(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has blocked Missouri Republicans from moving forward with a U.S. House map that the state’s highest court had already invalidated ahead of the November election.

In a brief unexplained order, and over no noted dissent by any justices, the court granted a request by a Democrat-backed advocacy group to pause a lower federal court order that greenlit the GOP-favored map just days ago. 

The decision likely ends the legal whiplash over Missouri’s map two months before the high-stakes midterm election takes place. It also hands Democrats a small victory in the nationwide mid-decade redistricting war.

State Republicans could still technically attempt to ask the justices to take the case for oral argument and decide the merits, but that process would very likely exceed the time left before the vote — and the Democratic-favored map would remain in effect in the meantime, the order indicated.

State election officials will now bear the brunt of having to quickly lay groundwork for administering the vote with a district map different from the one used in the primary.

The group that sought to preserve the 2022 map calls this the “definitive answer” in Missouri for November.

“The law is the law, the Missouri constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court,” Richard von Glahn, executive director of the group pushing the referendum vote, People Not Politicians, said in a statement. “Over 305,000 Missouri voters — Republicans, Democrats and Independents took action to block this political power grab last fall. People, not politicians, will have the final say when they vote NO on Proposition A this November.”

The state’s Republican-controlled legislature last year passed into law a new congressional map that redrew the district currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver to lean Republican as part of a nationwide mid-decade redistricting push encouraged by President Donald Trump.

But Democrats and other opponents of the new map filed legal challenges, pushing for a ballot initiative to put the new map up for a vote in November. They also argued that if the new map was put up for a referendum vote in November, that would suspend the law establishing the new map unless voters approved it and that Missouri’s elections should be held under the state’s older congressional map.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins initially decided in early August that he would not certify the referendum to the ballot, saying he had determined it was unconstitutional. People Not Politicians successfully appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, which ruled to block the new map from being used in November and to allow the ballot initiative to proceed.

Republicans appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking intervention as they simultaneously pursued a second-track legal front. 

Just days ago, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who oversees Missouri federal courts, declined to intervene in the dispute over Missouri’s congressional map.

Earlier this month, a federal district court judge directed the state to use the GOP-favored map, which was used in the primary, even though the state’s highest court directed the opposite.

Missouri Republicans had pushed back against a change to the map, saying in a court filing that a change-up at this late hour would “disenfranchise millions of primary voters” and “unilaterally void a congressional map before a statewide vote.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would give American adults a $5,000 “dividend” if Republicans kept the House and Senate in the midterm elections this fall, marking at least the second time he’s promised to use tariff revenue to send payments to Americans.

“Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump said, likening it to what “a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

ABC News has reached out to the White House for further details.

The president’s claim, which came during his speech on the first night of the GOP’s midterm convention, followed a promise he made last year to use tariff revenue to give Americans a $2,000 “dividend.”

Ten months later, those previously promised returns have yet to materialize. 

“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” Trump posted on Nov. 9, 2025, on his social media network, before adding, “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

The next day, Trump doubled down. 

“And one of the things we’re going to do, we’re going to issue a dividend to our middle-income people and lower income people of about $2,000,” the president said at the time. “And we’re going to use the remaining tariffs to lower our debt.”

White House officials were exploring ways to execute the plan put forward by Trump, then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time, but she did not provide details about specific options.

“The president made it clear he wants to make it happen,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House. “So his team of economic advisers are looking into it.”

ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the $2,000 “dividend.”

A “dividend” typically describes a payout to individual shareholders, funded by a company’s profits. Trump as he announced the $2,000 “dividend” said they would be coming at a time of prosperity, touting in his post that U.S. stock markets were near all-time highs and there had been a “record” investment in the U.S. He said that “plants and factories going up all over the place.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos at the time that the $2,000 dividend “could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda — you know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans.”

He said the “dividend” may come “in lots of forms.”

If Trump’s proposals came in the form of a one-time payout to Americans, they could be similar to the three stimulus checks mailed to Americans during the pandemic, two of which were authorized by Trump.

Those three payments totaled as much as $3,200 per tax filer, as well as $2,500 per child, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a watchdog established by Congress.

Trump said in his speech on Wednesday that at least some of that $5,000 would be expected to come from tariff revenue, though the mechanism and legality of delivering on that promise are unclear.

Not only did the $2,000 “dividend” payments never come for Americans — but much of the revenue collected by the government from Trump’s tariffs had to be paid back to the companies.

