“Communists.” “Islamists.” Republican speakers portrayed Democrats as a threat to America on night two of their midterm convention in Dallas. Al Jazeera’s Emma Withrow reports on how they’re turning questions of national identity and events in the Middle East into campaign ammunition.
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he did not regret going to war against Iran despite the impact the conflict may have on the November US midterm elections.
“I don’t believe in the word ‘regret.’ You can always question yourself a little bit,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham when asked if he regretted the Iran war due to the impact it may have on the elections.
“If I had it do again, I would do exactly as I did,” Trump said in the interview broadcast on Thursday on “The Ingraham Angle” show.
Trump dismissed suggestions that some of his supporters were upset and demoralized about the war.
“I don’t think they’re demoralized. I think they’re very proud of the fact that I’m not letting Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Trump reiterated his thinking that the war will end immediately after the midterm election.
“It ends right after the election,” Trump said in the interview. He made similar comments on Wednesday, alleging Tehran was trying to influence the elections that will determine whether Trump’s Republican Party retains control of Congress.
The rise in oil and gas prices due to the US-Israeli war on Iran has become a major issue for Republicans in the lead-up to the elections.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 and Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
Trump has cited weakening Iran’s nuclear capabilities as one of his war objectives. Iran does not have nuclear weapons and says its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes. The US is nuclear-armed.
President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.
The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He likened the payments to a corporation’s distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically.”
Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal — at least in part — by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy. Vance suggested it could be paid for by U.S. tariff revenues, though the suggested payment dwarfs what the U.S. has taken in through the protectionist measures.
The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.
Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed U.S. tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.
The national debt last month topped $40 trillion for the first time.
Trump has frequently lamented that, during the modern era, the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress during the midterms, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to defy the trend, including this week’s convention.
“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”
Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority send money to Americans without approval from Congress.
Goldwein added that dividends are something that companies pay when there’s a surplus, but the U.S. is running $2 trillion annual deficits and has $40 trillion in debt.
“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”
The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to buy votes in last year’s Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to try to boost a candidate who ultimately lost.
Trump has discussed the possibility before but has never tied it to his party’s electoral fortunes. Earlier this year, he proposed a $2,000 dividend and said he didn’t think he needed approval from Congress.
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Last year, Trump gave members of the military a $1,776 check that he called a “warrior dividend.”
“I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X late Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”
A $5,000 check would give each American more money than they received in direct government payments from COVID-19 relief measures during Trump’s first term.
Trump’s proposal would be legal because the payment would go to everyone regardless of how they voted, or whether they voted at all, said New Mexico-based attorney John Day.
“This is a campaign promise,” Day said. “It’s not a payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way.”
Republicans are on defense as they look to defend their narrow House majority against strong headwinds. Trump is unpopular, and Americans overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iran. Even the Senate, which Republicans once were well-positioned to keep, is up for grabs.
Cooper writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and River Zhang contributed.
Trump also said further negotiations with Iran could possibly happen, “but it’s not something we’re looking at”.
The US president initially predicted the war, which is now in its seventh month, would last only a matter of weeks. The conflict, and its knock-on effects on everything from fuel to groceries, has led to a steep decline in his approval ratings – and pressure from those within his party, including devout supporters, to quickly end the war.
Midterm elections will be held on 3 November, and Republicans are in danger of losing their control on Congress.
At the convention, Trump sought to energise the party ahead of November. Historically, a sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in Congress in the midterm elections.
Fighting in the Middle East has intensified in recent days, as oil facilities throughout the region come under attack, driving up the global price of fuel and any item that requires shipping.
The price of oil hit $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July. Similarly, earlier this week the price of US diesel hit an all-time-high, which is likely to cause a ripple effect on prices across the US.
On Wednesday, the US military said it had attacked five oil tanker ships with ties to Iran. Tehran, in response, launched attacks on two US Navy destroyers and eight oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, causing “heavy damage” to the vessels, according to Iranian state media.
A day earlier, the Iran-linked Houthis in Yemen launched a wave of attacks in Saudi Arabia, sparking fires at oil facilities.
