The war in Ukraine has continued to rage in the days after President Donald Trump declared an energy ceasefire there, with Russia targeting civilian and energy infrastructure as the U.S. applies pressure on Kyiv to halt attacks on oil refineries in Russia, which Trump says are to blame for the high price of diesel fuel.

As the president’s announcement of a partial ceasefire Sunday — covering energy infrastructure in both countries — failed to yield any limits to the fighting, he continued to apply public pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The U.S. government-owned satellite infrastructure used by Ukraine’s military for drone navigation and air defense on Wednesday was not operating at its normal functionality, raising concerns that American support for Kyiv was ebbing.

Zelenskyy said on a British television program Wednesday that his country was “losing a strong partner” in the United States, days after he said his military did not receive critical early warnings from partners of attacks that it had come to expect.

Six people were killed in strikes in Ukraine on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said.

A defense ministry official in Kyiv said overnight Wednesday that restrictions placed on Starshield, a satellite communications network owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX but contracted for use under terms set by the Pentagon, “disrupted” a number of “critical missions” in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian source said the restriction gave the Russians “real leverage on [the] frontline” by inhibiting the military’s ability to defend against jet-powered Shahed drones. As the hours passed Wednesday, the Starshield limits began to loosen, but remained a concern for Ukraine.

The source said SpaceX did not warn Ukraine of the move or answer questions about the rationale for the halt.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said on Wednesday that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government” and “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately [President Trump.]”

The White House, Pentagon and SpaceX did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

‘Only hurts Ukrainian forces,’ analyst says

George Barros, an open-source analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said “US decisions to throttle [Starshield] only harms Ukrainian forces on the defense in Ukraine,” noting that Ukrainian forces have never been permitted to use the SpaceX networks for strikes deep into Russia.

“This decision will significantly degrade Ukraine’s mid-range strike capability — a key driver of Ukraine’s recent battlefield momentum in 2026,” he said in a post on X.

Intelligence sharing from military to military is America’s primary contribution to Ukraine’s war effort, analysts said, providing key early warnings for Russian strikes and targeting information.

Trump said Tuesday that intelligence sharing was continuing as usual.

A Ukrainian source in Kyiv on Wednesday said warnings did come overnight Wednesday — but they were late.

European allies of Ukraine would look to fill any gap left by a U.S. drawback on intelligence sharing, but two European officials acknowledge there would still be a gap in Ukraine’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

The battlefield impacts come amid tensions between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents — and between negotiators working on a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Trump says Ukraine causing ‘a world problem’

Trump has insisted the two sides stop targeting energy infrastructure, but he has focused in particular on Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries. Over the weekend he struck a deal with Moscow to release diesel exports into global markets.

Trump said on Saturday Ukraine should not “hit the refineries, because that’s [caused] a world problem.”

After a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, Trump said he would authorize a Treasury Department license for the export of Russian diesel, overriding existing sanctions.

Gregory Brew, an energy analyst at the Eurasia Group, said the deal — which would facilitate the export of some 74,000 barrels a day of diesel, a fraction of the amount Russia exported less than a year ago — was motivated by Trump’s domestic political calculations.

“All of this is being driven by the administration’s desire to bring down fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections to try to improve Trump and the Republicans’ outlook in that vote,” Brew said. “So this is all being driven, I would say, largely by short-term considerations geared around energy prices and the midterm election outlook.”

U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators, including Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, met Friday about a potential peace framework in Miami, where tensions rose over the arrangement with Russia.

Made aware of the forthcoming announcement from Trump, Ukrainian negotiators cut the meetings short, according to a source familiar with the Miami talks.

Looking for leverage

Two days after the Miami talks, Trump on Sunday said Ukraine and Russia did agree to a ceasefire on energy targets, but neither side corroborated the claim. A U.S. official told ABC News Trump’s announcement was driven by his frustration with the Ukrainian president to compromise on an energy truce.

