Updated August 31, 2026, 2:27 PM EDT By NBC News What to know todayVANCE IN MICHIGAN: Vice President JD Vance is set to deliver remarks this afternoon at a MAGA Inc. political event in Michigan alongside Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, gubernatorial candidate Rep. John James and U.S. House candidate Mike Bouchard Jr.HOUSE RETURNS: The House is returning today from a five-week summer recess with a top priority of avoiding a government shutdown before the midterm elections.SANTOS LIFETIME BAN: The prediction marketplace platform Kalshi has hit former U.S. Rep. George Santos with its first-ever lifetime ban after finding he bet against his own announced plans to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.VOTER CONCERNS: Trump voters across eight of the nation’s most competitive congressional districts, running along Interstate 80 from central New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska, showed a new willingness to voice critiques on issues including inflation, the war with Iran and the White House ballroom construction. 21m ago / 2:27 PM EDTRepublican concerns mount as Sen. Jon Husted navigates a tricky race in OhioWhen Sen. Jon Husted filed his most recent campaign finance report in July, the Ohio Republican boasted a war chest of more than $6 million. But the cash is not for Husted’s battle with Democrat Sherrod Brown in what is expected to be one of the year’s most expensive Senate races. Rather, it is the remaining balance in an account that Husted established years ago to fund his long-held ambition of being governor.The fact that the money is parked there is among a list of worries that have cropped up around Husted this summer as he runs to keep the seat he was appointed to after JD Vance won the vice presidency. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, for example, warned this month that the politically fraught issue of data centers for artificial intelligence companies could doom Husted.Read the full story here.1h ago / 1:48 PM EDTTrump says data center opponents want to be 'backwards and poor'The president took to social media this morning to promote AI data centers, and said the "only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.""If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign. The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame," he wrote on Truth Social of the controversial centers, which have been facing increased bipartisan opposition in recent weeks. "China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!" Trump added. Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters while en route to an event in Michigan, took a softer tone when asked about Trump's remarks."Well, what the president said about data centers is they’re an important part of the AI economy, when people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers. I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity for the people on the ground," he said."If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial. It’s when the utility bill gets so much higher that’s when it’s a real problem."2h ago / 1:30 PM EDTVance to deliver remarks at MAGA Inc. event in Michigan Vance will give remarks shortly at a MAGA Inc. political event in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in the highly competitive 10th Congressional District. The vice president is campaigning alongside Senate Republican candidate Mike Rogers, gubernatorial candidate John James and House candidate Mike Bouchard Jr. Treasury Secretary Sean Duffy is also expected to be in attendance. James represents the 10th Congressional District, and his decision to run for governor has opened his House seat to a race between Bouchard Jr. and former prosecutor Christina Hines on the Democratic side. Last week, Cook Political Report shifted its prediction for the district from “Leans Republican” to “Toss Up.” James faces Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee in the general election this fall, while Rogers, a former House member, will square off against Democratic nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former health director of Wayne County.This is the first political event hosted by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC in a battleground state this midterm cycle. The last time Vance visited Michigan was in March, when he spoke at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills. This is his fourth visit to the state as vice president. 2h ago / 12:55 PM EDTKalshi bans George Santos for betting on himselfThe prediction marketplace platform Kalshi has hit former U.S. Rep. George Santos with its first-ever lifetime ban after finding he bet against his own announced plans to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.“The Compliance Department found that Santos made these statements with the intent to manipulate the price of the Yes or No contracts that he intended to purchase. Ultimately, these statements did in fact manipulate the price of said contracts,” the company said.Read the full story here.3h ago / 12:32 PM EDTTrump administration announces the closure of hundreds of trucking schools in crackdownHomeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other U.S. officials this morning announced the closure of 270 truck driving schools as part of a crackdown on fraud in the trucking industry. “Today what we are announcing is an emergency executive shutdown of 110 driving schools,” Duffy said, adding that those schools accounted for 5,000 violations related to drivers not satisfying an English proficiency requirement. “We had tens of thousands of illegal driver’s licenses issued across the states,” he said. “A number of American families whose lives have been ruined, they’ve lost a loved one, or a loved one has been injured by a commercial driver who should have never had a commercial driver’s license.”Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration head Derek Barrs said the federal government has also proposed the removal of an additional 160 schools for lacking adequate training procedures and employing unlicensed instructors.Asked about Transportation Department data that indicates only a small fraction of fatal crashes are caused by foreign-born drivers, Mullin said, "One percent is one too many.""Every single illegal that maims or kills an individual is 100% preventable," Mullin added. "I’m trying to prevent every one of them. I don’t care if it’s a fraction of 1%, I’m coming after you."3h ago / 12:11 PM EDTTrump threatens to hit Iran ‘hard’ after U.S. and Iran trade strikes for first time in a monthTrump threatened today to forcefully strike Iran after Washington and Tehran exchanged fire for the first time in a month.“We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump told Fox News, according to the broadcaster’s chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst.The president vowed there would be “a response” after Iran retaliated to U.S. strikes with an attack on American bases in Jordan.Read the full story here.3h ago / 11:51 AM EDTAbdul El-Sayed apologizes for comments responding to attack on Michigan synagogueAbdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Michigan, apologized to the state’s Jewish Democratic Caucus on Saturday for comments he made after an attack on a synagogue in March, which he tied to Israel’s actions in the Middle East.“My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters after he addressed the caucus at a party convention in Lansing. “To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”Read the full story here.4h ago / 11:34 AM EDTMinnesota Supreme Court rejects Mike Lindell’s bid to recount GOP gubernatorial primaryMyPillow founder Mike Lindell has long denied Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. Now, he’s refusing to accept his own election loss in the GOP primary for governor of Minnesota.The Minnesota Supreme Court on Saturday rejected Lindell’s bid for a full recount of his Aug. 11 loss to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth after she won the Republican primary by 45,000 votes.Read the full story here.5h ago / 10:29 AM EDTTreasury secretary says Iran's economy 'doesn't have to collapse' to resolve warTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the Group of 20 finance ministers' meeting here that international pressure could cause Iran's economy to collapse "within weeks or months," but he added that “the economy doesn’t have to collapse,” Tehran just hast to “come to their sense.”Bessent said of Iran's retaliatory strike last night that “they are lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically,” and he thanked the European Union for its “fulsome support” of ramped-up sanctions against the country.Bessent also downplayed any impact of the war on U.S. growth. “We will get to the other side of this Iran conflict,” he said.6h ago / 9:26 AM EDTHouse returns from five weeks away with a top priority: Avoid a government shutdownThe House is scheduled to return today from a five-week summer recess with a top priority of avoiding a government shutdown before the midterm elections.The House will only be in session for four days this week and will return again Sept. 14, after Labor Day, when the Senate will also come back from its lengthy break. From there, the House has just three weeks left in session before Election Day on Nov. 3.Here’s what could be on the agenda for House Republican leaders before the midterms, when their paper-thin majority will be on the line.Read the full story here.7h ago / 8:45 AM EDTSen. Ted Cruz calls for elections in Venezuela to proceed ‘rapidly’Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, yesterday renewed his call for free and fair elections in Venezuela, just two days after the Trump administration announced that the U.S. would take over 65 billion barrels of oil from the South American nation.“There need to be democratic, free elections in Venezuela,” Cruz told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding later in the interview that elections should take place there “midway through next year.”The acting Venezuelan president, Delcy Rodríguez, took over after U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in January and brought him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.Read the full story here.7h ago / 8:00 AM EDTExclusive: Epstein files bookmobile to begin tour tied to GOP midterm conventionA national reading room and bookmobile aimed at drawing attention to the Jeffrey Epstein files will begin a tour Sept. 8 in Dallas, just ahead of the Republican midterm convention in the city that’s poised to feature Trump, and appear in battleground states and districts through Election Day, organizers told NBC News.Called the “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room,” the traveling exhibit offers up some 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files released by the Trump administration due to a law passed by Congress. It is organized by the nonprofit Institute for Primary Facts and the anti-Trump group Defiance.The bookmobile has been trotted out earlier this year, appearing in Washington in July. Now, the groups say it will make two-dozen stops in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa and Florida across eight weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 midterm election.Supporting the effort are Epstein survivors like Dani Bensky, who has called on the Justice Department to prosecute Epstein’s fellow perpetrators.Bensky said in a statement: “The magnitude of the 30+ years of the Epstein sex trafficking network is on full display to all who visit. In the more than 3 million files that line the walls, there are 1200+ young lives, dreams, and futures destroyed. Our government — and specifically this DOJ — must take responsibility for its negligence. We deserve a system that works.”The Republican National Committee didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Attorney General Todd Blanche met with a group of survivors ahead of his Senate confirmation, and he said afterward that he wants to be able to give survivors justice in the form of prosecutions, though he didn’t make commitments.8h ago / 7:18 AM EDTRep. Jim Clyburn says impeaching Trump shouldn’t be Democrats’ priority if they win back the HouseRep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said yesterday that Democrats should not prioritize impeaching Trump if they win control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, but instead should focus on making life more affordable for Americans.Clyburn told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that if Democrats take back the House, he feels confident that their first order of business would be making the country accessible and affordable for all citizens.Read the full story here.8h ago / 7:18 AM EDTTrump voters express rare frustration with the president: ‘He went against some of his promises’For more than a decade, one of Trump’s greatest strengths has been the devotion of his base — voters who were reluctant to criticize him and quick to defend him in public settings. Many of them have lost or strained friendships with their vehement support and insistence that he is virtually infallible.But in late-August conversations with Trump voters across eight of the nation’s most competitive congressional districts, running along Interstate 80 from central New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska, there was a new willingness among Trump voters to voice their critiques on issues including inflation, the war with Iran and the White House ballroom construction.Read the full story here.8h ago / 7:18 AM EDTU.S. forces strike Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz in first military action in weeksU.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz in their first military action in a month yesterday, breaking a lull in fighting during an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. Iran swiftly vowed to retaliate for what it called a deadly attack.Forces with the Revolutionary Guard Corps were observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines into the strait, according to Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command. The U.S. military last week completed clearing sea mines from the strait’s international shipping routes.Read the full story here. 0NBC NewsNBC News