Donald trump news today: Ginni Thomas faces Jan 6 panel as Trump questions Mar-a-Lago

Doug Mastriano, the Trump-endorsed Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, called for 40 days of fasting and prayer as his campaign significantly lags behind Democratic nominee Josh Shaprio.

The call comes after Mr Mastriano’s rally in Harrisburg was poorly attended and his campaign fails to gain traction, The Philadelphia Inquirerreported.

Former President Donald Trump may have called a Democratic politician while posing as a reporter, a new book claims.

In her book Confidence Man, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman details how Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell received a call from someone claiming to be a reporter, but who she believes was actually Mr Trump.

The excerpt was first reported in The Washington Post.

Graig Graziosi has the story.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, in the midst of a re-election campaign and reportedly weighing a future run for president, again hit out at fellow Democrats over what he claims is a messaging failure on the party’s handling of crime.

“We allow these culture wars to take shape, and we are consistently on the back end of them,” Mr Newsom said in an interview with MSNBC. “Eight of the top 10 states with the highest murder rates all are Republican states. How do Democrats not know that?”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he believes his party now has a “50-50 shot” of getting the chamber back less than six weeks away from the midterm elections.

“We are in a bunch of close races,” McConnell told reporters during a press conference. “It’s going to be really, really close either way, in my view.”

A judge is allowing prosecutors to move forward with their criminal case against an analyst who provided key details for a flawed dossier on ex-President Donald Trump, although the judge called his decision “an extremely close call.”

Lawyers for Igor Danchenko asked a judge Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to dismiss all five charges against him. He’s accused of lying to the FBI about how he obtained the information that ultimately made its way into the “Steele dossier,” a report that purported to detail connections between Trump and Russian intelligence and helped fuel a full-fledged FBI investigation called “Crossfire Hurricane” in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

The dossier famously suggested that Russians had compromising information on Trump regarding salacious sexual activity he allegedly engaged in at a Moscow hotel.

The midterm elections are officially 40 days away. As of right now, most prognosticators guess that Republicans are likely to win back the majority in the House of Representatives, while the poor candidate quality of some Republican nominees for Senate has led others to believe Democrats might hold onto the upper chamber.

Despite the fact that inflation and the economy remain at the top of the mind of most voters, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade energized Democratic voters in an unprecendented way. Usually, when a Democrat occupies the White House with a blue majority in the House and Senate, we don’t see so much urgency on the part of Democratic voters.

Here are four lessons The Independent has learned about the midterm election so far.

The company that signed a multi-million-dollar deal to promote paid appearances by former president Donald Trump is reportedly struggling to keep the lights on and continue to pay vendors, employees and investors.

According to The Washington Post, the American Freedom Tour has now called off events previously scheduled in several locations because it has not been able to pay its bills. Citing sources familiar with the company and documents it obtained, the Post said the company’s founder and owner has recently sought bankruptcy protection.

One of the few people who has reportedly seen a payday from association with the American Freedom Tour is Mr Trump, according to people close with the twice-impeached ex-president.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

No journalist has followed Donald Trump more closely than Maggie Haberman. From his time as a subject of senationalistic New York talbloid headlines, to his presidential campaign, to his tenure at the White House and his time since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Ms Haberman has chronicled every step.

Her proclivity for giving America an inside look into Mr Trump’s world has culminated in Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, due to hit shelves on 4 October.

The book has already made a lot of news. Here are some of the biggest revelations so far.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg and Eric Garcia have reviewed some of the biggest revelations gathered so far.

The parallel “special master” process spawned by the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Florida estate has slowed the Justice Department‘s criminal investigation and exposed simmering tensions between department prosecutors and lawyers for the former president.

The probe into the presence of top-secret government information at Mar-a-Lago continues….