Zelenskyy has said he would order his military to abide by a truce only if Putin would do the same.

“If Trump really does want Zelenskyy to make concessions — either to agree to this energy ceasefire or to permit this this diesel deal [with Russia], or to to bow to a broader deal that is maybe a little bit more favorable to Russia — he’s going to look for ways to to exercise that leverage,” Brew said, referring to a potential curtailing of intelligence sharing.

The Kremlin has also been mum about the ceasefire, with Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying the diesel deal and a broader peace agreement were on separate tracks.

Peskov reiterated what he called Moscow’s consistent position “that we do not want a ceasefire” but instead “want lasting peace.”

Trump’s pressure campaign on Kyiv may be aimed at facilitating his diesel deal with Russia, Brew said.

“I would imagine that the Russian requirement for this deal to move forward is a halt to attacks on refineries,” he said. “Russia needs its refineries to be operating under ideal circumstances in order to ramp back up diesel exports.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday that Ukraine remained ready to enter into a ceasefire, conditional on Russia laying down its arms simultaneously. Tensions with the Americans were not new, he said, recalling a Trump outburst in the Oval Office a month into his presidency, when he scolded Zelenskyy publicly.

“In less than two years, Ukraine has gone from ‘You don’t have the cards’ to ‘Don’t play your cards,'” Sybiha said Wednesday.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris on Tuesday appeared to lose his cool during a gaggle with reporters, singling out a journalist and threatening her with legal consequences if she recorded him on video.

“You do not have my permission to record. If you record, we will refer you to prosecutors,” Harris told the reporter in a video captured by a Baltimore Banner photojournalist following his debate against Democratic opponent Dan Schwartz in Cambridge, Maryland.

“Everyone in here is recording,” responded the reporter, identified as Cat Murphy, a data reporter at Capital News Service. “Why am I not allowed to?”

“But you are not allowed to,” Harris responded. “We are in a two-party state. You are not allowed to.”

Harris had just left the contentious debate in which some in the audience interrupted him with laughter as he tried to blame Democrats for the high price of diesel.

“You’re rude,” he said angrily, pointing to a woman in the audience. 

Harris, who is seeking a ninth term in the House, repeatedly referenced Maryland’s all-party consent law, the Maryland Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, which makes it unlawful for any person to “willfully intercept … any wire, oral, or electronic communication” — a felony subject to imprisonment for not more than five years and/or a fine of not more than $10,000.

But the law protects only private conversations, not situations such as a public official conducting a news conference with accredited journalists where the participants have no reasonable expectation of privacy, a Maryland labor and employment attorney said.

Joyce Smithey, managing partner of the Smithey Law Group in Annapolis, said Harris was “misapplying” the two-party consent law.

“A congressman speaking to journalists in a press conference has no reasonable expectation that his remarks are private,” Smithey said. “Other reporters were openly recording. The fact that he expressly withheld consent from one journalist does not transform an otherwise public exchange into a private conversation. There is no basis under Maryland’s two-party consent law for suggesting that the journalist was committing a crime simply by recording that exchange.”

The video shows at least eight journalists participating in the gaggle with the congressman and Murphy told ABC News Wednesday she is credentialed through a gallery at the U.S. Capitol. The debate last night did not require press registration, Murphy added.

“With all due respect, this is a public forum,” another reporter told Harris as the quarrel continued.

“Do you know the law?” Harris retorted, growing agitated. 

“I’m not a lawyer,” the journalist admitted before questioning the congressman’s credentials. “Are you? You’re a doctor.”

“Yeah, actually, I’m a legislator,” affirmed Harris, an anesthesiologist by trade. “Yeah, I actually, I actually know the law well.”

When Murphy attempted to steer the clash back to her questions about U.S. military hostilities with Iran, Harris looked around for law enforcement and called for an officer.

“You said that it could have gone smoother and it could have gone better. What did you mean by that?” Murphy asked regarding the congressman’s comments on Iran during the debate.

