DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republican Congressman Randy Feenstra on Tuesday confirmed that he is running for governor after a monthslong exploratory campaign in which he amassed support and raised money for an open election in a high stakes midterm year.
Feenstra released a video that touted his vote for the massive tax and spending cuts bill passed this year, emphasized his relationship with President Donald Trump and criticized his likely Democratic opponent, Rob Sand.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds made a surprise announcement in April that she would not run for reelection next year. The two top-of-ticket statewide races in Iowa next year — for governor and for U.S. Senate — will both be open seats for the first time since 1968 after Reynolds and two-term Sen. Joni Ernst said they would retire from office at the end of their terms.
It's led to a shake-up on the ballot in the once-competitive state where Democrats are eyeing seats they think they can flip, though that remains a difficult task in the state Trump won with 56% of the vote in last year's presidential election.
Republicans now control the U.S. House by a razor-thin margin. Feenstra’s 4th Congressional District is overwhelmingly Republican, so next year’s race for his successor is not likely to be a competitive pickup opportunity for Democrats. That means Feenstra’s entry into the governor’s race will have little impact on Republicans’ efforts to maintain the balance of power in the House.
But the other three congressional districts in the state have far more politically mixed electorates and stand to be some of the closest — and highest funded — races in the country. Republican and Democratic congressional campaign arms have already launched ads in targeted districts across the country, including two in Iowa represented by Republican Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. And a national anti-abortion organization, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said earlier this month it would send door-knockers to support the Republican incumbents, more than a year in advance of next year's election.
The district in Iowa's northeastern corner, represented by Rep. Ashley Hinson, is now open after Hinson jumped into the race for Ernst's Senate seat.
Even before officially jumping in Tuesday, Feenstra has announced several millions in fundraising and nearly half a million in paid advertising. He could face a well-funded competitor in Sand, who has experience running a statewide campaign. As state auditor, Sand is the only Democrat currently elected statewide. Sand is running in a primary against longtime Democratic consultant Julie Stauch, but he reports a hefty $10 million in campaign cash, much of which comes from his extended family.
Iowa state Rep. Eddie Andrews, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former director of the state department of administrative services Adam Steen are already in the running against Feenstra for the GOP nomination. State Sen. Mike Bousselot is also exploring a campaign.
There was much speculation about who would run for Reynolds' seat after she unexpectedly opted out of another term — and who might enter with an endorsement from President Donald Trump in the first open GOP primary for Iowa governor since Trump took command of the party. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, long a supporter of Trump's, had immediately said she was considering a bid but didn't say one way or another until July.
Feenstra took her lengthy pause before a decision as an opportunity to say in May that he was launching an exploratory campaign, which included raising nearly $4 million in five weeks and buying $400,000 in television and radio advertising. Bird ultimately chose not to run for governor.
Feenstra was reelected to his third term last year by about two-thirds of voters in the region, which is heavily populated with conservative evangelical communities. Iowa’s 4th District is made up of counties marked by sprawling fields and pig farms in the northwest quadrant and along the Western border. The district could help Feenstra in the Republican primary; nearly 30% of active registered Republican voters in Iowa live there.
The congressman was first elected to the U.S. House in 2020 after launching a well-funded primary campaign to oust former Rep. Steve King, a Republican who lost his seat after years of controversy involving his previous support of white supremacist groups.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, speaks during the Triple M Tailgate fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP)
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, speaks during the Triple M Tailgate fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP)
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 on Thursday to allow the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security can now end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Supreme Court also voted 6-3 to clear the way for the Trump administration to potentially revive an immigration policy once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The court overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day.
Meanwhile, a liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a $16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Service said.
Heres' the latest:
Speaking at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said the legacy of the 37th president is “enjoying a bit of a renaissance.”
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance said in a conversation promoting his new book.
He went on: “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”
Vance noted his own parallels with Nixon. “Young senator, vice president, writes some bestselling books, is hated by the media,” he said. “It kind of sounds like JD Vance.”
