNOUNCEMENT:President Donald Trump is expected to announce a plan this afternoon for South Korea to invest $54 billion to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska, a White House official said.
- NBC NEWS POLL: A plurality of likely California voters support a proposal on the state’s November ballot that would impose a one-time wealth tax on the richest Californians, but the measure is still short of majority support, a new NBCUniversal Local/Telemundo Station Group pollhas found.
- NEBRASKA SENATE:Democrats in Nebraska and at the national level hope they might be able to swipe a Senate seatin the heavily Republican state and are even more optimistic about flipping the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District.
Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna to rally in support of California billionaire tax
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., will headline a pair of rallies in the coming days in support of a November ballot measure that would impose a one-time tax on the wealthiest Californians.
The progressive lawmakers will lead one rally in San Francisco on Saturday and another in Los Angeles on Monday.
“We are so happy to see Senator Sanders return to California as the campaign enters the home stretch,” said Debru Carthan, the vice president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the large California healthcare workers union leading the effort. “Senator Sanders recognizes better than anyone the threat that extreme wealth inequality poses to our state and our nation.”
A NBCUniversal Local/Telemundo Station Group pollreleased today found that a plurality of likely California voters (48%) supported the billionaire tax proposal, with 38% saying they would vote against it and another 14% saying they were undecided.
Senate committee advances Dr. Nicole Saphier’s nomination for surgeon general
Dr. Nicole Saphier, President Donald Trump’s third nominee for surgeon general, moved a step closer to confirmation after a Senate committee voted to advance her nomination on Wednesday.
Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, was advanced out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on a 12 to 11 vote to serve as surgeon general after she was grilled at her confirmation hearing earlier this month about her stance on childhood vaccines.
Read the full story here.
Trump to announce South Korean investments in an Alaskan natural gas pipeline and other energy infrastructure
Trump is expected to announce a plan this afternoon for South Korea to invest $54 billion to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska, a White House official said.
It is part of a broader South Korean investment of $200 billion as part of the U.S.-Korea trade and investment agreement announced last year. The money will also go toward eight large-scale nuclear plants and a power facility in Texas, the official said. South Korea pledged a total of $350 billion in the trade and investment deal.
The Alaska gas pipeline would stretch more than 800 miles, connecting Alaska’s North Slope to natural gas export terminal in southern Alaska, the official said, adding that it would lower energy prices for Alaskans by providing a reliable supply of natural gas.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the energy infrastructure investments “deliver on [Trump’s] day one promises to unleash American energy, unlock Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential, and accelerate America’s nuclear energy renaissance.”
Intelligence chief says U.S. will take a ‘whole-of-government approach’ to AI regulation
Following the president’s meeting yesterday at the White House with some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton said the Trump administration will be taking a “whole-of-government approach” to regulating the technology.
“I think what you heard yesterday and what you saw in that room, including the government officials that were in that room, is that we are taking a whole-of-government approach across the industry verticals,” Clayton said in an interview this morning with CNBC.
Clayton applauded the AI industries for also taking what he called a “whole-of-private-sector approach” to addressing some of the risks that come with AI development while recognizing opportunities as well.
“Superintelligence is a national security issue, and that was something that was recognized yesterday by not just the industry leaders, but everybody in the room,” Clayton said, using the term the Trump administration has newly adopted to refer to AI.
The comments come as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee holds a hearing today on protecting the U.S. from “AI agent attacks” with leaders in AI research and cybersecurity.
Yesterday, Trump told reporters that he believes there should be “tremendous self-regulation” by the AI companies themselves.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent over $1 million on private jet expenses in race for Ohio governor
In Ohio’s race for governor, GOP nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent over $1 million on private jet expenses, according to an NBC News analysis of campaign finance filings.
The expenditures by Ramaswamy’s campaign include line items totaling tens of thousands of dollars at a time to companies like V Leasing LLC, Coshocton Air Ltd, TVPX Aircraft Solutions and Citation Management LLC. The disbursements to these companies from the campaign are labeled as “aircraft lease” or “travel” in campaign finance reports from last year and earlier this year.
Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur, is running against former public health official Amy Acton in the state’s open race for governor. In recent weeks, he’s faced criticism from both sides of the aisle about his affinity for traveling to campaign and fundraising events
“Park the damn jet,” one former county Republican chair in Ohio told NBC News last week about Ramaswamy’s campaign amid concerns that he may appear out of touch to voters struggling with a rising cost of living.
Last week, Ramaswamy demurred when asked about the criticism at a campaign event, telling NBC News, “Amy Acton likes to talk a lot about my bank account. She doesn’t like to talk about helping yours. I wasn’t born into my wealth. I wasn’t born a millionaire or a billionaire or an anything-aire.”
A spokesperson for his campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News today.