“Take her camera. You’re going to take her camera. She is violating the law. In fact, get an officer in here. She’s violating the law on two-party, two-party recording,” Harris stammered. “We need an officer.”

The unidentified reporter again spoke out in Murphy’s defense, contending that Maryland’s two-party consent law applied to telephone communications.

“Audio and video have to have two-party approval in Maryland,” Harris insisted. “Now they may not have to have it in Washington D.C. They have to have it in Maryland. She needs my approval to record.”

“We are in public,” Murphy insisted.

Harris didn’t wait for an officer to respond to his pleas and pushed his way out of the room. 

“She’s ruining all your chances to get an answer about anything,” Harris bemoaned. “See y’all. Thank her. Thank — thank her profusely!”

ABC News attempted to seek comment from Harris on Wednesday but has not received a response.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A federal judge continued to block the Trump administration’s move to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly’s preliminary injunction orders the defendants to continue to preserve the status quo while the case proceeds.

The preliminary injunction was sought by the media organizations.

It follows a temporary restraining order the same judge issued last month blocking Trump’s attempt to ban the news organizations from the White House.

“We are grateful that the Court ruled in favor of our clients CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO and secured access to the White House for these news media organizations and their journalists,” Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., attorney for CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO, said in a statement obtained by ABC News.

“When the President issued his ‘ban on the free press,’ he blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment. Since then, the President has repeatedly, candidly, and consistently admitted in public that he banned our clients from the White House to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to try to force journalists to cover him in ways he prefers,” Boutros Jr. added.

“The harm this ban did to our clients, the First Amendment, and the public as a whole is profound. The Court was right to enjoin the White House from enforcing this ‘unconstitutional ban on the free press’ for the foreseeable future,” said Boutrous Jr.

Last month, CNN, MSNOW and Politico requested a temporary restraining order to restore their reporters’ access to the White House complex after Trump instituted the ban. In the lawsuit, the news organizations called Trump’s decision at “direct assault on the First Amendment” and a “blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”

Trump said in a social media post in September that the “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”

The Department of Justice defended the ban, citing specific stories from each outlet that it claimed violated “standards of professionalism and decorum” by “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”

Justice Department lawyer Michael Velchik last month argued that President Trump has broad authority to remove outlets based on national security determinations and the letters sent to the media organizations provided sufficient due process to justify revoking their passes.

“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” Velchik said.
 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

President Donald Trump and his advisers are mulling whether to no longer livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. 

The discussions come amid a hesitancy over whether broadcasting the execution could super charge anti-American propaganda, particularly among Islamic-extremist groups, or simply turn the execution into a spectacle that reflects poorly on the U.S, the sources said.  

Some officials, the sources said, have raised concerns about the optics of broadcasting an execution, particularly one in which a firing squad would shoot a paralyzed man confined to a wheelchair.

Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down during an exchange of gunfire with police during his 2009 rampage. 

Last week Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to make the execution public and confirmed it would be livestreamed. The Pentagon maintains the livestream is moving forward, with a defense official saying Tuesday in a statement: “The Secretary is correct. It will be live streamed. Details will follow.”

Multiple people familiar with the planning described concerns behind the scenes about the video being used as propaganda by extremist groups.

Hasan told Army officials after his arrest that he had hoped to die during the attack and become a martyr and said he would still consider himself a martyr if he were executed, court records show. 

The president has asked a number of advisers and allies to weigh in on whether the Pentagon should move forward with livestreaming the execution. During discussions, a range of ideas have been floated, sources said.

Among the options being weighed is broadcasting the period immediately before the execution and cutting away before the firing squad shoots Hasan, an official familiar with the planning described. Another option being discussed is positioning the camera outside the execution area, potentially showing Hasan being brought in without broadcasting his death. 

When asked about the livestream last week, Trump said, “They’re making a determination about that,” but agreed either way Hasan should die.

The White House has not yet returned a request for comment. 