The fighting, which began again recently after a 60-day ceasefire between the US and Iran formally expired last month, has also raised predictions that the rising fuel costs could lead to higher interest rates in the US.
DALLAS : Republicans used the opening night of their unusual midterm convention on Wednesday to hammer Democrats as extremists and pledge unwavering devotion to President Donald Trump, proudly placing their party’s undisputed leader at the center of upcoming midterm elections — even if his low approval ratings might ultimately drag them down in November.
Many Republicans, including those facing tight races, are skipping the two-day affair in Dallas, while others hope their appearance will put them in the national spotlight as they work to turn out Trump’s supporters in a year without him on the ballot.
The convention — part rally, part fundraiser — comes as Republicans try to boost enthusiasm heading into the final stretch before Election Day, despite voters’ economic concerns and dissatisfaction with the war in Iran. Much of the agenda sought to cast Democrats as too left wing, describing them as communists, anti-American or even evil. Republicans called themselves a “common sense” alternative in the fight to maintain control of Congress.
The show even got a boost from an unlikely source, Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who told the crowd in a video message that “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism.” Fetterman, who has clashed with his party’s leaders, referenced his state’s steel industry in pledging to “work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life.”
Coinciding with the convention’s opening night, Trump’s political operation, which has been sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, began spending heavily through a new group, the No Going Back PAC Inc., The New York Times first reported Wednesday. The group has reserved $49 million in six competitive Senate races and one competitive House race.
That’s in addition to the $10 million that MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, has spent on the Texas Senate race.
The lineup features Trump and more Trump
Normal political conventions are held every four years and serve a purpose beyond pomp and circumstance, with parties formally nominating their presidential picks. This week’s convention, by contrast, is The Trump Show, through and through.
“Do we love President Trump?” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters, one of the first speakers, asked the crowd. He had promoted the event before it began as “a Trump-a-Palooza.”
The walls of the basketball arena, where the Dallas Mavericks play, were covered with photographs of Trump, even in the elevators. Plenty of attendees wore cowboy hats and boots, as well as “Make America Great Again” and American flag caps and other gear.
“Looks very big. Looks very exciting,” Trump said of the gathering crowd before boarding Air Force One to fly to Dallas.
That wasn’t actually the case during the first hour of afternoon programming, when speeches were delivered to scores of empty seats, even in areas close to the stage. Crowds began filling them up well before Trump’s speech, however.
The president also said that oil prices — which have surged because of the Iran war — likely won’t come down until after the midterms, a bit of economic forecasting that could darken his party’s fortunes.
“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” he promised. That came as oil prices jumped more than 3 percent Wednesday.
Trump speaks both nights, delivering a keynote address on Wednesday night and speaking again on Thursday, after Vance gives his own address.
“Look, he’s an entertainer, right? He obviously loves big, big events and his career has been built around that,” said Ray Washburne, co-chair of the Dallas host committee, at a pre-convention event hosted by Bloomberg News. “He’s always front and center.”
Washburne said the event is expected to draw roughly 30,000 people across both nights, but getting airtime could be challenging. The NFL season kicks off Wednesday with a game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. And on Thursday, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will be playing in Australia.
The agenda includes some key candidates
Also addressing the convention are members of the Republican congressional leadership and Cabinet members, including Attorney General Todd Blanche and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is on the roster, too.
Candidates who will speak include Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who is running a high-profile race against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and North Carolina Senate nominee Michael Whatley, who is up against former Gov. Roy Cooper.
Organizers have outlined 12 hours of programming over the two nights, featuring more than 100 speakers and segments focused on subjects such as tax cuts, fraud allegations, border security and a proposed ban on members of Congress trading stocks.
Missing from the public agenda: any mention of the unpopular Iran war.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said some members of his caucus plan to skip Dallas, preferring to stay home and campaign for reelection, but many of them will make an appearance.
“We’ll parade our stars across the stage,” he said.
Organizers say they’re fine with some Republicans skipping the convention
Washburne said there were strong reasons for some lawmakers and candidates to pass on attending.
