Vance and Ocasio-Cortez face off in Michigan, previewing possible 2028 match-up

▪ Zacharia confirms she didn’t pass bar exam

▪ Elections offices receive suspicious letters

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Vice President Vance are lending their star power to frontline candidates in Michigan, offering an early glimpse into what could be a potential 2028 presidential match-up.

Both parties see Michigan as essential to securing control of the Senate. No Republican has won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994, but the GOP sees retiring Sen. Gary Peters ‘s (D) seat as perhaps their best pickup opportunity this cycle. If Democrats lose it, they would need to pick up another five seats held by Republicans to win a majority.

Ocasio-Cortez appeared with Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s conservative Upper Peninsula yesterday, bringing their “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard” bus tour to Escanaba, Iron Mountain and Marquette.

El-Sayed focused primarily on cost-of-living issues as he sought to court more right-leaning voters, telling hundreds of supporters they should reach out to people in their lives who support President Trump , saying, “They’re paying $5 gas, too.”

The Democratic duo could not escape questions about 2028 ambitions, however. At a campaign stop at a ski lodge in Iron Mountain, Mich., a 9-year-old asked whether they were going to become president or vice president.

“Here’s what I’m interested in doing: I’m interested in being your next United States senator,” El-Sayed said, stepping in to answer the question. When he said he hoped the young questioner could be an intern for him during his second term, Ocasio-Cortez laughed and clapped, The New York Times reported .

The congresswoman has said she will make a decision about her future plans after the midterms, acknowledging in a Times interview last month that some say she has “ a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot.”

Ocasio-Cortez will part from El-Sayed today as she heads out for solo campaign stops in southeast Michigan, appearing with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) at an Oakland County Students for Abdul rally in Pontiac, before they are joined by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) for a Henry Ford College rally in Dearborn. In the evening, Ocasio-Cortez will host a Latinos for Abdul rally in Detroit.

Meanwhile, Vance — who is hoping to secure his place as Trump’s heir apparent — stumped for several GOP candidates at an event yesterday in Monroe, Mich., where attendees were lining up hours before he was slated to speak.

The vice president called the Senate contest “the most important race in the United States of America” as he drew a contrast between Republican nominee Mike Rogers , a former House member, and El-Sayed, a former public health official.

“Normal people in this nation have watched the far left rally around causes that were fundamentally about destroying our foundations, destroying our basic identity as a nation,” Vance said at the rally. “They would say things, and then enact them, like ‘defund the police.’ They would say, ‘No one is illegal on stolen land.’ They would say, ‘We must abolish whiteness.’”

Trump, who will rally for Rogers in Michigan later this month, has also attacked El-Sayed for his immigrant background. During remarks at a Rose Garden luncheon yesterday, the president said El-Sayed “is a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100 percent.”

El-Sayed, who was born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrant parents, has denied any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the U.S. earlier this year designated a terrorist organization. The issue resurfaced in recent days after news reports dug up old social media posts from El-Sayed’s half-sister that referenced their mother and her “activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the 70s.”

“I have no ties. We have no ties. I have never had these conversations with my mother. I wasn’t raised by my mother,” El-Sayed told NBC in an interview this week when asked about the issue. “ You’re using hearsay evidence from a tweet. It’s just not serious.”

If Democrats do win the Senate majority, as they are slightly favored to do, the next question would be what their agenda looks like in the chamber with divided government back in place.

The Hill’s Helen Huiskes has a rundown of Senate Democrats’ top priorities if they retake the majority. Insiders can click here to read more.

▪ The Hill : Trump accuses Sen. John Cornyn of not doing enough to help Ken Paxton .

▪ The Hill : Susan Collins , Troy Jackson joust in final Senate debate.

Three students and one teacher were killed following a shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Ore., after a 16-year-old male opened fire with a long gun, the city’s police chief said. The suspect was also killed.