The Trump administration paid out a milestone $100 billion in tariff refunds through the end of July, according to an August court filing. That was more than half of the $166 billion owed to thousands of American businesses who paid the tariffs that were later struck down by the Supreme Court.

Trump added on Wednesday that the only condition attached to the proposed “dividend” would be that the distributed money must be spent in the U.S.

ABC News’ Max Zahn contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump doled out gifts totaling $155,000 for the holidays to four staff members in 2025, according to personal financial disclosures from the aides published by the White House.

The president gave $45,000 each to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris as “cash gift[s] for the holidays,” gifts that appear to be personal, according to documents the White House made public this month.

Walt Nauta, a longtime ally of Trump’s, received a $20,000 holiday gift, according to the documents.

The aides received the gifts in addition to their six-figure salaries. Harp, the president’s executive assistant, makes $150,000 annually, according to the White House. Martin and Harris, the president’s communication adviser and deputy director of Oval Office operations, respectively, make the same. Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, makes $175,000 a year.

“The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector,” a White House official said in a statement to ABC News. “The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.”

Harp, who is often seen with the president, has come under scrutiny from Democrats on the midterm campaign trail. Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff invoked her name during a rally in August, telling a crowd Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Trump is expected to fly aboard the new Air Force One gifted to the U.S. by Qatar when he travels to Ireland this week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News, marking his first foreign trip on the jet since he secretly switched planes in July while leaving a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats against him from Iran. The president previously said the plane would be updated in October.

Asked to respond to Ossoff’s remark in the Oval Office the next day, Trump said that he “would much rather do other things,” before veering into various renovation projects at the White House.

Martin and Nauta are also close to the president. Nauta, Trump’s valet during the first term, was charged alongside Trump in the special counsel investigation into Trump’s alleged taking of classified information. Martin has been a longtime staffer for Trump, dating back to his first administration, and later joined his 2024 campaign. She has been a key social media conduit for Trump, often capturing and posting up-close and behind-the-scenes content of him engaged in his duties.

Harris also served under the first Trump administration and continued working for the president in Florida after he left office. She returned to Washington to work under the second administration and was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts earlier this year.

The documents don’t include dates detailing when the gifts were given, aside from describing them as “for the holidays.” They appear to be personal gifts and in three cases list the president’s Palm Beach address.

Trump released his own financial disclosure back in June showing that he made a record amount of income for an American president, drawing in over $2.2 billion, including over $1.4 billion from various crypto ventures.

Back in July, another White House staffer’s finances came under public scrutiny after ABC News reported that Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, made more than $100,000 on Kalshi’s so-called “mention markets,” according to regulators. Perez was placed on unpaid administrative leave and later fired.

According to sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its “Mentions” market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech. 

Perez made $175,000 per year in his role, according to the White House.

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(WASHINGTON) — D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro vented frustration at reporters on Wednesday as she repeatedly refused to answer questions about a topic that has landed her in hot water with President Donald Trump: his demands that she revisit the now-dismissed Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn.

In a news conference involving an unrelated crackdown targeting Chinese scam centers, Pirro interrupted reporters in at least three exchanges as soon as they mentioned Hearn’s case.

Asked by ABC News if she plans to revisit the Reflecting Pool case against Hearn per Trump’s request, Pirro interrupted: “Ah — why did I know that was coming?”

“President Trump has made clear that this is very important to him,” ABC News responded.

“And you know the president has the right to decide what he wants to do and what is important,” Pirro replied.

When another reporter later followed up and attempted to ask about Hearn’s case, Pirro again interrupted, “No, I’m not going there! Don’t even go there.”

At one point, after a reporter made another final attempt, Pirro yelled, “No! No and no! … How many times do I have to say no?!” 

Pirro’s news conference is the first since her surprise move to dismiss the felony indictment against Hearn in August. In a filing, Pirro admitted that damage to the Reflecting Pool was likely caused by “botched” installation and not by vandals. 

The move prompted outrage from Trump, who said Pirro “choked” in her handling of the case, and later refused to rule out firing Pirro who he urged to “re-visit” the decision to charge Hearn.

“U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro should re-visit her hastily made decision [to dismiss Hearn’s indictment],” Trump wrote in an Aug. 7 post on social media.

The judge who previously oversaw Hearn’s case is currently weighing whether to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” which would effectively bar prosecutors from seeking another indictment against Hearn.

Hearn’s attorneys have said that Trump is still pushing a “false version” of the events around the Reflecting Pool, bolstering their argument that the government should be blocked from pursuing charges again.

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