Additionally, Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson have said they wouldn’t watch the execution. Opposition or hesitancy has been less focused on Hasan’s death sentence which has broad support among Republicans, but on the decision to broadcast it. 

CNN was the first to report the debate among Trump and his advisers about whether to go through with the livestream.

On Nov. 5, 2009 Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, opened fired on clusters of troops in a building at Fort Hood, killing 12 and wounding 32 others. He was sentenced to death in 2013 and has been incarcerated at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. 

Hasan described his attack as an act of jihad against American troops for the wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan which he viewed as immoral. 

The military has not executed a death-row prisoner since 1961, when the sentence was carried out by hanging.

The Army had been preparing since at least February for the possibility of executing one or more of its four death-row inmates, including Hasan, but those plans centered on lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of executions during Trump’s first term.

Hegseth’s announcement last week that Nidal Hasan’s execution would be livestreamed caught Army planners by surprise, according to three officials familiar with the preparations, adding another complication to an execution the service is already scrambling to organize.

The Army has not carried out an execution by firing squad since 1945 and is still developing procedures for doing so, including determining how many shooters would participate and what type of chair would be used to secure Hasan. 

Lethal injection had been the service’s only authorized means of executions since the 1980s until a 2023 rule change granting the Army secretary broad authority over the methods which death row inmates are executed. 

The last public execution in the U.S. was in 1936 in Kentucky.

Public executions were gradually outlawed by some states beginning in the 19th century and has long become taboo across much of the developed world. They remain in practice in North Korea, Iran and the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The White House has asked U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said during a press briefing Tuesday morning.

“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign,” said Zacharia during her first briefing as White House press secretary. “She has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

A reporter later asked whether the president had spoken to Guilfoyle, but Zacharia only said that the president would take more questions when he departs the White House later Tuesday morning for Alaska.

In a social media post, Guilfoyle announced that her time in her post is “coming to an end.” It is not clear from the post whether she resigned or was fired.

“It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve the United States of America. God bless President Trump, God bless our incredible diplomats and service members, and God bless the United States of America,” Guilfoyle wrote.

Guilfoyle, the former wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and ex-fiance of Donald Trump Jr., held the ambassador position for nearly a year.

The announcement comes after a report that Guilfoyle allegedly offered a donor to President Donald Trump access to top administration officials in exchange for cash.

Eric Deters — a former lawyer, conservative media personality and Trump donor — alleged that Guilfoyle asked him to pay her $100,000 credit card bill in July 2025, days before her Senate confirmation hearing. Deters provided messages to ABC News he says he exchanged with Guilfoyle on the subject.

Wall Street Journal first reported on Deters’ accusations that Guilfoyle’s alleged actions were a quid pro quo.

Guilfoyle’s attorney disputed the messages’ authenticity to the Wall Street Journal, but did not provide specifics. ABC News reached out to Guilfoyle and her attorney on the matter, but did not receive a response.

Asked whether he was considering firing Guilfoyle on Monday, Trump said he was.

“We’re looking at it. Yeah, we’re not happy,” Trump said.

A series of controversies have surrounded Guilfoyle’s ambassadorship, including a report earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal that she boasted about private jet trips that were bankrolled by Greek businessmen.

Guilfoyle responded to the recent allegations against her in her Tuesday social media post.

“These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity,” Guilfoyle wrote. “I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional. I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Athens earlier responded to the reports, saying that Guilfoyle has “faithfully followed State Department ethics and gift reporting guidelines.”

Last week, Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for Guilfoyle to be removed from her post after reports of her misconduct.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, visiting Greece last week, was seen with Guilfoyle by his side during official meetings. The secretary refused to comment on the swirling reports, saying he didn’t know if they were true or not.

ABC News’ Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A federal judge repeatedly pressed for answers Monday during an hourslong hearing on who within the Trump administration ordered the abrupt removal of hundreds of trees at a Washington, D.C., public golf course over the weekend.