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia confirmed she did not pass the bar exam in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday night. Earlier in the day, she said she had already been registered to take it before planning a move to China and knew the results would be “somewhat inconsequential.”

Ukraine resumed drone attacks on Russian oil refineries Thursday despite President Trump urging both sides to accept an energy ceasefire. The move comes at a difficult time for Ukraine, as it has been cut off from access to Elon Musk’s Starlink and reportedly run out of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles .

President Trump talks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a roundtable on criminal cartels in the State Dining Room of the White House, Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington. (Evan Vucci, Associated Press file)

DON SAYS NO : Trump showed the limits of what he will allow from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday when he announced that the military execution of the Fort Hood shooter will not be livestreamed as the Pentagon chief had planned.

The president announced on social media that he was canceling the livestream execution of Nidal Malik Hasan , who carried out the 2009 attack at the Texas military base that claimed 13 lives. Another 32 people were injured in the shooting.

“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Hegseth had announced the livestream for the scheduled Dec. 3 execution earlier this month, but the proposal received bipartisan backlash as critics compared it to the actions of terrorists and authoritarian regimes.

The president’s announcement marks a rare instance of Trump publicly blocking one of Hegseth’s moves. The Pentagon chief has overseen several controversial moves during his tenure, including a major overhaul the Defense Department’s top ranks.

▪ The Hill : Five takeaways as Trump shuts down Pentagon plan.

▪ The Hill : 80 percent in poll opposed livestreamed execution.

OMAR PROBE : Federal authorities have seized Rep. Ilhan Omar ’s (D-Minn.) phone and personal computers as part of their investigation reportedly concerning alleged fraud involving her immigration paperwork.

The New York Times reported that Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor , and at least one other family member have also received subpoenas as part of the federal grand jury probe.

Investigators are looking into whether Omar may be older than the date listed on her immigration paperwork, which would mean she would have needed to apply for citizenship by herself as an adult rather than through her father as a minor, according to The Wall Street Journal .

Omar’s office maintained that the investigation is based on lies.

▪ The Hill : Kristi Noem ‘confident’ Omar will ‘be held accountable.’

▪ The Hill : Marjorie Taylor Greene labels investigation as ‘bulls—.’

ON GUARD : Election offices nationwide are on alert after officials in three states reported suspicious packages were sent to them in the past week.

The top elections officials in Ohio, Oklahoma and Louisiana all confirmed an envelope containing a white powdery substance was mailed to them. In Ohio, the U.S. Postal Service blocked the delivery of the letter, while offices were evacuated in Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry said law enforcement found “no evidence of harmful substances” after running tests.

The FBI told The Hill that the agency and Postal Service were investigating suspicious mailings nationally, including at secretary of State and election offices.

▪ Roll Call : Suspicious packages target senators on anniversary of attack.

FOLLOWING UP : The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent subpoenas to OpenAI and Anthropic as part of the agency’s federal probe into the potential risks the firms’ AI models pose to the public.

Several high-profile cybersecurity incidents concerning the AI agents have added to public scrutiny about their safety recently. Earlier this year, OpenAI’s agents escaped during a test and hacked the tech startup Hugging Face.

More recently, Anthropic revealed that one of its models submitted a false homicide tip to the Philadelphia Police Department in July.

The leaders of various AI companies have called for more guardrails to slow down AI development. They signed a pledge laying out voluntary commitments for developing the technology late last month.

▪ The Hill : Trump’s top crypto adviser leaves administration.

▪ The Hill : Anthropic’s PAC spent more than $250,000 in third quarter.

IN THE WATER : Senate Democrats are demanding answers over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study to detect the abortion pill mifepristone in drinking water.

Every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus signed a letter Thursday to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, urging him to remove mifepristone and misoprostol from the list of emerging contaminants targeted for surveillance. They also pressed for specifics about the review.

Searching for traces of the two drugs in drinking water has been a focus of lobbying from anti-abortion activists for years. The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel reports that there’s no evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or are harmful to people.

