Trump rejects Iran's Hormuz roadmap as justices again block Missouri's new map
A pocket rescission cuts $810 million from immigration and race-focused programs; Putin signals payback for Ukraine's refinery strikes; France will help guard Saudi Arabia's Yanbu oil hub.
9 PM CT video brief · 1:13Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 9 PM World Brief for Friday, September 25th. President Trump has rejected Iran's seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and has told aides airstrikes are likely to resume after the midterm elections. What this means: a deal that reopens oil lanes only after America lifts its blockade is Tehran setting the price of relief, not a verified peace. The Supreme Court, for a third time, has blocked Missouri from using its new 2025 congressional map, leaving the 2022 lines in place for November. What this means: changing House maps after ballots are already in the mail invites confusion, not the steady rules a constitutional republic needs to run an election. At the White House, President Trump canceled $810 million in unspent funds aimed at immigration services and race-focused programs, using a late-year pocket rescission. And Russian President Vladimir Putin has told U.S. officials he will hit Ukraine hard after Kyiv's drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
President Trump has rejected Iran's proposed seven-day cease-fire and Hormuz reopening plan and has told aides it is "likely" the U.S. military will resume airstrikes after the November midterms, the New York Post and The Jerusalem Post reported Friday, citing a Wall Street Journal account of U.S. officials. Officials said Trump is skeptical Tehran will meet U.S. demands and that Washington has conveyed it has "no intention" of lifting the naval blockade; Iran's proposal sought an end to the blockade, sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and restarting nuclear talks. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again said Friday that "the choice rests with the US," while a U.S. official separately told reporters the United States was still having "positive, constructive" discussions with Iran through mediators.
Russian President Vladimir Putin privately told U.S. officials he intends to escalate attacks on Ukraine after Ukrainian drone strikes hit nearly all of Russia's main oil refineries, the New York Post reported Friday, citing an American official. The official said Putin conveyed that "now it's our turn, and we're going at them," and that Putin "is now going to hit" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "hard." President Trump has urged Ukraine to halt energy-infrastructure strikes, blaming them for higher diesel prices; Ukrainian attacks have damaged an estimated 27 of Russia's 32 largest refineries this year, the Post reported, while Zelenskiy told the U.N. that Ukrainians expect a harsh winter and will "make it painful for Russia too."
French President Emmanuel Macron said France will send soldiers, radar systems and air-defense systems to help protect the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, a key energy-export hub that has come under missile attack from Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis, Reuters reported via Defense News. "We are going to send military resources … to protect this site — not to get us involved in any conflicts, but to protect this site," Macron said in a primetime French television interview. Crude prices have surged as Yanbu, an alternate Saudi export route, faced Houthi missile attacks; Saudi Arabia said earlier Friday it had intercepted six ballistic missiles fired toward Taif and the Yanbu area.
President Trump on Friday ordered the cancellation of $810 million in unspent congressionally appropriated funds across seven departments and agencies — the second "pocket" rescission of his second term — targeting programs the White House said aided illegal immigration or race-based and DEI initiatives, the New York Post and Washington Examiner reported. The largest cut is $567 million at HHS for services to refugees, asylees and other non-citizens; other cuts include $70 million in international education grants, $56 million in HUD housing-counseling funds, $25 million for migrant-student programs, $15 million each from a DHS migrant-services grant and DOJ's Community Relations Service, and $10 million from the Minority Business Development Agency. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the move an unlawful attempt to undermine Congress's power of the purse, citing a GAO conclusion that pocket rescissions are not permitted; the White House points to the Impoundment Control Act, and the Supreme Court last year allowed an earlier pocket rescission to proceed.
The White House on Friday night listed no CNN seat on Air Force One for President Trump's Saturday trip to Knoxville, Tenn., despite a federal judge's temporary order restoring CNN, MS NOW and Politico press credentials to White House grounds, The Independent reported, citing the network. CNN is part of the rotating television pool; the network said no other outlet was named to replace it, which could leave Saturday's trip without a designated pool camera. The White House television pool resumed filming Friday after days of solidarity walkouts, and CNN covered Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the National Archives, but CNN and MS NOW reporters were still blocked from covering Xi's Thursday state-dinner arrival.
Editor’s note (Sep 26, 2026): We fell short of our standards. An earlier version of our analysis said changing House maps after ballots are in the mail “is how courts manufacture chaos”; it now says such changes “invite confusion, not the steady rules a constitutional republic needs to run an election.” The 9 PM video brief transcript was updated the same way; the video as originally published still contains the earlier line. The facts are unchanged. We apologize for falling short of our standards.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted a stay in People Not Politicians v. Onder, No. 26A388, blocking lower-court orders that would have forced Missouri to use its Republican-drawn 2025 U.S. House map in the November midterms and leaving the 2022 map in place; the unsigned per curiam opinion noted no public dissent. The justices stayed an Eighth Circuit mandate and Eastern District of Missouri injunctions issued after the appeals court directed use of the 2025 map despite the Court's Sept. 10 stay; the opinion said reverting mid-election "would usher in electoral chaos" under the Purcell principle, with absentee and overseas voting already underway on the 2022 lines. Missouri's Supreme Court had ruled the 2025 map cannot take effect under state law until voters approve it in a November referendum; the 2025 map would have shifted the state's House split from 6-2 to 7-1 Republican.
Beyond Friday evening's Missouri map stay, the Supreme Court's emergency docket still shows Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's Sept. 24 order in DHS v. D.V.D., No. 26A406, directing respondents to answer the government's application to restore third-country deportations by 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 28. The justices' first post-summer conference is also Monday, with the new term's oral arguments scheduled to begin Oct. 5. No further order on the third-country application had been posted as of Friday night.
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