“One thing, we just have so many speaking slots. We can’t get them all in. The other is: If you’re not in a contested race, it really doesn’t make much sense to come. And the ones in contested races, they need to be in their home states to campaign,” he said.
Some balked at high attendance fees. Republican House members were being asked to pay $25,000 for convention tickets and lodging, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to speak frankly about the private arrangement.
An additional 2,000 tickets were distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, largely to donors and others to attend the convention. Other tickets were allocated to state parties to distribute as they saw fit.
“Per the RNC, this is a ticketed fundraiser and rally, not a traditional national convention,” the Denton County Republican Party in Texas wrote in a Facebook post, which advertised packages from $5,000 to $20,000.
Still, more than 100 Republican House members and candidates are expected to attend, including almost all of the MAGA Majority class of candidates in the most targeted congressional districts, according to a person familiar with the event who requested anonymity before it begins.
Democrats say Republicans are out of touch
“The fact that these Republicans are planning a celebration in the middle of an economic crisis — where everyday Americans are drowning because of this high cost of living — is extraordinary,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said at the US Capitol last week.
Democrats have held such midterm conventions in the past but are not doing so this year. Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said she wasn’t worried that her party was missing an opportunity to make its case on a national stage like Republicans.
“They are not focused on the issues that people are struggling with right now, that they’ve created,” DelBene said. “Cost, housing, food, health care, childcare, energy costs, gas prices all going up. That’s what we’re talking about on the ground all across the country.”
Dallas, Texas – The Republican midterm convention has represented a gambit for the party: centring US President Donald Trump in the final stretch of the midterm elections, even as the first two years of his second term have cast a polarising political shadow.
That has been particularly true when it comes to the war on Iran, which Trump launched alongside Israel on February 28, and the knock-on effects on affordability in the United States, a key issue for many voters.
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As Trump prepared to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday in Dallas, prices for Brent Crude, the global benchmark, rose above $100 a barrel for the first time since July, a reminder of the conflict’s continued fallout for global markets.
Nevertheless, supporters who spoke to Al Jazeera still saw the president as the man to rally Americans to vote Republican in November, as the party fights to hold onto control of the House of Representatives and Senate.
But some voiced concern – or confusion – over the impact of the war.
“This really is a Trump-a-palooza, as people have been saying,” said Carter Eisinger, a 27-year-old electrician who travelled from Fargo, North Dakota.
“I think some people say that in a derogatory way, but I think it’s very much a complimentary phrase,” he added. “The reality of it is we are in a Trump Republican Party.”
Still, Eisinger struggled to see how the war fit into Trump’s “America First” vision.
“In my opinion, I don’t really see the connection of how a war in Iran helps us here in the country,” he said. “If the Iran war is justified, I’m willing to pay the gas prices, but I haven’t seen that justification.”
He felt a similar confusion about the close relationship between the US and Israel.
“At the end of the day, I’m going to come right back to whatever is best for families, young people, anyone in America,” he said. “If it’s helping Israel in a way that helps us, then great… but it needs to help us first.”
Others were more charitable towards Trump’s approach to the Middle East, even if they saw the war on Iran as a misstep.
Bijay Dixit, a 59-year-old photographer from Houston, Texas, gave Trump high marks on his approach to immigration. He also believed Republicans were the party to steward the economy in the years ahead.
But on Iran, he said there had been a “miscalculation”, even if he agreed with the Trump administration’s position that the war was ultimately a necessary response to the totality of Iran’s actions in the 47 years since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
“Iran needed to be stopped at some point,” he said. “When I say miscalculation, what I mean is underestimation of the capacity of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”
Helen Vennett, a 65-year-old small business owner from Maryland and the chairman of her county’s Republican Party, likened the convention to a high-school pep rally.
“All of us need to have cheerleaders in our life… It just gets you fired up again. You kind of need to know that you’re not alone, that there are believers,” she added.
But while she said she broadly supported the Trump administration’s justification for the war, she acknowledged the potential political fallout.
“It’s a tough one,” she said.
