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President Donald Trump said he has committed more than $400 million to help Republicans in the midterms, including $300 million already spent on advertising, contacting voters, holding rallies and other efforts.
“It is my Great Honor to do so on behalf of the Republican Party,” Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday. He previously said his spending on the midterms would total between $400 million and $500 million, keeping about the same amount leftover in his war chest for 2028 or other purposes.
The money comes from a super PAC called MAGA Inc. and an allied nonprofit called Securing American Greatness. The super PAC has a disclosure report due Tuesday to the Federal Election Commission detailing its finances as of Sept. 30, including donors who gave more than $200. The nonprofit’s donors are not disclosed.
Other FEC reports from MAGA Inc. and affiliated super PACs show spending totaling more than $244 million on text messages, phone calls, direct mail, ads and media.
Trump said his figure also includes “Election Integrity,” referring to efforts to prevent voter fraud.
Christina Applegate, an Emmy-winning actress, said Tuesday that she had been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis five years ago.
Applegate shared the news on her podcast “MeSsy,” where she described feeling “worse in some ways” after finding out that she doesn’t actually have MS. She was diagnosed with the chronic autoimmune disease in 2021, and said she now felt she was “back at square one.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with me,” she said.
In people with MS, the immune system attacks and breaks down the protective covering of nerves, impacting communication between the brain and the rest of the body. Symptoms vary from person to person, and several conditions mimic MS.
Applegate and actress Jamie Lynn Sigler, her podcast co-host who was diagnosed with MS roughly 25 years ago, were joined on Tuesday’s episode by Marwa Kaisey, an associate professor of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Kaisey said misdiagnoses of MS are common because there isn’t a single test for the disease.
Australian law enforcement charged a man Tuesday after a car ramming attack on an Australian Parliament member left her with critical injuries and caused a wave of outrage and shock across the country.
Independent lawmaker Helen Haines, 65, was standing at the rear of her car outside her office when the man drove his car into her, then reversed the car and hit her again, witnesses told Australia’s ABC.
Haines is hospitalized in critical but stable condition, the Victoria police said Tuesday. Local news outlets ABC and CBC reported that one of her legs has been amputated.
A 43-year-old man is in police custody, after being initially restrained by a bystander, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. He has been charged with dangerous driving causing serious injury, intentionally causing serious injury and causing harm to a Commonwealth public official.
“Police will allege the incident was targeted,” said the Victoria police.
Australia’s national police said it has “regularly” and “publicly” raised concerns about growing threats against federal parliamentarians and high-office holders, noting that there were 1,067 such reports made in 2025-26.
In a statement published by Australian news outlets, the father and stepmother of the suspect claimed that Haines “has been our friend for more than 20 years and what happened to her yesterday is devastating and unfathomable.”
Bob Seale, the onetime chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, filed a Federal Election Commission complaint Tuesday against David Flippo, a Republican congressional candidate in Nevada who has come under scrutiny for his personal finances and campaign finance reports.
The complaint, shared first with The Washington Post, pulls from reporting by several outlets, including Mother Jones, which reported that a “major donor” listed on Flippo’s FEC report said they had not donated anything to his campaign, and the Nevada Independent, which reported on the Republican candidate’s failure to file a personal financial disclosure document and raised questions about how he was self-financing his campaign.
“This allegation raises serious concerns about the accuracy of the reports that Respondents filed with the Commission,” Seale writes in the complaint, calling for an investigation.
Seale, a Republican who served two terms as Nevada treasurer in the 1990s and ran for the seat Flippo is seeking in 1996, compares Flippo to Republican former congressman George Santos. Santos was expelled from the House in 2023 after being accused of financial misconduct and telling myriad lies about his background. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison, but President Donald Trump commuted his sentence.
“I find it offensive that he thinks he can get away with it,” Seale told The Post, adding that he is still a registered Republican but has never supported Trump. He said he will “likely” vote for Flippo’s opponent, Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson.
A spokesperson for the Flippo campaign attacked The Post for reporting on Seale’s letter and pointed to the Washoe County Republican Party chair’s request for an FBI investigation into Benitez-Thompson. Riley Sutton, the Democrat’s campaign manager, said the FBI complaint is “meritless.”
Additional Coverage
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday are set to announce an initiative to offer cash rewards for tipsters who help uncover allegations of fraud in government programs.
The president and vice president will appear in the Oval Office with conservative YouTube personality Nick Shirley, whose video series from Minnesota late last year led to fraud investigations of day care centers there that receive federal money. Shirley, who posted videos showing empty buildings that purported to be active day care centers, will be presented with a check for $10,000, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the program ahead of the announcement.
A woman featured in one of Shirley’s videos pleaded guilty in July to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The videos were praised and amplified by Vance, Elon Musk and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Existing federal programs allow whistleblowers in some cases to receive money when fraud is proved in court. The new Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program will award up to $30,000 for a tip that “leads to a successful conviction for fraud or a significant federal enforcement action,” the White House said in a statement.
The Justice Department will administer the program, which will start with $25 million. Vance has been tasked with heading the administration’s anti-fraud efforts, which he has touted as a top issue on the campaign trail this year.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Monday it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that closes multiple federal investigations and ensures the school can receive federal funding.
It is the latest of several universities to reach deals with the Trump administration, which moved aggressively to force schools to comply with its ideals for higher education by launching investigations, halting federal research funding and other means.
The agreement closes 19 federal inquiries at UNC related to compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs receiving federal funding.
UNC was a defendant in the landmark 2023 Supreme Court case that banned race-conscious admissions, and the agreement requires the university to abide by the Trump administration’s interpretation of the ruling. While some have interpreted the ruling as allowing schools to use race-neutral alternatives such as family income to try to achieve a diverse class, the Trump administration has called the use of such proxies illegal.
The agreement does not require UNC to pay anything to the federal government, as some schools have done, or acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The school agreed to hire a merit and civil rights administrator who will report to federal officials quarterly. The agreement also requires mandatory antisemitism training and quarterly reports on any complaints of discrimination, with the first report looking back to Oct. 7, 2023, when the Israel-Gaza war began.
The Cook Political Report shifted its rating of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race toward Republicans on Tuesday, another sign that a contest Democrats once expected to win comfortably has become increasingly competitive in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Cook moved the race between Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) and Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL broadcaster, from “Likely Democrat” to “Lean Democrat.”
The shift is an unwelcome development for Democrats, who are trying to regain control of the Senate but now face a competitive race in a state that has long been reliably blue in federal elections.
Minnesota has not elected a Republican to the Senate since Norm Coleman in 2002. This seat has been held by Democrats since Al Franken defeated Coleman in 2008, and in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris carried Minnesota by more than four percentage points.
But Tafoya, a longtime television sports reporter making her first run for public office, has kept the race close. Recent polls have shown the contest tightening, with some putting the candidates within the margin of error.
The two met Friday for their only scheduled debate, a contentious hour in which Tafoya sought to hold Flanagan responsible for fraud scandals that have plagued Minnesota state programs, while Flanagan repeatedly challenged Tafoya over her ties to President Donald Trump and her shifting positions on several issues.
The race is for the seat held by Sen. Tina Smith (D), who is not seeking reelection.
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