The US Supreme Court has rejected Donald Trump's executive order seeking to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections, prompting Democrats to say the ruling protects "safe, secure and accurate elections." Trump reacted furiously, branding mail-in voting "a laughing stock" globally and accusing the justices he appointed—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—of cowardice and being "a shell of their original selves," despite having used postal voting himself. Attorney general Todd Blanche defended the president's attacks on the court as an expression of legitimate "frustration."

The live blog also covered several other Washington developments: Blanche dismissed calls to probe a Russian oligarch linked to Vladimir Putin who helped fund Donald Trump Jr's wedding, even as House Democrats pursue their own inquiry into the matter. Senator Bernie Sanders criticised Congress for being "asleep at the wheel" on AI regulation, pushing a bill to ban artificial superintelligence development. Separately, a federal judge blocked plans to add Trump's name to the Kennedy Center's facade, and Senate Democrats defeated the CLARITY Act, a cryptocurrency regulation bill, by 49-50 amid concerns it lacked safeguards against officials profiting from digital assets.