Trump and tech leaders sign ‘morally binding’ AI agreement
After an extraordinary meeting at the White House, the United States’ biggest tech giants are now attempting to present a united front despite sharp disagreements over whether AI needs more guardrails. Trump rejected calls for more regulation, instead releasing a signed document in which tech leaders agreed to “partner with an independent external auditor” to maintain safety. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for “TODAY.”
Trump and tech leaders sign ‘morally binding’ AI agreement
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4h ago / 8:41 AM EDT
Newsom signs a bill to ban electric shock gloves
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., signed a bill yesterday to ban law enforcement from using electric shock gloves, a rebuke to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
The legislation also bars state and local law enforcement from using state money to buy the gloves. NBC News has previously reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was adding shock gloves as an enforcement tool.
Newsom said in a video statement that the state was “banning the Orwellian practice of using shock gloves in enforcement activity.”
“We may not be able to dictate federal immigration enforcement policy, but we can make clear that activities taking place in California will be subject to California law,” he said, referring to the shock gloves bill and other legislation he signed yesterday. “This is about stepping up, stepping up where the federal government has failed our diverse communities.”
After reports emerged that ICE was planning to use the gloves, the Department of Homeland Security said that the gloves were an important nonlethal option. NBC News has also previously reported that the gloves have already been in use in some police departments and correctional facilities.
After Trump rebrands AI as ‘super intelligence,’ most tech executives stick to calling it artificial intelligence
Trump’s announcement yesterday that he’s “officially” renaming artificial intelligence as “super intelligence” isn’t catching on with the country’s biggest tech CEOs.
“We are going to have to create new technologies to advance the capabilities of AI, but we’re also creating new technologies to advance the safety of AI,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters yesterday afternoon. He made no mention of super intelligence.
Greg Brockman, the president and a co-founder of OpenAI, talked about how “we build artificial intelligence to benefit everyone.” He also didn’t refer to it as SI.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei told reporters, “I will say what I’ve always said, which is that AI has incredible benefits. I’ve talked about the medical benefits of the technology. As the president has said, you know, whoever wins AI wins.” There was no mention of super intelligence.
Only one tech leader cited super intelligence, after having called it AI.
“SI. Pardon me, super intelligence,” SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.
Trump thanked Musk for the self-correction.
Jack Smith defends investigations of Trump at heated hearing
Weeks before the midterm elections, Senate Republicans turned up the heat, unloading their anger on former special counsel Jack Smith. Trump and his allies allege Smith abused his power and sought to hurt the president politically. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell reports for “TODAY.”
Jack Smith defends investigations of Trump at heated hearing
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Supreme Court allows Trump’s ‘third country’ deportation policy
The Supreme Court yesterday removed obstacles to the Trump administration deporting certain immigrants to “third countries” where they have no connections.
The justices, with the court’s three liberals dissenting, granted an emergency request filed by the government seeking to block an appeals court ruling that said the current process is unlawful because the affected people are not given a proper chance to raise concerns about safety risks in violation of federal immigration law.
In the brief unsigned order, the court also said it would hear oral arguments in December and issue a definitive ruling on the legal questions raised in the litigation.
Key DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce
The Trump administration’s far-reaching criminal probeof law enforcement officials involved in investigations into the president is apparently stumbling, with several of the personnel assigned to the “grand conspiracy” case departing just weeks before the midterm elections.
Democrats eye Nebraska as an opportunity to take away a Senate seat from Republicans
Marine Corps veteran Gunner Arellano is a Trump man — he voted for the president three times — but, he said, he won’t be casting a ballot for Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., in November.
Dan Osborn, an independent who has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, is “more for the people” than Ricketts, Arellano, a 35-year-old tobacconist, said in an interview at the S.G. Roi cigar shop in downtown Omaha late last month.
While Arellano is familiar with Ricketts, a former two-term governor who ranks high on the list of wealthiest senators, he said that the senator isn’t present enough.
“All those politicians, they want to come around when it’s election time, right?” he said. “Come down on a Wednesday in the middle of your term, you know.”
Arellano said he’ll vote for Osborn, and voters like him are the reason that Democrats in Nebraska and at the national level hope they might be able to swipe a Senate seat in this heavily Republican state. They’re even more optimistic about flipping the state’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won in 2024 and Republican Rep. Don Bacon is retiring.
California poll: Voters back a billionaire tax, but the proposal falls short of majority support
A plurality of likely California voters support a proposal on the state’s November ballot that would impose a one-time wealth tax on the richest Californians, but the measure is still short of majority support, according to a new NBCUniversal Local/Telemundo Station Group poll released today.
In the poll, 48% said they would vote “yes” on the proposal, while 38% said they would vote “no.” Another 14% said they were undecided.