District of Columbia Judge Ana Reyes angrily scolded government attorneys in a hearing to block the government from cutting down more trees at East Potomac Golf Course.

“I am just at a total loss to understand what has happened here,” Reyes said.   “Occam’s razor time — that the government precisely intended to do precisely what it has done, which is intentionally delaying letting the plaintiffs in the court know what was happening, so they could put a plan in place to clear hundreds and hundreds of trees.”

The golf course has been the subject of litigation brought by the D.C. Preservation League in response to President Donald Trump’s efforts to turn it into a course that could host professional tournaments.

Government attorneys had previously pledged to provide notice to plaintiffs in the case about any irrevocable harm that would occur at the golf course through government actions.

The government provided notice to the plaintiffs at 4:55 p.m. last Friday that tree-cutting would occur at the golf course over the Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day holiday weekend.

The National Park Service began cutting down trees on Saturday and the D.C. Preservation League, one of the plaintiffs in the case, filed for a temporary restraining order on Sunday.

Marissa Ann Piropato, a Justice Department attorney admitted to the court in Monday’s hearing that 430 trees were cleared over weekend. 

Reyes exploded, “430 trees!”  

“I had said at the May hearing that I didn’t want 10 trees chopped down without someone having notice,” Reyes said. “On what universe did anyone in your office think that that was acceptable?”

“Your Honor, we did our best in providing notice,” Piropato said.

“You did not do your best!  You did your absolute worst!,” Reyes interrupted.

“More than just being upset and furious right now, I am just beyond disappointed in the government. I have done everything humanly possible to give the government the benefit of the doubt in this case. I have done it repeatedly. I have done it for months,” Reyes vented. 

The government testified that the plan to cut down trees was part of a plan put in place in 2019 to remove dead, dying and hazardous trees around the golf course. 

Judge Reyes, noticeably frustrated by the government’s conduct, ordered that government witnesses who could explain the how the decision to conduct tree removal with such minimal notices appear before the court immediately, including National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands.

Government  lawyers scrambled to locate NPS personnel to appear remotely under oath.

“No one else can say what the basis of the urgency was and when this idea was first identified, because we are talking now with potential multiple misrepresentation to the court and the only reason — the only reason I have not yet entered a show cause on contempt is that I never put this in a formal order,” Reyes said. “Which, believe you now, I am regretting.”

Reyes extended a temporary restraining order she had issued earlier Monday barring the government from any further activity at the golf course until at least Tuesday afternoon.

Reyes also said she would be holding another hearing Tuesday to demand answers from Greg Wischer, a political appointee at the Interior Department who has been a point person on many of Trump’s major D.C. beautification projects. 

Reyes says she wants clarity on who specifically gave the orders to remove the trees on Saturday and whether it was a deliberate effort to evade her previous orders issued in the case as litigation remains ongoing. 

“The questions go to whether or not I’ve been lied to,” Reyes said during Monday’s hearing. “Whether I’ve been lied to in declarations about the plans, whether or not I’ve been lied to about the timing of things … I am beyond disappointed in the government right now. I wanted you all to be better than you have been.”

Reyes had warned Justice Department lawyers of “serious consequences” if the administration began major work at the course without getting approval and notifying the court in advance.

“I’m going to say this one more time, and I do not want a situation where something has happened and then I’m being told by the government or by a foundation or by a bulldozing company that it’s too late to do anything about it,” she said. “If anything like that happens … there are going to be serious consequences.”

Trump promises the course, which he said will be renovated and redesigned through a public-private partnership, will be “one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World” on the site and said it will be open to the public.

Trump toured the course in June with golf course architect Peter Fazio and his son Gavin Fazio and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for “studying the dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous and outdated Golf Course known as East Potomac Golf Links.” He said on his social media platform “on this fantastic site, with water and unparalleled views of D.C.’s Monuments, we will build one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World which, importantly, will also be made available to the Public.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.