Polls have regularly suggested widespread disapproval among US citizens of the war on Iran, with independents in particular expressing disapproval. Many, in turn, rank affordability as their top issue heading into the midterm vote.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggested that only a quarter of Americans think the war is worthwhile.
For its part, the Trump administration has downplayed the prospect of ending the war, focusing instead on efforts to open shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz, over which Iran continues to assert its influence.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday as he departed for the convention, Trump sought to temper expectations that the war would end before November’s pivotal vote.
“I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm,” he said, accusing Iran of intentionally holding out until November.
“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapons,” he said.
He predicted the war would end swiftly after the final votes have been cast.
“They can’t hold out any longer,” he said.
John Russell, 55, from Rockford, Illinois, who regularly travels to Trump rallies as part of the “Front Row Joe’s” group, said he believed voters would still view the first two years of Trump’s second term as a net positive.
“It’s been a small bump with the gas going up,” he told Al Jazeera from the convention.
“But it had to be done. We can’t allow [Iran] to have a nuclear bomb,” he said, referring to one of the administration’s main justifications for the war.
Tehran has long denied seeking a nuclear weapon, with military analysts generally agreeing that destroying its nuclear programme would require a major military escalation, involving boots on the ground.
Russell predicted that the Republican Party’s bet would pay off at the polls.
“It’s going to fire up the base,” he said of the convention. “It’s going to switch some independents to vote for the Trump-backed candidates, and they will win.”
NEW YORK — Republicans are gathering in Dallas on Wednesday for a highly unusual midterm convention, a “Trump-a-Palooza” that will put President Trump at the center of this fall’s midterm elections — whether the candidates running like it or not.
Many party members, including those facing tight races, are skipping the two-day affair, citing conflicting obligations or balking at demands that they pony up for access. Others are hoping an appearance alongside Trump will put them in the national spotlight as they work to turn out his voters without him on the ballot.
The convention, which is part rally and part fundraiser, comes as Republicans try to boost enthusiasm heading into the midterms’ final stretch despite Trump’s low approval ratings. Organizers have cast it as “a primetime showcase for President Trump’s success, candidates, and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus.” Much of the programming will focus on Democrats, trying to cast them as extremists by highlighting the party’s insurgent left wing.
Normal political conventions are held every four years and serve a purpose beyond pomp and circumstance, with parties formally nominating their presidential picks. In 2024, Trump used the opportunity to announce JD Vance as his running mate.
The schedule this week released by organizers makes clear that the convention will be the Trump Show, through and through.
“It’s gonna be a Trump-a-Palooza,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told Spectrum News.
The president will be speaking both nights, delivering a keynote address on Wednesday night and speaking again Thursday after Vance to close out the event. He had originally been scheduled for only one speaking slot.
Also addressing the convention will be members of the Republican congressional leadership and Cabinet members including Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is on the roster, too.
Candidates who will speak include Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who is running a high-profile race against Abdul El-Sayed, and North Carolina Senate nominee Michael Whatley, who is up against former Gov. Roy Cooper.
Organizers have outlined 12 hours of programming over the two nights that will include more than 100 speakers and segments focused on subjects like tax cuts, fraud allegations, border security and a proposed ban on members of Congress trading stocks.
Missing from the public lineup: any mention of the unpopular war with Iran.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said some members of his caucus plan to skip Dallas, preferring to stay home and campaign for reelection, but many of them will make an appearance.
“We’ll parade our stars across the stage,” he said.
An Associated Press survey of more than four dozen Republican candidates found a majority either planned not to attend, said their plans were to be determined, or ignored requests for comment.
“I had stuff already planned in my congressional district or I would be there,” Kentucky Rep. James Comer told NewsNation. “Got a lot going on back in Kentucky, so my time is needed there.”
“Well, unfortunately, I have a family obligation, so I won’t be able to be there,” Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter said on Fox Business.
Some members balked at high attendance fees. Republican House members were being asked to pay $25,000 for convention tickets and lodging, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to speak frankly about the private arrangement.
