Evening Wrap: Trump rejects Iran's Hormuz roadmap, justices clear SAVE and freeze Missouri's map
A recap of Friday's biggest developments — from Tehran’s seven-day offer and Xi’s Washington exit to a $810 million pocket rescission and two emergency Supreme Court orders — plus Saturday’s early Houthi intercepts over Saudi Arabia.
President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposed seven-day cease-fire and Strait of 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 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 and restarting talks. On Saturday, Reuters reported Iran was still awaiting an official U.S. response after the Journal account, while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that if Washington is serious, “everything is now prepared,” and a senior Iranian official separately told Reuters Tehran would show “no flexibility” over its nuclear program even if the United States accepted the plan.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump concluded Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit Friday with tea at the White House and a stop at the National Archives, the White House said; Trump called the talks “very, very productive” and said “much has been, and will be, accomplished.” U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said Trump told Xi that any Chinese help for Iran — “whether it be direct or indirect, whether it be intelligence or parts or military equipment” — was “totally unacceptable,” Iran International and the Washington Examiner reported from Perdue’s Friday CNBC interview. Asked whether Beijing would stop assisting Iran, Perdue said officials have “seen movement on that already” and that “they assured us yesterday they’re not doing that,” the Examiner reported; he also told CNBC Washington had seen Beijing “pull some things down,” while saying there is “no direct evidence” China helped keep the Strait of Hormuz closed.
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 Zelensky “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 Zelensky 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 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. Early Saturday, Reuters reported the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two Houthi drones headed toward Riyadh and a ballistic missile toward Khamis Mushait, underscoring that proxy strikes on the kingdom continue even as Tehran talks about reopening Hormuz.
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, and $15 million each from a DHS migrant-services grant and DOJ’s Community Relations Service. 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 Trump administration will unveil America.gov at an all-day event Tuesday in Washington featuring President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, Fox News Digital reported exclusively Friday. A White House official described the site as “a new front door for the federal government” meant to give Americans a one-stop shop for information now spread across agency websites. U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia told Fox the launch is about making it “easy to just access government”; confirmed attendees include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp.
The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a June 22 district-court order that had vacated the modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, clearing the way for the Department of Homeland Security to use the expanded database to help state and local election officials verify voters’ citizenship while the case continues, according to the Court’s unsigned per curiam opinion in DHS v. League of Women Voters, No. 26A308. The majority said the challengers’ claims “likely lack merit,” that 8 U.S.C. §1373 authorizes DHS to receive citizenship information from other agencies “notwithstanding any other provision of … law,” and that the lower-court order “inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan; the Court noted the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day bar on systematic list maintenance limits near-term impact but still blocks individualized inquiries if the district order stays in place.
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 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 “is not the law and has never been the law” until voters approve it in a November referendum.
Beyond Friday’s SAVE stay and Missouri map order, the Supreme Court’s emergency docket in DHS v. D.V.D., No. 26A406, still shows Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Sept. 24 order directing respondents to answer the government’s application for a stay — seeking to restore third-country deportations — by 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 28. The application was docketed Sept. 24 after being submitted to Justice Jackson; no further order on the application had been posted as of Friday night.
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