Medication abortion has become the most common method of abortion, particularly since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

▪ The New York Times : Anti-abortion activists being sued under abortion pill law.

▪ The Hill : MAHA group spends big on Iowa governor’s race.

The president will receive an intelligence briefing at 10 a.m. He will travel to Dalton, Ga., where he will deliver remarks at 2:45 p.m., and then travel to Palm Beach, Fla., for a Republican National Committee event at 7:30 p.m.

The Supreme Court is pictured on Oct. 5, 2026, in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib, Associated Press)

CHECKS AND BALANCES : The Trump administration is seeking to break new ground in its moves to limit judges’ authority to block the president’s agenda.

The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to declare that judges can’t set aside federal agency rules nationwide when they find them unlawful. If the court gave a green light, that would add another victory for the administration after it curtailed judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions last year.

But The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld reports that this would be a steeper climb.

Former President Biden ’s administration tried advancing this argument, but Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back on it as “fairly radical,” while Justice Brett Kavanaugh called it “far-reaching.”

The three other conservative justices expressed some sympathy for the argument.

The legal fight concerns the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs lawsuits challenging the regulations from across the federal government. It directs judges to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action” they find to be “arbitrary, capricious,” unconstitutional or exceeding an agency’s power.

Judges have interpreted that to mean that they can block actions nationwide, and it’s been a regular tool in lawsuits concerning the most consequential presidential actions.

It’s been the ire of presidents of both parties. But the path to overturning it may be difficult.

▪ The Hill : Judge extends block on taxpayer-funded ads until after midterms.

▪ The Hill : Appeals court revives suits against transgender policy threats.

A person walks past ice covered trees Jan. 28, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (George Walker IV, Associated Press)

WINTER OUTLOOK : The latest seasonal forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center shows a split picture of what the country should expect for the end of fall and early winter.

The forecast released Thursday shows the broad weather patterns that states should expect in the final two months of this year and first month of next year. The projections are in line with what’s expected from the El Niño weather pattern that has had wide implications for the climate throughout the year.

In the coming months, states in the northern half of the country are most likely to see above-average warmth between November and January. That includes the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest through the Ohio Valley and into New England.

Other states in the south aren’t necessarily expected to be colder than usual, but the forecast is less clear, and they have an equal chance of being abnormally warm or cold or having a normal winter season.

The forecast for precipitation is the opposite, with many of the states most likely to be warmer also more likely to be dry. An area toward the south from California all the way to Florida and up the eastern coast is leaning toward above-average rain.

The forecast comes as a super El Niño appears increasingly likely .

▪ The Guardian : How the super El Niño is devastating the fishing industry.

Democrats must not take their opportunity to win the midterms for granted , former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile writes in The Hill.

I moved up my flu shot appointment. You should, too , Leana S. Wen writes in The Hill.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, US Ambassador to Greece speaks after Greece’s Helleniq Energy and ExxonMobil signed an agreement to conduct seismic surveys in the Ionian Sea for oil-and-gas exploration, during the Atlantic Council conference, in Athens, Greece, Nov. 6, 2025. (Thanassis Stavrakis, Associated Press file)

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congrats to this week’s Morning Report quiz winners ! The best is yet to come with them, I’m sure.

Here’s who went 4/4: Rick Schmidtke, Stan Wasser, Richard Baznik, Carmine Petracca, Jess Elger, Michael Salanik, Linda L. Field, Harry Strulovici, Steven Rutledge, Ned Sauthoff, Jenessa Wagner and Steve James .

Kimberly Guilfoyle was serving as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco when she married Gavin Newsom, then serving as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Donald Trump Jr. reportedly paid Guilfoyle $7.6 million for her share of the Florida house they bought together , following the end of their engagement.

The Harper’s Bazaar spread in 2004 compared Newsom and Guilfoyle to the Kennedys .

Guilfoyle joined “ The Five ” as one of its original hosts upon the show’s debut in 2011.