An additional 2,000 tickets were distributed by the House GOP’s campaign arm, largely to donors and others to attend the convention. Other tickets were allocated to state parties to distribute as they saw fit.
“Per the RNC, this is a ticketed fundraiser and rally, not a traditional national convention,” the Denton County Republican Party in Texas wrote in a Facebook post, which advertised packages from $5,000 to $20,000.
The Republican Party of Virginia was offering a relative discount of $1,000 to $1,500, not including accommodations, according to an email obtained by the AP.
Despite the many no-shows, more than 100 Republican House members and candidates are expected to be in Dallas, including almost all of the MAGA Majority class of candidates in the most targeted congressional districts, according to a person familiar with the event who requested anonymity before it begins.
“It’s like any political convention, it’s no different than the traditional RNC,” said Matt Beynon, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, who won his district by barely 1 percentage point in 2024 with Trump on the ballot. “Obviously, you’re out of the district, but it’s a really good opportunity to get in front of people” and “talk to the press.”
It remains unclear what kind of air time the convention will receive. The two nights of programming will coincide with the launch of football season. The NFL season is set to kick off Wednesday with a game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. And on Thursday, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will be playing an international game in Australia.
In a sign of the growing focus on the midterms, Trump’s political organization, which is sitting on a big war chest, is spending heavily to back a new group, the No Going Back PAC Inc., The New York Times reported Wednesday. The new group started reserving $47 million for six competitive Senate races and one competitive House race. That’s in addition to the $10 million the Trump-affiliated MAGA, Inc. political group is spending in the Texas Senate race.
Democrats, meanwhile, are planning their own counterprogramming.
“The fact that these Republicans are planning a celebration in the middle of an economic crisis — where everyday Americans are drowning because of this high cost of living — is extraordinary,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said at the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats have held such midterm conventions in the past but are not doing so this year. Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said she wasn’t worried that her party was missing an opportunity to make its case on a national stage like Republicans.
“They are not focused on the issues that people are struggling with right now, that they’ve created,” DelBene said. “Cost, housing, food, healthcare, childcare, energy costs, gas prices all going up. That’s what we’re talking about on the ground all across the country.”
Americans “are going to continue to see how much they don’t care,” she added. “And we’re gonna be on the ground all across the country with great candidates talking directly to the American people.”
Colvin writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steven Sloan and Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa and Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — In the real world, President Trump is struggling to stop inflation, rout the Iranian government and restore American manufacturing with tariffs.
However, it’s a different story in the fantastical vision that he shares with supporters on social media. Over Labor Day weekend, Trump and the White House unleashed an extraordinarily heavy torrent of memes that portrayed the president as singularly powerful.
One video depicted Trump as a superhero wielding Green Lantern’s ring to effortlessly build a wall to keep out migrants and erect a slew of busy factories. Another post showed him in a U.S. hockey uniform looming over Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as Carney cowered on the ice. And another had Trump on a military ship as it bombarded an enemy fleet.
Trump’s allure has always relied on a mythical version of himself, from “The Apprentice” to the White House, but the gap between meme and reality has become glaringly stark ahead of the midterm elections. Most U.S. adults are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy and say the Iran war hasn’t been worth it, but Trump has responded with outlandish images of himself as unstoppable and omnipotent.
Some of the pictures are generated with artificial intelligence, and the administration has previously defended the memes as funny and their critics as humorless. Yet the stakes right now are serious for congressional Republicans who have tied their own fate to a president with low approval numbers. Trump’s party will put him center stage at an unusual midterm convention on Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas in hopes of stoking voters’ enthusiasm.
Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist, said that Trump’s social media posts can energize his base of “Make America Great Again” followers, although the tradeoff is that he’s not talking about how to fix inflation.
The voters who are likely to determine control of Congress in the midterms “are not going to be won over with memes,” Madden said. “The affordability voter is driving this election cycle and the issues they care about are anchored in the economy.”
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump sometimes plucks memes from a sprawling ecosystem of online conservative supporters, and sometimes his government staff produces them as part of their official messaging. Recently they created a series of old-school video games, such as a “Tetris” knockoff called “Build the Wall.”
