News continues right now. Good morning. It is 10 a.m. Eastern and 7 a.m. on the West Coast. I'm Christine Romans. Let's get you current. The midterm countdown now at eight days, former President Obama and President Trump holding dueling rallies in Michigan. The high-stakes races and how the fight for votes is getting personal. Plus a critical election in Israel. Can Netanyahu hold on to power? And what the results could mean for conflicts across the region?
Breaking this morning, Anthropic makes a key filing set to become the first AI lab to debut on the stock market. The details just coming in. Also breaking: a teenager arrested in connection to a mass shooting at a Florida homecoming event that left a dozen people injured, including kids. And good to be with you.
This Monday, October 26th. We've got a lot of news to get to this morning. We begin this hour with dueling high-power campaign rallies leading into the final week before the midterm elections. It was a rare sight. This weekend, President Trump at a rally in Georgia and former President Obama in Michigan, where he delivered one of his most forceful attacks against Trump yet.
We have never seen a president excel in straight-up grifting on your dime like this. I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened the Cheesecake Factory.
Obama was a lousy president. Clinton was not bad, but he got caught up in a lot of scandals.
Trump responded to those attacks as he cast his early vote ballot in his home state of Florida. Now, that early voting from the president, despite his criticism of early and mail-in voting repeatedly, already 28 million people have cast their ballots in early voting, nearly 15 million by mail, another 14 million in person. Both parties putting their heavy hitters on the trail. Obama to appear in Georgia later this week as Trump pushes ahead with his campaign blitz through traditionally red states, he heads to Mississippi today.
Joining me now, NBC News correspondent Shaquille Brewster in Detroit for us, and NBC News White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor. Yamiche, eight days to go until the election. Both Trump and Obama back on the trail to boost their party candidates. And the insults are flying.
Christine, the insults are certainly flying. And really, what you see here from President Obama and President Trump are two men who have personal animus, and that came across on the campaign trail. You, of course, President Obama essentially saying that President Trump is ruining the country, that he's corrupt, as you said, cheapening the White House. When you look at sort of the sound that you played there, him saying that the White House, with all the gold that the president has added, that it is sort of looking like a Cheesecake Factory. And then you have President Trump, who's not only going after President Obama, went after President Obama for his policies, talking about health care, talking about the fact that he believes Democrats want to be communists and turn this entire country into a socialist country. But also he was talking about crowd sizes, again, something that he talked about in his first term, literally comparing his crowd sizes in Michigan and Georgia this weekend to the crowd sizes that President Obama got. It just really shows you that apart from the politics here, these two men just really, really don't like each other. And as you said, they are, of course, the heavy hitters for their parties. Christine.
Shaq, Trump again attacking Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling him a Muslim Brotherhood jihadist who hates Jews and blacks and Americans, and Trump without any evidence, his competitor, Republican Senate candidate. Right, Mike Rogers. Here he is on Meet the Press yesterday.
I've never called him a terrorist. I've never called him a terrorist. This election is about me versus Abdul. I mean, he's a Democrat, Socialist of America-aligned candidate who has these pretty radical support groups that don't like America. I think those are issues people ought to decide their election on.
So, Shaq, you've been talking to voters in Michigan. Is this back and forth something they're focused on in the final stretch?
It is, without a doubt. And look, this is something that you definitely, when you heard former, excuse me, President Trump at his rally yesterday, he wants to be a defining issue in this race. And for some voters it's having an impact, though it cuts both ways. I talked to some voters at the rally yesterday, one woman telling me that one of the reasons why she would never consider Abdul El-Sayed is because he's a Muslim. She said that on camera. She said she has real concerns about him, even as she said she was uncomfortable with some of the language that she heard President Trump using, specifically calling the candidate a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood or a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, I was here on Saturday, early voting location. I spoke to one Democratic voter who said that all he feels like he hears from Mike Rogers is negative attacks, and that he actually feels like he hears plans from Abdul El-Sayed. And that's something that drew him to voting for El-Sayed on Saturday. Look, let's be clear, when you talk to voters while they're hearing these attacks, they also say that the economy is top of mind for them. Everyone I talked to over the weekend mentioned the price of gas, talked about the price of groceries increasing. They're saying that is something that is also drawing them to the polls, but they're hearing these attacks. And for some, those attacks are working.
Yeah, gas prices and grocery prices, the highest they've ever been heading into an election right now. So that is really a very key factor. Shaquille, Obama was in Michigan. Next he goes to Georgia to campaign alongside Senator Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms. How was he received in Michigan and what's expected as he heads south?
Yeah, you saw long lines for the former president, and I think later this week you'll see an extension of what we saw this weekend. There was a dual purpose for former President Obama here. One was to energize people, remind them that early voting is underway. Another was to defend some of the Democratic candidates. In Michigan, for example, he referenced the attacks on El-Sayed and said, hey, he's seen this movie before. He said, I starred in that movie and have a long-form birth certificate to prove it. I think you can expect to hear those similar tones in Georgia, even as he goes after the Trump administration, laying out those attacks that you heard Yamiche explain that Obama mentioned on Saturday, you can expect that to continue with his rally later this week.
Yamiche, Trump traveling to Mississippi later today, another deep red state. The question is, if this swing through traditionally GOP-friendly states might be a winning strategy here.
Christine, this is going to be the question of the midterm Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, we are going to be asking, did the president's strategy really work? Because he has leaned heavily into going to red states. His plan, his strategy, the White House says, is to try to boost turnout among Republican voters. They think that that is the winning strategy here. We'll see whether or not that actually works. Christine.
All right. Shaquille Brewster, Yamiche Alcindor, thank you, both of you. Very busy next eight days ahead. Let's take a deeper look into the Senate race in Michigan, which could determine the balance of power. NBC News Chief Data Analyst Steve Kornacki with what's at play.
Let's dive into Michigan. It's the Senate race between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Republican Mike Rogers, and an interesting dynamic here, because this is currently a Democratic-held Senate seat. But this is one that Republicans, there are not many of these on the map, that Republicans think they have a chance of flipping this year. And if Republicans were ever able to flip the Senate race, the Senate seat here in Michigan, that could really complicate the math that Democrats are counting on for them trying to retake the Senate. The backdrop for this race is a state that Donald Trump did carry in 2024 very narrowly. You see about a point and a half over Kamala Harris. Joe Biden beat Trump in it in 2020. And of course, famously, Trump won this thing by a sliver the first time he ran for president back in 2016. So one of the key questions here has been, and the reason Republicans think this is sort of a rare place they could potentially take a Democratic seat this year, El-Sayed running far to the left here in a state that Trump won. Is his candidacy a drag for Democrats in Michigan? Where's a place we're going to look to see if that's the case? Well, we're going to go right here to Oakland County. This is one of the biggest counties in the state. These are sort of the upscale suburbs of Detroit. Right here, you get two giant suburban counties. Macomb is the blue-collar one right here. And then there's Oakland County.
Now Oakland County, we talk about this nationally. We talk about the suburbs, where you've got college-educated, white-collar professionals, how they've moved away from the Republicans and towards the Democrats. And this has become a big Democratic county in Michigan. Look, even as she lost the state, Kamala Harris won this by more than ten points over Donald Trump. When Joe Biden won in 2020, Michigan, a 14-point margin for him in Oakland County. So here's the question: if there is going to be an underperformance by El-Sayed here, that actually gives the Republicans a chance here. This is the kind of place that you would look for it because we say it's Democratic-trending. Also, though, these are voters here typically not as comfortable perhaps with a candidate as far to the left as El-Sayed. And there's a significant Jewish population as well in Oakland, and El-Sayed, the positions he's taken on Israel, some of his rhetoric there, calls into question whether he's going to be able to retain that portion of the Democratic base. So Oakland County, that's one of those. Again, Harris was able to win this thing by just over ten points. She lost the state. That's a bellwether, I think, in my mind here. If Oakland County comes in on election night and it's single digits for El-Sayed, that's a great sign for Mike Rogers and the Republicans. If El-Sayed ends up winning this thing comfortably into double digits, that's a great sign for him in terms of being able to win statewide.
Other places we're going to be looking. This was a major story in 2024. Wayne County, biggest in the state. This is where Detroit is. It's not just Detroit, but this is where Detroit is. And you can see it's a core Democratic county. Kamala Harris won this by 29 points over Donald Trump. But check out the difference between 2020, when Joe Biden won Wayne by nearly 40, and Harris didn't even win it by 30 points. What happened? What went wrong for Democrats in Wayne County in 2024? Well, the answer, a big part of the answer was, say, it's not just Detroit, it's Dearborn, it's Dearborn Heights, it's Hamtramck. It's cities that have some of the largest concentrations of Arab American and Muslim voters in the country who were very upset with the Biden administration, with Harris, with the Democratic Party, specifically related to the Israel-Gaza war. And what you had in some of those cities that typically vote overwhelmingly Democratic, Harris actually lost some of them. There was a big vote for Trump. There was a big third-party vote. Democrats really lost ground in those places and also in Detroit itself. Huge Democratic win, but not quite by the margins Democrats are used to. Now, El-Sayed, his presence on the ticket may very well answer or settle the Democrats' problems in places like Dearborn, Dearborn Heights. Still a question, though, of whether he can return Democrats to their historic levels in the city of Detroit, not just in terms of support, but in terms of turnout. That's a key question there. But that's another place we're going to be looking here. You know, is the Democratic margin, is the margin in Wayne closer to 40 points or 30 points? So Wayne County, Oakland County, a lot else in Michigan. But those are two that are sort of top of the list, trying to understand how this is going to break on election night.
All right, Steve Kornacki, thank you so much. You can dive deeper into the 2026 midterms with NBC News polling page, early vote data, expert analysis, and more subscriber-only content. Scan the QR code on your screen to subscribe now. Israeli voters head to the polls tomorrow for the first nationwide election since the October 7th attack three years ago. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a tough challenge from his centrist opponent, Netanyahu has the support of President Trump. The president on social media urging Israelis to vote. Netanyahu writing, we have to finish the job that we started. Over the weekend in Tel Aviv, crowds gathered in support of the centrist party looking to topple Israel's longest-running prime minister.
We have one chance to bring hope for this country, and this chance is Gadi Eisenkot.
What I hope from this election is that we shall have another government with another leadership, much better that you can trust.
NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley is in Tel Aviv. Matt, we could potentially see a change in Israeli leadership in the middle of a war with Iran. What's at stake when it comes to the future of this conflict?
Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting because actually, Israel hasn't really been at war with Iran for the past couple of months, but we are seeing huge troop deployments in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in Lebanon. That's not really on the ballot here. And that's actually what's very interesting. The big contender, the man who could unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been the prime minister of Israel for 20 out of the last 30 years, is this man right here, Gadi Eisenkot. He is a former military chief of staff. He is a political novice. He's only spent a couple of years in parliament. And then he had a kind of non-voting position in the war cabinet. He is an old hand when it comes to war, and he's very much a hawk. He has said he wants to rid the Gaza Strip of Hamas within 18 months of coming into office, risking restarting a war in the Gaza Strip. He's probably not going to be any more lenient on Iran. So while a lot of folks here are not necessarily happy with the way that the conflict with Iran has been conducted, many want to see Iran continue to be attacked. And for that job to be finished, this conflict, this election here in Israel, is mostly one that pits the far right against the center right. The leftist parties only get a sliver of the vote. And that's why we're seeing folks like Gadi Eisenkot, who are the main contenders against Benjamin Netanyahu.
We've also seen this ongoing tension between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Where do the leading candidates land on that?
The fact is, is that, as I mentioned, you know, in this election, it's mostly the far right versus the center right. There isn't much room for candidates who are asking for more leniency in the situation in the West Bank, for a crackdown on Jewish extremists in the West Bank who are attacking Palestinians, particularly right now during that olive harvest. We have seen Gadi Eisenkot saying that he is going to crack down somewhat more on settler violence in the West Bank. But on Friday, we saw a terror attack by Palestinian gunmen against Israeli soldiers, killing two of them. That prompted Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a sweeping crackdown across all of the West Bank, focused on the city of Hebron just before election day. So that gave him a real opportunity to show his security mettle in front of the Israeli public at a crucial time.
All right. Matt Bradley in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Matt. Turning now to breaking news. An arrest in that mass shooting near Florida A&M over the weekend. Tallahassee police say a 15-year-old is now facing attempted murder charges in connection with Saturday's shooting. It happened near the university's football stadium during homecoming celebrations. 12 people were hurt, including minors. The youngest victim, just 11 years old. Joining me now, NBC News correspondent George Solis. George, what are police revealing about the suspect?
Yeah, Christine. So police did not say how they actually ended up apprehending this suspect, 15-year-old Anthony Rivers III. They do say he faces 11 counts of second-degree attempted murder, as well as having a weapon as a delinquent. They were asking for tips from the public. At this hour, six people still remain in the hospital, one of them in critical condition.
This morning, a teenager arrested after a mass shooting during Florida A&M's homecoming celebration.
Today, I can announce a significant development in this investigation.
Police announcing they arrested 15-year-old Anthony Rivers. He's been charged with 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a delinquent. Crowd scrambling with gunshots ringing out late Saturday. Tallahassee police say at least 11 people were injured, including six minors, in what was likely an altercation between a few people. 11 people struck by gunshots, the youngest 11 years old, according to authorities. The shooting started around 8 p.m. Saturday night near the university stadium, just a couple of hours after the homecoming football game ended. This traffic camera footage shows authorities racing to the scene.
Witnesses posting videos showing the chaos online and clips of victims being helped by first responders.
Without hesitation, they ran into the midst of this.
Florida A&M writing in a statement, our hearts go out to the victims and all those affected by this tragic incident. The university's president extending support to the victims and their families on Sunday, calling the shooting despicable.
We are providing our full assistance to the Tallahassee Police Department. A horrific act of violence like this is traumatizing for our students, whether you were near the event or not.
The university's head football coach writing on Facebook, homecoming is about family. No one should leave our celebration in an ambulance, and no child should ever be caught in gunfire.
Some of the victims, George, are now back home recovering.
Yeah, that's right, Christine. Police say five of those victims have since been released. But authorities are also saying this case is far from over. They're still counting on people to provide any videos or photos if they attended the celebration after the homecoming event. And they do stress that more arrests could follow. Christine.
All right. George Solis, thank you, George. We are following extreme weather set to hit both coasts this week. Millions bracing for high tides that could cause damaging flooding, beach erosion, and dangerous rip currents in California. Coastal flood alerts up from San Francisco to San Diego. The state could see record tides up to eight feet high. Some beachfront homeowners preparing before the water reaches their property. Joining us now from Long Beach, California, NBC News correspondent Dana Griffin. Some of the video is just really powerful. These tides, just these waves just banging on the beach there. Coastal flood advisories up until Thursday. What's going on there this week?
Yeah, I think it's keeping a close eye on what could happen on this beach. We wanted to show you this pipeline that has been pushing out just so much sand onto the beach. The city of Long Beach has been taking on this multimillion-dollar project, dredging sand from the bottom of the ocean, trying to spit it back out onto the beach to kind of fortify this area. As coastal flooding gets underway this week, and also another round of rain this weekend, officials say they could dump up to 1 billion pounds of sand onto this beach. So we've seen crews here all weekend working round the clock, and they're just hoping to make a difference for the homes nearby that have already been damaged. Christine.
Dana, several beachfront homes near where you are were already damaged earlier this month by strong surf. How are homeowners there preparing?
Yeah, a lot of those homeowners unfortunately had to evacuate weeks ago when some of these homes were red-tagged.
During powerful storms that brought those waves crashing onto these homes. Others, they're keeping a close eye on the high tide. We're expecting high tide this morning in a couple of hours. So people are watching. They're coming out trying to gauge how things look. I spoke with one homeowner who's about three homes inland. While she's not concerned specifically for her property, she says that the damage and coastal erosion here has impacted this community. Listen to what she told me.
That's really the saddest part is the people are displaced. They've lost their home. They've lived here for a long time. It was such a great boardwalk. People walked doing their nightly walks with their friends and, you know, catching up. And now no one can do any of that. So the community is not there anymore. It's really sad.
And again, the city says they are doing everything they can. They've already built up sand berms to try to protect from additional waves. Again, high tide this morning will be in about two hours, so we'll be watching to see how high these levels rise. If we get past our record, which was 7.93 feet in San Pedro in 2005, we could break a nearly two-decade high. So obviously, communities really concerned here.
Christine Dana Griffin, thank you so much, Dana. Much more ahead, including the new questions over why Elon Musk limited access to Starlink for Ukrainian forces in their war against Russia. Members of Congress now demanding accountability. Plus, the breaking news out of the U.K.: singer Chris Brown sentenced after an attack at a British nightclub. The punishment he now faces. And later, my exclusive interview with the CEO of Goldman Sachs, how his company is helping small businesses take advantage of the AI revolution. Current just getting started on Monday morning. Stay with us.
Musk now addressing the controversy over Ukraine's restricted access to Starlink. Musk claiming Ukraine violated the rules by using the technology for offensive drone strikes. Ukrainian officials dispute that claim, but confirm service has since been fully restored. Neither Musk nor the U.S. government initially took responsibility and even admitted there was a disruption. The satellite internet service operated by Musk's SpaceX has been critical to Ukrainian forces trying to repel a Russian invasion. Joining us from Moscow is NBC News Chief International Correspondent Keir Simmons. Keir, how is Musk explaining his new claim that Ukraine is the aggressor here, violating Starlink's terms of service?
