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Iran has ‘no plans to negotiate with US’ despite Trump claims in media

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State media in Iran has reported that Iran’s delegation to the UN General Assembly had no talks planned with the United States, after US president Donald Trump said he expected more negotiations.

“Iran’s delegation in New York has no plans for negotiations with the United States,” said the official IRNA news agency, citing an unnamed source close to the group.

Trump told media outlet Axios on Sunday that he expected talks to resume soon, a day after he rejected a proposal by Tehran to reopen the strait of Hormuz within seven days.

“Iran’s views and positions were conveyed clearly and explicitly to the US side… via a Qatari mediator,” IRNA said, adding that the Iranian delegation would return to Tehran on Tuesday.

Iran says it presented seven conditions for ending the war and reopening the strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and gas flowed before the war.

The strait lies at the heart of the conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Following that attack, Tehran placed a chokehold on the waterway, and Washington responded with a blockade of Iranian ports.

Axios said indirect talks mediated by Qatar could take place as early as today, less than a week after similar discussions between US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iran demands a seven-day ceasefire across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, where its ally Hezbollah is regularly bombarded by Israel.

It also demands the unfreezing of its foreign assets, lifting sanctions on its oil sector, and an end to the US naval blockade. Trump rejected their demands on Saturday.

In other developments:

The Trump administration on Monday plans to release new fuel economy standards that would relax regulatory requirements for automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks. President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social media account on Saturday that the less stringent mileage requirements would “take the waste out of building cars in America” and save families “thousands on a new, beautiful and safe car,” while boosting auto production in the US.
Donald Trump’s attorney general Todd Blanche argued on Sunday that the administration was permitted to ban three news outlets from the White House because “it is a privilege and not a right to be there”. Appearing on the ABC News program This Week during the second week of the White House’s dispute over press credentialing and access, Blanche also said that the administration took the decision to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico beginning on 19 September because the president was “sick and tired” of what he considered to be those media outlets’ inaccurate reporting.
US senator Thom Tillis on Sunday criticized Donald Trump, his fellow Republican, for the president’s support of Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Senate Republican primary. “He made a colossal mistake,” Tillis, a frequent Trump critic from North Carolina, said during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union in reference to the president’s support of Paxton who defeated Cornyn in the May primary.
The United States and China released Monday reciprocal lists of products worth about $30bn each that will see tariff cuts, in a deal expected to boost bilateral trade. The details came days after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with president Donald Trump in Washington in his first state visit to the US since 2015.
Trump justified the pending US arms sale to Taiwan to Chinese president Xi Jinping by downplaying it as just one of many sales Washington makes around the world – even asking Xi if he’d be in the market for US arms, Trump’s ambassador to China said on Sunday.
House Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda, with investigations of Trump, his family and his administration if the party sweeps control of the chamber from Republicans in the November elections. The undertaking is as robust as it is daunting, spanning several House committees.

Key events

Texas Republican called for public execution of Democratic leaders – report

Ariana Baio

Bo French, a Texas Republican running to lead a powerful state agency, has a history of making controversial social media posts, including calling for the public execution of Democratic leaders, according to a recent investigation from CNN’s KFile team.

French, who is running to lead Texas’s railroad commission, has recently faced criticism from members of his own party after making a racist post on social media. Powerful Republicans, including the Texas senator John Cornyn, said they would not support French in the upcoming election.

But the latest spat over French’s social media has led to a deeper look at his online history. In a review of old posts from social media accounts that seemingly belonged to French, CNN’s KFile team found that the Texas Republican repeatedly called for public executions of opponents.

Rubio announces visa restrictions over international child abduction cases

Joseph Gedeon

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced a new policy restricting visas for foreign officials, judges and others deemed responsible for obstructing the return of American children abducted across international borders, as well as for their immediate family members.

In a press release, Rubio said:

When foreign government officials, judges, judicial administrators, law enforcement officials, and others intentionally obstruct the prompt resolution of these cases, they prolong family separations and block the return of children to the United States … This policy gives the Department a new accountability tool to press non-compliant countries to meet their obligations.

The statement did not name any countries or individuals targeted.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says suspected ‘migrant caravan’ is part of GOP plan to ‘scare’ voters ahead of midterms

After the Department of Homeland Security said that it is actively tracking a so-call “migrant caravan” which departed San Pedro Sula, Honduras last week, and is traveling through Mexico for the southern US border, Marjorie Taylor Greene – the former congresswoman and ex-Trump ally, said that the news is a fear-mongering tactic ahead of the November midterms.

“We have not seen a caravan headed to the U.S. southern border in several years, why now? Oh yeah, there is an election coming and the GOP needs to scare you into voting because nothing else is working,” she wrote on X.

Greene has become a notable critic of her former party after she left Congress at the beginning of this year – breaking from Donald Trump and many of her colleagues on key issues like the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, US support of Israel and the Iran war. Subsequently, the president branded Greene a “lunatic”.