“The memes will continue,” Kaelan Dorr, a member of the White House communications team, recently posted on social media. “The winning will continue.”
The problem for Trump is that voters have other images they’re using to define him. Drivers can spot through their windshields that gasoline is averaging $4.15 a gallon, up nearly 30% from a year ago because of the Iran war. And social media is inundated with questions about the 80-year-old president’s health and vitality, spurred by pictures of his bruised hands or video clips of him appearing to fall asleep in meetings.
White House officials have said the bruising is caused by “frequent handshaking” and Trump’s aspirin regimen, and they’ve denied that he’s dozed off.
Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, is three years older and faced relentless scrutiny about his age while in office. His White House came to embrace a meme version of Biden with lasers for eyes, suggesting that he was powerful and focused rather than infirm.
Andrew Bates, who was a deputy press secretary for Biden, said that Trump’s memes seem to be about avoiding the actual responsibilities of governing. He said they risk angering voters who see Trump as more focused on redecorating the White House than bringing the Iran war to a successful end.
“When a president who ran on bringing gas prices under $2 a gallon is now saying, ‘You’re at four dollars, it’s OK,’ it unfortunately makes sense that he’s also posting fever dreams,” Bates said.
The memes have occasionally gotten Trump into trouble. He posted an image of himself as Jesus in April, which caused a degree of consternation among some supporters. The president later claimed he thought the image showed him as a medical doctor — albeit a doctor in Biblical robes with light emanating from his hands.
In February, his account posted a racist video of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as primates, which he deleted after a backlash.
Last October, Trump shared a video of him in a fighter jet dumping feces on Americans who were protesting his policies.
What the memes have not done so far is boost his wider approval ratings. Only 33% of U.S. adults approve of how he is handling the job of being president, according to a July AP-NORC poll.
But the polling also hits at a reason why he might be sending the memes to rally his core supporters. Just 15% of U.S. adults strongly approve of his presidency, the poll found, a slight decline from 22% shortly after he took office.
Boak writes for the Associated Press.
The United States Republican Party – and its talisman President Donald Trump – is descending on Dallas, Texas, to host a rare convention before the midterm elections in November.
Usually reserved for presidential election cycles, Trump’s call to hold the high-cost event before the November 3 midterm vote has underscored both the president’s unorthodox campaign style and the urgency of the political moment for his Republican Party.
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Trump’s approval rating has tanked in the lead-up to the midterm vote, with polls pointing to a panoply of factors, most notably the US-Israel war on Iran and its knock-on economic effects for US consumers.
The lack of enthusiasm threatens what are already considered long-shot odds in the Republicans’ effort to hold on to control of the House of Representatives. Shifting public opinion has also put control of the Senate increasingly in play, although Democrats still face an uphill battle to pull off an upset.
A loss of control in either chamber would serve as a major check on Trump’s authority in the final two years of his second term.
But not all Republicans have bought into Trump and the party’s claims that the convention will spur voter turnout.
Several, particularly those in the tightest races, have kept the event at arm’s length amid concerns that associating with the president could only further mobilise his detractors.
Here’s what to know:
The convention will be hosted at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, September 9 and Thursday, September 10.
The event is expected to run from 3pm to 9pm Central Time (20:00 to 02:00 GMT) on both days.
Trump is scheduled to speak on both nights, including a Wednesday address and the convention’s closing keynote on Thursday from 8pm to 9pm Central Time (01:00 to 02:00 GMT on Friday).
US Vice President JD Vance will close out night one with a speech.
Not at all.
The Republican National Committee (RNC), the party’s official organising body, has billed the Dallas midterm convention as a “first in American political history”.
Both Democratic and Republican national conventions have historically capped the primary season before a presidential election. The emphasis has historically been on the presidential nomination process during the largely ceremonial events.
During those conventions, so-called “delegates” from every state pledge their votes for a candidate based on the primary election outcome from their home state.
A candidate who secures the required majority of delegates formally becomes the party’s presidential nominee at the convention.
Parties also typically hold several smaller meetings surrounding the event to establish and release the party’s official platform.