Nixon was in his second term when he resigned over the Watergate scandal in 1974.
Speaker Mike Johnson returned from what he called a “very productive” hourslong meeting with the president in the Oval Office following a highly dysfunctional week in Congress.
“We’re on exactly the same page,” Johnson said back at the Capitol.
Trump earlier this week abruptly abandoned plans to sign the bipartisan Housing package, which had overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate but got tangled when the president insisted Congress must first pass an unrelated voting bill called the SAVE America Act. That bill has failed to draw broad support in the Senate.
A group of House GOP lawmakers joined Trump’s rally call and refused to vote on other measures, essentially shutting down business in the House.
Trump, after meeting with Johnson, told Republicans in a social media post: “no more grandstanding.”
Johnson said they had to get back to work, and he said they were transmitting the Housing bill, which starts a 10-day clock for Trump to either sign it or veto the bill.
The merchant vessel that was attacked earlier today was hit by an Iranian drone, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation, said that the merchant vessel Ever Lovely was attacked by a drone being flown by the Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center reported the attack earlier on Thursday but only said that the ship was struck by a “projectile off Oman near UN-approved route for Strait of Hormuz.”
The center noted that there were no causalities nor any environmental impact.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that no frozen funds have been released to Iran and will not be done until Iran meets the requirements of Trump’s interim Iran agreement.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC’s Squawk Box this week that Treasury would oversee how unfrozen funds would be spent.
“A very large percentage of it will go to buy U.S. foodstuffs and medicines,” he said.
A U.N. maritime agency has paused the evacuation of ships through the Strait of Hormuz after the British military said a vessel was hit Thursday by a projectile off the coast of Oman.
The head of the International Maritime Organization said the plan to move stranded ships through the strait will be on hold until the agency can confirm safety guarantees for the ships on the evacuation list and in the region.
It was unclear who launched the projectile or the type of vessel that was targeted. The report of a strike came hours after Iran threatened vessels to stop using a U.N.-approved route through the strait without Tehran’s permission.
▶ Read more
A liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a $16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Service says.
The agency reported the June 9 incident to U.S. Park Police, said Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service. Lands made the statement in a court document filed late Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit organization to halt the Trump administration’s work on the project.
The police report indicates damage to the pool, “including a caulk over the foam sealant that was cut with a sharp knife or razor and destruction of delaminating surface material,″ Lands said. About 70 fence post tops also were thrown into the pool, he said.
▶ Read more
The immigration center built in the Florida swamps known as “Alligator Alcatraz” is closing after nearly a year of holding thousands of immigrant detainees, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday.
DeSantis said the center was always supposed to be temporary and now federal officials have enough ability to handle detention and deportation in more permanent facilities.
Officials announced a temporary closure of the facility earlier in June, saying hurricane season made it unsafe to keep the detainees in the Florida Everglades. All the of people kept at the isolated airstrip had been sent to other facilities.
Immigration advocates said the tents were never safe or humane to hold people. Detainees at the facility have talked about their difficulty accessing lawyers, and have described poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.
▶ Read more
The top legal official at Homeland Security praised the Supreme Court’s decision on temporary protected status.
“The Court vindicates DHS yet again,” said James Percival, the department’s general counsel in a statement on X.
“The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense,” Percival said.
Markwayne Mullin says his department is reevaluating the eleven warehouses his predecessor purchased to use as immigration detention facilities.
Mullin says some just “probably won’t work” and suggested a lack of “due diligence” when it came to purchasing the warehouses. They were purchased under Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement received huge pushback around the country after the purchases became known.
When Mullin came into office, he paused any new purchases and federal officials have been looking at ways to offload some of them.
The executive order also sought to limit who can receive a mail ballot.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.
Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, noting in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
▶ Read more
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Trump administration argued judges can’t second-guess immigration officials’ decisions about the protections, which were intended to be temporary.
