Donald Trump announced three big wins on Friday and oversold every one of them.
He banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House “effective immediately.” By evening nobody had left, and his own press office didn’t know the details.
He said Denmark gave America “permanent control” of Greenland. Denmark says it agreed to keep its sovereignty and let the United States hold the military base it has run there since 1951. Then he said all 50 states joining his Medicaid drug pricing plan “alone should win us the midterms.” Medicaid patients usually pay a few dollars for a prescription now, and whatever this plan saves goes to the states under terms nobody outside the agreement has seen.
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Appeals court lets HUD shift $1.3 billion in homelessness funding from Housing First to treatment while it appeals a ruling that it skipped public comment.
Today’s GovBrief News
Trump plans to meet Venezuela's US-installed leader Delcy RodrÃguez at the UN next week, Axios reports, eight months after seizing Maduro with no election called.
Source: Axios
September 18, 2026
Trump signs the late Sen. Graham's Russia sanctions bill, gaining power to put 100% tariffs on the top five buyers of Russian oil and gas.
Source: Euronews
September 18, 2026
US, Denmark and Greenland announce a defense deal banning Russian and Chinese bases, far short of Trump's January demand for "complete and total control."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
September 18, 2026
Two tankers hit in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran claiming one, hours after Trump tells Axios his "big decision" could be to "annihilate" the regime.
Source: CBS News
September 18, 2026
Trump says all 50 states joined most-favored-nation Medicaid drug pricing that "alone should win us the midterms," as experts say Medicaid patients already pay little.
Source: Semafor
September 18, 2026
Trump says he will demand makers split unnamed childhood vaccines into five doses at six-month intervals to cut autism, a link scientists have repeatedly debunked.
Source: Reuters
September 18, 2026
Trump signs orders expanding federal-land hunting and restoring lead ammunition, telling hunters "I don't know what the hell that means" but "you wanted it."
Source: The Hill
September 18, 2026
Homeland Security memo lists counties with non-English ballots, including one the Voting Rights Act requires to translate, under "requirements for prosecution of voter related charges."
Source: The Georgia Recorder
September 18, 2026
Trump declares CNN, MS NOW and Politico banned from the White House over "fake news," warns others will follow, but none enforced by day's end.
Source: The Associated Press
September 18, 2026
Justice Department declares the federal ban on dealers selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds unconstitutional and will not enforce it while appeals courts remain split.
Source: The Associated Press
September 18, 2026
Justice Department defends firing Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey, James Comey's daughter, as a no-cause Article II removal, a firing Laura Loomer demanded weeks earlier.
Source: Courthouse News Service
September 18, 2026
Federal judge refuses to declare Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" suit moot, saying officials "contradict themselves all the time" on whether it is dead.
Source: NBC News
September 18, 2026
ICE agent Christian Castro appears in federal court on charges of lying about the Minneapolis shooting, a day after Minnesota arraigned him for the shooting.
Source: KARE Minneapolis
September 18, 2026
Trump administration begins installing 30-foot wall panels in the Big Bend region a day after West Texas landowners sued to stop it.
Source: Texas Public Radio
September 18, 2026
Cobb County, Georgia, superintendent pulls Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's 56-year-old novel "The Bluest Eye" from school libraries after reading only excerpts, with no review committee.
Source: WSB Atlanta
September 18, 2026
FAA readies the AI advisory tool from an $875 million contract for Washington airspace as soon as Monday, months after cutting its controller estimate by 2,000.
Source: Ars Technica
September 18, 2026
Texas Gov. Abbott halts new Flock license plate reader permits on state roads, three weeks after freezing state funding for the 13,000-camera network.
Source: The Texas Tribune
September 18, 2026
HHS Secretary Kennedy discloses over $250,000 in gifts, including flights to Fiji and Greece, from a security consultant who was a major 2024 campaign donor.
Source: The Wall Street Journal [gift link]
September 18, 2026
Trump says Donald Trump Jr. "paid back" the Russian oligarch who bankrolled his wedding party, contradicting the couple's statement calling it a "wedding gift."
Source: The Independent
September 18, 2026
Hundreds form a human chain around the fenced Kennedy Center as Trump, asked if he will demolish it, says his administration "saved" the "dump."
Source: WRC Washington
September 18, 2026
40 states and DC force subprime auto lender Credit Acceptance to forgive $634 million for 55,000 borrowers after the federal consumer bureau dropped the case.
Source: Reuters
September 18, 2026
Federal judge orders EPA to reinstate $7 billion in Solar for All grants for 900,000 lower-income households, ruling Trump's budget law cannot cancel existing grants.
Source: The Washington Post
September 18, 2026