Washington, DC

1. Trump meets AI execs
2. Trump’s midterm swing
3. Schmitt’s mix-up
4. MAHA drama
5. US taps SPR

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.7 points in September to 81.9, the lowest level since early 2014.

Trump, Johnson preview a new AI self-policing pact

President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters today that they’re preparing to release a self-regulatory accord with AI frontier labs. The still-unreleased pact raises questions about enforcement — Johnson referred to “consequences” for AI companies that fall short — and the depth of oversight. Trump summed up his approach to AI safety by telling Semafor that “there should be tremendous self-regulation” after a White House meeting with more than a dozen AI and tech CEOs, but Johnson billed the forthcoming industry pact as “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review.” Trump and Johnson lunched with the executives as the administration unveiled a new AI-powered site, America.gov, that’s aimed at providing easier access to government services. Trump also told reporters that he’d be signing an executive order today that replaces “artificial intelligence” with “superintelligence” in governmental communications.

— Ashley Gold and Shelby Talcott

Trump plans midterm swing through battlegrounds

Trump plans to travel the battleground map to stump for Senate Republicans — where he’s wanted — in the homestretch of the election, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles delivered that message to a group of Republican senators on Monday evening, according to multiple people familiar with the meeting, who said Trump’s itinerary includes a trek to Alaska to help GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan. He’s not booked for a trip to must-win Maine, the home of incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, one attendee said, though the president’s travel schedule over the next month isn’t finalized. “He’s not going to be everywhere. He’s going to be where he’s strategically most helpful,” said a second attendee. Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said Trump “is the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.”

Schmitt mixes up sports teams in Jack Smith hearing

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., laid a trap for Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice charged Trump, but stepped in it himself. During a Senate hearing today, Schmitt questioned Smith about making a trip to Atlanta in 2024 to see an Atlanta Hawks game, striking a conspiratorial tone and noting it was a day after another prosecutor investigating Trump, Fani Willis of Atlanta, admitted to an affair with a colleague. When Smith denied attending the game, Schmitt accused him of “perjury” and called him a “dirtbag.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., cleared up the confusion: Smith had attended a University of Maryland basketball game around that time, when then-college star Caitlin Clark was playing for the University of Iowa team — the Hawkeyes. Klobuchar wanted Schmitt to apologize, but he did not.

Vance and Kennedy headline MAHA summit

Vice President JD Vance and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will close out a Make America Healthy Again summit this evening, appearing onstage together amid a deepening rift between Kennedy’s supporters and the White House. The event itself captured the tension: Activists have criticized Kennedy for accepting corporate sponsors for the occasion, including Walmart, the country’s largest seller of “ultraprocessed” foods. Officials inside Kennedy’s health department have seen at least three of their efforts to curb ultraprocessed foods stall at the White House recently, according to The Wall Street Journal. And while the summit was designed to be attention-grabbing — Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, who starred in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, will make a “special announcement” this evening — several members of the press said they were barred from entering.

White House taps oil reserve

The White House announced plans to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a step meant to blunt rising gas prices looming over the midterm elections. The US will offer to loan energy producers up to 40 million barrels of oil, which is what remains of the 172 million-barrel commitment the government made in March. The White House is also urging the European Union to draw down emergency diesel inventories to lower global prices. Patrick De Haan, an energy analyst who runs GasBuddy, said neither approach will likely “move the needle much” on prices. A similar offer to tap reserves in June attracted little interest, with just half a million barrels awarded. He added that strapped refinery capacity is driving higher prices, rather than oil supply. He said meaningful relief requires “solving the issues that have created this environment: addressing the geopolitical tensions.”

— Lauren Morganbesser

Economy

• The Treasury Department is proposing regulations that would make enrollment automatic into Trump Accounts, the tax-advantaged investment accounts for kids.
• President Trump’s municipal bond portfolio has grown to as much as $1 billion. — CNBC

Campaigns

• Ten-dollar gas in Alaska is boosting Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola. — WaPo

Congress

• A bipartisan effort to ban the demolition of presidential memorials, including the Kennedy Center, was blocked in the Senate by an objection from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

National Security

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the “hands of a foreign actor” were involved in a suspected terrorism plot near a British airbase used by US forces to strike Iran.
• The Trump administration used homeland security funding to pay for a series of pro-Trump commercials. — WSJ

Courts

• The Supreme Court in an emergency ruling is letting the Trump administration continue deporting immigrants to third countries.
• DHS is setting up pop-up immigration courts at buildings managed by agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard, and attorneys and lawmakers have been barred from attending them. — Bloomberg

World

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps appealed to American voters in a 25-page open letter that called for peaceful coexistence.

Business

• Smart ring maker Oura said it was delaying its previously announced IPO due to market uncertainty.

Media

• CNN, MS NOW, and Politico asked a federal court to block President Trump’s media ban beyond the 14-day order while legal proceedings play out.

— America.gov, an official federal website that features an AI-powered chatbot.

Laura McGann, editor

With help from Elana Schor, senior Washington editor, and Morgan Chalfant, Washington briefing editor

Graph Massara and Lauren Morganbesser, copy editors

Contact our reporters:

Burgess Everett, Ashley Gold, Eleanor Mueller, Shelby Talcott, Nicholas Wu, David Weigel, David Lim