Immigration attorneys said the countries remain unsafe to return, and the administration ended them in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
▶ Read more
The policy was once used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The justices overturned a lower court order blocking the practice that limited the number of people who could apply for asylum each day under the Obama administration and during Trump’s first term.
Advocates said the tactic created a humanitarian crisis as thousands of people settled in unsafe makeshift shelters to await their turn. The Trump administration said it was necessary to deal with an increase of asylum seekers at the border.
The policy isn’t in place now, though authorities have imposed other restrictions on asylum seekers.
The administration argues that metering is a critical tool that’s been used by presidents of both parties and should stay available.
▶ Read more
President Trump was attending a private lunch Wednesday with the Senate GOP when he wondered aloud how anyone could have voted for a war powers resolution a day earlier that sought to block further U.S. military action against Iran.
Cassidy, one of the four Republicans who backed the measure, was ready with an answer.
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on,’” Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, recounted to reporters afterward. “This is supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”
Things deteriorated from there.
When Cassidy told Trump he would continue voting for war powers resolutions until there’s a congressional briefing on developments in Iran, the senator recalled that Trump “did not particularly care for my comments” and “raised his voice.”
Trump repeatedly told Cassidy to sit down, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. At one point, the president called the senator a “lunatic,” the person said.
Cassidy acknowledged losing his temper, which he said was “not appropriate.”
▶ Read more
— Steven Sloan and Lisa Mascaro
Several tankers made their way out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday using a new route promoted by a U.N. maritime agency. Iran has threatened vessels using the path, which runs along the coast of Oman.
The opening of an alternative passage through the vital waterway would relieve pressure on the world economy and remove Iran’s main source of leverage in ongoing talks about the interim deal signed last week with the United States.
Traffic through the strait has increased but is still well below prewar levels. Oil on Thursday briefly dipped below its last prewar price of just under $73 a barrel, a sign that the market believes the situation is improving.
The two sides are still debating terms of the deal — from getting ships through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf to the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
▶ Read more
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge rose to a new three-year high in May as gas prices peaked, a sign rising costs could pose political problems for President Trump as midterm elections near.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, the largest annual increase since April 2023. On a monthly basis, inflation was 0.4% last month, matching April’s increase and down from 0.7% in March.
The increase was largely driven by more expensive gas, as well as pricier semiconductors and other computer equipment that are in high demand for the AI build out. Rising prices have caused the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve to keep their key rate unchanged this year, a reversal from January when they had penciled in two cuts. Some economists forecast the central bank could lift rates this year instead.
▶ Read more
Congressional Democrats called for investigations Wednesday into renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, as the ongoing drama over the president’s problem-plagued, $16 million rehabilitation project continued to roil the capital.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate demanded answers about the saga that’s been highlighted in the news cycle for weeks, even as the White House has repeatedly blamed — without evidence — unidentified vandals for peeling paint and other problems. Six people have been arrested, President Donald Trump said, without providing details, and a local wildlife nonprofit conducted necropsies on dead ducks found near the Reflecting Pool. The president has said the pool may need to be drained once again for additional repairs.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, challenged the Trump administration over no-bid contracts for work on the Reflecting Pool, saying they were awarded to vendors with previous relationships to Trump.
▶ Read more
Senate Republicans who were berated by President Donald Trump over opposition to his war in Iran held a late-night vote Wednesday to try to appease him, rejecting a war powers resolution a day after a similar measure passed.
Trump harangued GOP senators face-to-face earlier in the day for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran on Tuesday, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues and brought much of the chamber’s business to a halt. He exchanged particularly harsh words with Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had voted with Democrats on the measure.
Hours later, though, Cassidy was invited to receive a personal briefing on the war at the White House from Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff. Cassidy then returned to the Capitol to vote against a separate but nearly identical war powers resolution.
▶ Read more
President Donald Trump stands on stage after speaking at the opening of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after speaking at the opening of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