To start with, there will be no nominating process – presidential or otherwise – during the event, as there is no presidential election in 2026.
Instead, the convention has taken the shape of a supercharged campaign rally and fundraiser.
It has been pitched as an opportunity to introduce candidates in punishing races to potential donors and to give a clear, if Trump-dominated, party message as the races enter their final stretch.
The RNC has promised “a primetime showcase for President Trump’s success, candidates, and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus”.
There will be quite a lot. The official programme lists “53 items and speakers” on night one, followed by 56 more on night two.
The first night will focus on issues including tax cuts, healthcare affordability, immigration, border policy, trade and domestic manufacturing.
The second night will focus more on affordability and families, including policies related to taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security.
The subject areas hew closely to Trump’s wider political messaging.
The official programme gives relatively little attention to several other subjects. The US-Israel war with Iran and Trump’s aggressive tariff policy receive scant mention.
Trump and Vance are the convention’s marquee speakers, but an array of prominent Republicans and candidates are expected to feature across the two-day programme.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is likely to get a healthy amount of stage time. Paxton is running for Senate against Democrat James Talarico, whose early lead in polling has raised alarm bells for Republicans. A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since 1994.
“We’re going to have a lot of speakers, and the ones we want to focus on will be obviously Ken Paxton,” Trump told reporters last week. “We gotta get him elected.”
The race is particularly personal for Trump, who endorsed MAGA-aligned Paxton over Republican Senator John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent seen by many as the surest challenger for Talarico.
It remains to be seen whether the convention will help to turn out voters in a meaningful way.
Trump has proven a canny campaigner in the past, leveraging his eye for television spectacle to build support and turn out low-propensity voters. But several factors could limit the impact.
Trump’s Thursday night speech conflicts with the opening games of the National Football League (NFL) season. The event also runs up against several memorial events for the September 11, 2001 attacks throughout the week.
Some Republican officials have also reportedly criticised the hasty announcement of the event, which Trump called for in late June, raising questions over whether organisers will indeed be able to achieve the spectacle envisioned.
For his part, Trump enters the convention with his approval rating continuing to tank, hovering at a 38 percent average in major polls. Several of the most recent polls, including a Reuters-Ipsos poll and a Financial Times-Focaldata poll conducted in late August, reflected only a 33 percent approval.
Trump entered office in January 2025 sitting at about 52 percent approval.
To be sure, several Republicans in key races have said they will attend the convention.
They include former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for an open Senate seat in Michigan; Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who is facing an unnerving challenge from former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown; and Georgia Congressman Mike Collins, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.
Others have been wary.
Trump’s policies in his second term have cast a long shadow, leaving many candidates calculating whether attendance could backfire and instead energise voters opposed to Trump.
Democratic primary turnout in several key states – including Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and Georgia – has soared this year, while Republican turnout has remained steady but unextraordinary, as reported by The Associated Press news agency. That has been a worrying sign for Republicans.
Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent seen as vulnerable in her race against Democrat Troy Jackson, has been among those who have said they will not attend.
Several candidates in key House races have pointed to prior commitments.
Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks told The Bulwark she preferred to spend her time in her home district in Iowa, where she faces a challenge from Democrat Christina Bohannan.
“Because I have a district that I have to be in and take care of, so I’ll be in my district,” she explained about her decision.
Miller-Meeks eked out a victory over Bohannan in 2024, winning by a margin of just 0.1 percent.
Several left-leaning groups are organising protests.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has announced that four Democratic lawmakers will travel to Dallas for counterprogramming during the Republican convention.
However, the cash-strapped Democratic National Committee (DNC) has avoided holding its own midterm convention.
The committee went into debt in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, even putting up its Washington, DC-based headquarters as collateral for a $15m loan, the NOTUS news site reported in July.
The RNC has not yet released a final price tag for its convention.
Voters in two US states — New Hampshire and Rhode Island — will head to the polls this week to select Democratic and Republican candidates for this November’s United States midterm elections.