The Trump administration on Monday announced it was slashing clean car rules that had been aimed at reducing planet-heating emissions and boosting electric vehicles.

The move, which was criticized by environmentalists, relaxes requirements on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks for model years 2022 through 2031.

The new rule, announced by the Department of Transportation, reverses a push by the Biden administration to accelerate the transition to EVs. Transportation is the largest source of climate emissions in the United States, accounting for about 28% of total US greenhouse gas emissions according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Monday’s move follows the Trump administration’s rollback of the government’s ability to impose requirements to track, report and limit climate-heating pollution from cars and trucks.

Donald Trump said on Truth Social Saturday that the less stringent mileage requirements would “take the waste out of building cars in America” and save families “thousands on a new, beautiful and safe car”, while boosting auto production in the US.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to end what he falsely calls an EV “mandate”, referring incorrectly to Joe Biden’s target that half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030. No federal policy has mandated auto companies to sell EVs.

Sara Sneath

Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study.

The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research.

In 2025, the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in research funding, launched investigations into 75 institutions and pushed colleges to sign agreements supporting administration policies in exchange for federal funding. The federal government canceled $4m in climate research grants at Princeton University alone and accused scientists of fueling “climate anxiety”.

If you’re a young researcher watching that, you might think twice about asking a question that could cost you your funding, said Noel Healy, of Salem State University, the lead author of the study published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.

“Climate policy is only as good as the evidence behind it. When the industry being regulated gets to shape the questions researchers ask, it ends up shaping the policy too,” he said.

The Academic Freedom Index, which measures how freely scholars and universities can teach, research and express ideas without interference, found that US institutional autonomy fell from 3.3 in 2019 to 1.7 in 2025, on a scale of 0 to 4.

“Since 2025, scientists have been deleting words like ‘climate change’ from their grant applications because those words can get an application rejected,” Healy said. “Some universities have shut down programs before the government even asked them to, hoping to avoid becoming a target. You don’t have to ban speech if people fear that speaking up will cost them their funding. People start deciding it’s safer to stay quiet.”

Read the full report here:

Senate tees up college sports bill ahead of midterm recess

While the lawmakers in the US House have already left Washington to get a head start on midterm campaigning, the Senate is hoping to wrap up its legislative agenda this week. Today, we can expect a vote at 5.30pm ET on the Protect College Sports act, which attempts to provide greater protections for university athletes in the US.

The bill includes provisions for players to earn compensation from their name, image and likeness – known as NIL payments, and allow them to transfer schools (and teams) without being penalized or forced to sit out for a defined period of time. If the legislation clears the Senate it will still need to head back to the lower chamber before it can head to Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

And linked to Trump’s efforts to encourage voters to see this midterm election as a referendum on his administration’s agenda, the White House is already facing pushback, even from some Republicans, for a taxpayer-funded TV advertisement that tout the president’s policies.

As my colleague, Robert Mackey reported last week, the White House press office insisted that versions of the ad, which feature audio of Trump urging voters to help him “defeat communism” and a whirlwind video review of his second term, were simply routine “public service announcements” like those produced by previous administrations.

On Sunday, Republican John Kennedy told CBS News “there ought to be a rule” against such spending – before conceding such spending was “probably” illegal. It’s worth noting that one of the spots that the administration paid to air was produced for his 2024 election campaign.

“I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money … on private ads for themselves,” Kennedy said, in response to questions from Margaret Brennan, the CBS Face the Nation host. “Now, the White House sees it differently. But … I think there ought to be a rule that you can’t – well, there probably is a rule – you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”

Donald Trump again urged supporters to “pretend that I am on the ballot” as the November midterms approach – a line he’s repeated throughout the month. On Monday, he praised Heritage Foundation president and ally Kevin Roberts for a Fox News interview he said underscored GOP momentum.

“The topic was Fake Polls and how well the Republicans are going to do in the upcoming Midterms,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’ll be out there spending money, and helping every one of them get elected. I won most of these places, often by a landslide. MAGA, pretend I am on the ballot. Don’t let them open your Borders, and allow crime to again flourish.”

Trump first floated the “pretend I’m on the ballot” message earlier this month at the GOP midterm convention, as many Republicans are facing difficult races amid historically low approval ratings for the current White House.

Meanwhile, Maga Inc – the main Trump‑aligned Super Pac – is sitting on a war chest of more than $400m. Trump says he’s prepared to tap into it to boost Republican candidates in key battlegrounds with just five weeks to go before election day.

Trump also spent some of Sunday posting about his frustration with the US supreme court, after the justices repeatedly blocked Missouri from using a Republican-friendly congressional map for the upcoming midterm elections that the president had backed.

“They continuously, three times now, overrule Judges who came to the correct decisions,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in another stunning rebuke of the judiciary. The president has increased his pushback against the top court, particularly after rulings Trump considers unfavorable in the last year.

“Thank you to the Governor, and all of the Great People of Missouri, who are fighting so hard for Fairness and Election Security. Such tremendous Spirit and Love of our Country,” the president added.

Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll start the day in closed-door meetings before speaking to reporters at 2pm ET, when he’s set to make an announcement. This comes just days after hosting China’s president Xi Jinping in Washington, and a private White House dinner on Sunday with Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, according to various reports.

Amodei was unable to make the state dinner to welcome Xi last week, where other AI company CEOs like Sam Altman and Elon Musk were in attendance.

Steven Greenhouse

Donald Trump has taken to repeating a familiar boast: “We have the greatest economy in history,” Trump said recently at a White House press gaggle.

The boast comes even though inflation is higher and economic growth lower than when Joe Biden left office, even though gas prices have jumped around 50% since the war against Iran started, and even though 73% of Americans think the economy is in fair or poor shape (48% say it’s in poor shape). What’s more, the Federal Reserve is so worried about inflation that it just raised interest rates.

“It’s bluster, it’s gaslighting for him to say the economy is the greatest ever,” said Darrick Hamilton, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main union federation. “The economy is trending down by many measures. A lot of that has been caused by Trump’s unforced errors.”

Hamilton said those errors include Trump’s tariffs and his war against Iran, both of which have pushed up prices – inflation is running at 3.4%, up from 3.0% when Biden left office. One unfortunate result is that prices have been rising faster than wages, worsening Americans’ affordability problems. A New York Times/Siena Poll found that 71% of voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living.

Over the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fuel oil prices have soared 52%, while ground beef is up 7.2%, fish and seafood up 6.5%, coffee 6.1%, sugar and sweets 6.1% and electricity up 3.8%. The administration boasts that egg prices are down 23%, even as gas has soared to an average of $4.47 per gallon nationwide.

Trump asked Xi Jinping if China would like to buy US weapons, American ambassador says

Amy Hawkins

Donald Trump offered to sell weapons to China while hosting its leader, Xi Jinping, last week, the US ambassador to China said on Sunday.

David Perdue told Fox News on Sunday: “President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point.”

On Monday, Chinese state media praised the “extraordinary level of courtesy” that Trump had shown Xi on the Chinese leader’s visit to Washington.

The extraordinary claim came during an interview about US policy on Taiwan, which has been waiting for months for Trump to approve a new arms sales ⁠package worth $14bn (£10.5bn), after a record multibillion-dollar deal was announced in December last year.

Trump’s level of commitment to protecting Taiwan has previously been questioned. At a meeting with Xi in Beijing in May, ⁠Trump said he was keeping the $14bn Taiwan arms sales package in abeyance, describing it as a “very good negotiating chip” in dealings with China.

Washington has long maintained a strategically ambiguous stance on whether it would defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. But under the decades-old Taiwan Relations Act, it is required to provide Taipei with sufficient military equipment to defend itself.

Edward Helmore

Donald Trump’s attorney general Todd Blanche argued on Sunday that the administration was permitted to ban three news outlets from the White House because “it is a privilege and not a right to be there”.

Appearing on the ABC News program This Week during the second week of the White House’s dispute over press credentialing and access, Blanche also said that the administration took the decision to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico beginning on 19 September because the president was “sick and tired” of what he considered to be those media outlets’ inaccurate reporting.

Blanche offered no evidence for his claim that the outlets’ reporting was inaccurate, rather than simply unflattering to the president. Pressed by the interviewer, Martha Raddatz, to point to a report the administration objected to, Blanche seemed to suggest that any negative reporting about Trump must be inaccurate.

“Wait, give you an example of when CNN doesn’t report accurately? You cannot be asking me that,” Blanche replied. “There’s not even a real dispute that the information coming out of CNN and some of these other networks is wholly and completely, almost 100 percent negative toward the president.”

On Thursday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to temporarily restore the credentials of affected journalists, and they were allowed entry to the executive complex.

But on Saturday, CNN said its journalists were barred from joining the press pool traveling with the president on Air Force One.

Ramon Antonio Vargas

With speculation about whether he may defect from the Democratic party swirling around him, US senator John Fetterman described himself seemingly unintentionally as a “lifelong Republican” during a fireside chat in Texas over the weekend.

Fetterman made the comment when someone listening to him speak with CBS News political correspondent Major Garrett at the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday asked the Pennsylvania senator why he had not become an independent.

“Because I’m a lifelong Republican,” Fetterman replied. Garrett promptly corrected him by saying, “Democrat,” as Fetterman raised a hand and shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s a moment right there that’s clippable, ladies and gentlemen,” Garrett said amid laughter from the audience. “Go, go, go – internet, spin wildly! Wildly spin, internet!”

Fetterman then remarked, “Yeah – I guarantee you that’s going to break through. That’ll get … clipped – yeah. I’m a lifelong Democrat, though, and that’s … the point.”

Social and news media commenters quickly seized on video of Fetterman’s gaffe, with more than one characterizing it as a Freudian slip.

Fetterman has drawn questions over his loyalty to the Democratic party after joining Republicans in opposing his party’s efforts to end the US war with Iran as well as to cut off military aid to Israel, which has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza.