President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled the AI-powered America.gov site as a way to simplify public access to government information and services. The site's question-and-answer function initially produced truthful responses to politically thorny questions — contrary to several of Trump's characteristic claims.
Within moments, however, the site began modifying its answers. After originally confirming that Trump’s name is in the Epstein files, that Democrat Joe Biden beat him in the 2020 election and that climate change is largely human-caused, it subsequently refused to answer the questions, saying it didn’t answer political inquiries.
Meanwhile, former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal indictments against Trump, told lawmakers Tuesday that he "will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution" from the Trump administration and that he believes the rule of law is being threatened like never before. Smith's hearing before the Senate is expected to focus on his team's access to GOP lawmakers' phone records when prosecutors were investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Here's the latest:
Trump to campaign in solidly red Nebraska with midterms looming
The president has repeatedly promised to travel to competitive areas around the country, even as his approval ratings sink and Republicans increasingly scramble to try and hold control of Congress after Election Day in November.
But Trump is instead holding a rally on Monday in Grand Island, in solidly red, south-central Nebraska.
The state has a competitive congressional race in Omaha, but where Trump is going is a different, GOP-held district and media market, with an election that isn’t expected to be close.
Trump’s trip could be an effort to counter Dan Osborn, an independent candidate running for Nebraska’s Senate seat against incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.
But the president hitting Grand Island comes as the midterm map is full of Senate races in other states where Democrats have far better shots of flipping GOP seats.
GOP’s Schmitt appears to mix-up teams during Smith accusation
Republicans spent much of the Senate hearing trying to trip up Smith and impeach his credibility.
In one notable moment, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt accused Smith of traveling to Atlanta and attending a game for the city’s NBA team — the Hawks — in February 2024 while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was facing scrutiny for her romantic relationship with a special prosecutor in the Georgia 2020 election case.
But it appeared Schmitt got his teams confused. Smith said he had actually been at a game that day for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes in Maryland.
America.gov changes politically thorny answers moments after launch
As it initially launched, the site’s question-and-answer function answered some political questions truthfully — noting correctly that Biden won the 2020 election and that Obama’s 2009 inaugural crowd was bigger than Trump’s in 2017.
Within moments, however, the site began modifying its answers.
After originally reporting that Biden won in 2020, it refused to answer the question subsequently, saying it didn’t answer political inquiries.
Same went for a question on crowd size at Obama’s inauguration versus Trump’s first one.
The site also offered more muddled answers on other things Trump frequently says that aren’t true — like the Strait of Hormuz being fully reopened to commercial traffic.
Trump says he’s the first US president to forgo a salary, but new AI website says otherwise
The president said Tuesday “they think no other president has ever served without receiving their salary,” adding that “they think Washington did not get a salary, but they’re not sure about that.”
The government's new America.gov chatbot, citing official U.S. documents, debunked the claim. Asked which U.S. presidents declined a salary, the AI-powered bot listed George Washington, Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy as refusing their salaries before Trump.
Tense partisan exchanges at Jack Smith’s hearing
During one heated moment, Republican Sen. John Kennedy grew exasperated as he pressed Smith on whether the Biden White House instructed the Justice Department to prosecute Trump. Smith said he had “no idea about that,” and that the decision to prosecute Trump was his own.
In an effort to show Smith was being evasive, Kennedy asked Smith whether he believed in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny. Smith said no.
“You make me want to throw up in my mouth,” Kennedy told Smith as he concluded his line of questioning.
America.gov refutes many of Trump’s pet claims
The president said the site is “glamorizing” the federal bureaucracy — but it doesn’t agree with him on many key issues.
The site’s question-and-answer function confirms that Trump’s name is in the Epstein files and that Democrat Joe Biden beat him in the 2020 election.
It says federal officials did not find widespread fraud in that election, as Trump says constantly.
The site confirms that climate change is largely from human greenhouse gas emissions, and there’s no evidence whales are harmed by offshore wind turbines. It says Barack Obama’s 2009 presidential inauguration attracted a bigger crowd than Trump’s in 2017.
The site uses Trump’s new names for Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico, but that the Defense Department uses the Pentagon — ignoring Trump’s attempts to rebrand it the Department of War.
Taiwan says US arms sales to island are unchanged, but a $14B package remains on hold
Taiwan’s defense minister said Tuesday that existing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan remain unchanged, and that Taipei remains in talks with the U.S. over individual deals. A record $14 billion arms package to the island, however, remains stalled.
The minister's remarks come as concerns mount that Trump could halt arms sales to Taiwan. China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a May summit in Beijing between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping. The United States paused the $14 billion arms deal after that meeting.
“As for arms sales, we are in continuous discussions with the Americans on this,” Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo told reporters in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. “We haven’t received any notice of any changes to sales or our cooperation.”
Koo said he received assurances from the U.S. side that its policy toward the island remained unchanged.
Americans growing more pessimistic about the economy as prices for gas, other items remain elevated
Americans’ confidence in the economy deteriorated this month as prices remain elevated and wages stagnate amid the ongoing Iran war.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index tumbled 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, down from 88.6 in August.
Respondents’ views of their present situation fell by 7.9 points to 109.3. Their short-term outlook also slid, falling 5.9 points to 63.6.
Americans remain flustered by the economy after five years of elevated inflation, potentially posing a risk to President Trump and Republicans in the midterm elections, which are a little more than a month away.
America.gov is live — and its interface looks a lot like other AI-based sites
What the Trump administration has advertised as “a new front door for the federal government” is now up and running.
And it looks a lot like other services powered by artificial intelligence.
President Trump was expected to speak at a launch event Tuesday for the site, which has been promoted as a way to simplify Americans’ access to information and services scattered across a plethora of agency websites.
America.gov doesn't say what AI platform it uses to answer questions about government services. And asking the chatbot to explain its systems yielded an answer that it "does not publish the name of a specific AI model" and instead "uses AI to search official government sources and explain them with citations."
The website says it’s free, has no ads and requires no log in.
Sen. Susan Collins seeks more information about taxpayer-funded TV ads
The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee is grilling the Trump administration about its recent spate of taxpayer-funded TV ads.
The Maine Republican has asked the White House and the Office of Management and Budget for “a full accounting of any expenditures” used to make the ads, a committee spokesperson said Tuesday.
It remains unclear what part of the administration is funding the three ads, which glorify Trump and are nearing at least $1.5 million in public spending.
Criticism against the ads has mounted, including from Trump’s own party. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Monday said they “shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”
The White House has defended the ads, saying they are public service announcements like those of past administrations.
Jack Smith defends his criminal cases against Trump
Smith told lawmakers in his opening statement that he stands by the criminal cases he brought against Trump, saying investigators developed “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation.”
Smith said his team’s actions were “based on the facts and the law” without regard to President Trump’s political beliefs.
“If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat,” Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Republicans have accused Smith of bending ordinary procedures in an overzealous and politically motivated pursuit of the president.
Jack Smith hearing in the Senate is underway
The prosecutor who brought criminal charges against Trump is expected to be grilled by senators about his team's access to the phone records of GOP lawmakers, among other things.
Smith has previously defended the subpoenas as “common practice” in investigations.
According to a copy of his prepared remarks, Smith will tell senators that he “will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution” from the Trump administration and that he believes the rule of law is being threatened like never before.
From motorcycles to booze, US ban on $1 billion worth of Canadian imports goes into effect
U.S.-Canada relations, already tense, are likely to deteriorate further after the United States went ahead early Tuesday with a decision to ban nearly $1 billion worth of Canadian imports, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles.
The ban amounts to barely a ripple in $880 billion worth of annual two-way trade between the two northern neighbors. But it marks another ratcheting up of President Trump’s second-term trade war with America’s longtime ally and trading partner.
The import ban “certainly won’t do anything to help the trade tensions between the United States and Canada,″ said trade attorney Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.
Iran’s currency hits a new record low as war erodes the country’s economic stability
Iran's currency fell to a new record low Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy.
The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the dollar Sept. 2. The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.
The Iranian economy has been under duress for years in the face of international sanctions. But a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian oil and new sanctions imposed since the start of the war have sent it into freefall.
Taxpayers have funded nearly $1.5M in pro-Trump ads. Criticism is mounting, including from the GOP
The White House has spent days fiercely defending three taxpayer-funded advertisements that glorify President Donald Trump and are nearing at least $1.5 million in public spending, calling them public service announcements like those used in past administrations.
“Don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X on Sunday.
But the Republican administration’s ads attracted mounting criticism on Monday, including from members of Trump’s own party.
“It shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters.
Multiple legal experts consulted by The Associated Press said the ads appear to run afoul of federal statutes, including a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for “publicity or propaganda” and a law that limits the partisan political activities of government employees.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico ask a court to block Trump from enforcing his White House media ban
Three news outlets President Donald Trump abruptly banished from White House grounds this month asked a federal court to block the ban until the case is resolved, saying the administration has "persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban" despite a judge's restraining order — including selectively barring CNN from White House pool duties.
“The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstitute a complete ban of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO if allowed the opportunity,” lawyers for CNN, MS NOW and Politico wrote in a filing late Monday.
”Because the ban is an unlawful assault on the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms and will inflict irreparable harm on Plaintiffs and the public if not restrained, this Court should preliminarily enjoin its enforcement pending the resolution of this case,” the filing said.
The filing came a day after the Trump administration made clear it was not backing down from its contention that the sudden ban, which began Sept. 19, was justified.
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