In what’s been a campaign season full of unexpected twists and turns, from the continued growth of the Democrats’ progressive arm to mixed results for President Donald Trump-endorsed Republican candidates, the contests mark some of the last primaries before the US makes a final determination on which party will control both chambers of the US Congress.
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Before that happens, candidates in some of these New England states’ most notable races will have to contend with some of this midterm’s biggest themes: How much Republicans should align with Trump, and whether a Democratic incumbent can fight off a primary challenger.
Here are the races to watch:
The most notable race in New Hampshire will determine the two candidates who will face off to replace outgoing Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
US Representative Chris Pappas has emerged as the frontrunner to win the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side, John Sununu holds the benefit of strong name recognition from being a part of the state’s most prominent political dynasty.
Democrats have hoped to retain this seat, a critical must-keep as they look to take back the US Senate currently controlled by Republicans. But recent polling of likely voters conducted by Senate Republicans’ campaign arm shows Sununu leading Pappas by one point. The survey, conducted in the final days of August, found nearly one in four voters are undecided.
However, both candidates, if they win their primaries on Tuesday, may have to confront actions by their party’s top figures, who could complicate their campaigns.
In the Democratic primary, Pappas remains the favourite, but his lead has dropped by double digits, according to some polls.
Pappas’s closest opponent is democratic socialist Karishma Manzur, who has picked up support, in part, over her calls to “end US complicity in the genocide of Palestinians”. While Pappas has stressed the importance of the current US-Israel relationship, the congressman has also said he supports a two-state solution and “increasing” aid to Gaza.
Manzur has criticised Pappas for connections to political donors, including those connected to Israel.
Former US Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed Pappas last week. Harris’s support, which Pappas said he was “proud” to receive, could help him across the finish line in the state’s Democratic primary, where most of the party’s voters lean more moderate. Pappas has served in the US House since 2019 and has held elected office almost continuously since graduating from college in 2002. He defeated Karoline Leavitt in his 2022 reelection bid before her stint as Trump’s White House press secretary.
In the Republican primary, Sununu is running to recapture the Senate seat he once held before being defeated by Shaheen in 2008. He faces Scott Brown, also a former senator who once held Massachusetts US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s seat, along with seven other opponents.
Sununu has been trying to put distance between himself and Trump. Trump is, however, backing Sununu over Brown in the primary, despite an ongoing war of words he’s had with Sununu’s family over the years — Sununu’s father and brother have both served as governor, and all have been critical of Trump.
Brown won a special election in Massachusetts after the death of Senator Ted Kennedy in 2009, lost his seat three years later, and unsuccessfully challenged Shaheen in 2014. In Trump’s first administration, Brown served as the US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.
Unlike other states this election cycle, the biggest race in Rhode Island is for governor, not for seats in the US Congress.
Vulnerable Democratic Governor Dan McKee is fighting off a strong primary challenge from pharmacy executive Helena Foulkes.
The highly unpopular incumbent has trailed Foulkes, whose grandfather and uncle were both lawmakers in the neighbouring US state of Connecticut, by as much as 38 points, according to a recent poll. Foulkes has also outraised McKee.
This race is a rematch of a bitter, hard-fought primary four years ago, when McKee, who had been elevated to governor when his predecessor became former US President Joe Biden’s commerce secretary, narrowly beat Foulkes in a crowded race.
While most of this year’s competitive midterm primaries have centred on ideological or generational differences, the outcome of this race could come down to complaints about a freeway bridge in Providence, the state’s largest city, that was partially closed in 2023 due to safety issues.
The resulting congestion and economic fallout caused by the closure have fuelled strong voter resentment towards McKee, one of the most endangered elected Democrats this cycle. Should McKee be unsuccessful in warding off Foulkes, he would become the first sitting US governor to lose a primary in eight years.
In the Republican primary, Aaron Guckian and Elaine Pelino are vying for the nomination. Guckian is a state trade association executive and was the nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022. He won the two-way primary that year with about 68 percent of the vote. Pelino is a former actress and first-time candidate. The state’s Republican Party has endorsed Guckian.
It’s been 20 years since Rhode Island elected a Republican governor.