Both before and during Republicans' midterm convention yesterday, President Trump predicted that the war in Iran that he helped launch would end immediately after the midterm elections (assuming that his party held onto its majority in Congress).

But a new report from the Wall Street Journal, published Wednesday evening, indicates that, behind closed doors, Trump's top advisors have given him less optimistic forecasts. The paper reports that top officials – including JD Vance, Trump's vice president, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state – have warned that Iran could very well hold out against US pressure through the remainder of Trump's second term.

The unpopular and seemingly frozen conflict, as well as the surging energy prices it touched off, have become a sore spot for Republicans ahead of the midterms. Fighting has flared up again after negotiations between the US and Iran fell through, with both sides trading missile attacks on oil tankers.

The Trump administration's latest step, a new sanctions regime aimed at strangling what remains of Iran's economy, would punish nations that continue to trade with the regime.

Trump has cast his party's victory in the midterms as the difference between US success and failure in Iran. He's repeatedly dismissed economic pain downstream of the conflict as a temporary but worthwhile sacrifice to subdue Iran and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Vice-president JD Vance will give the keynote address tonight, though Donald Trump is scheduled to make closing remarks to bring the made-for-television RNC event in Dallas to ⁠an end.

"If the American people give Republicans another chance to govern, we're going to create more prosperity," Vance told Fox News after Trump's speech last night.

"And we want the American people to share in that prosperity."

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico will not air on ABC tomorrow following threats from the FCC.

Kimmel said the FCC had threatened him, his show, ABC, its affiliates, and local stations over "simple traditional editorial decisions" and guest bookings.

He said the full interview will be shared on YouTube instead.

Democratic senator John Fetterman made a surprise virtual appearance at the Republican midterm convention, delivering a video address supporting Dave McCormick, a Republican senator in Pennsylvania.

Fetterman, who has increasingly broken with his party since his election in 2022, said in the video that he would always reject "extremes and socialism", repeating an oft-used Republican critique of the Democratic party's increasingly popular left wing.

The video message will do little to dampen speculation that the renegade senator, who is now more popular among Republican voters in Pennsylvania than the Democrats who helped elect him, is preparing to switch political parties. Fetterman has repeatedly said that is not his plan, though he recently suggested he would be forced to formally break with the Democratic party if it ever became "the anti-Israel party".

Democrats currently hold 47 seats in the US Senate. Despite the long odds, Democrats believe discontent with the economy and Trump's low approval ratings have given them a rare opportunity to retake control of the upper chamber. A defection would jeopardize their already narrow path to a majority.

Yet if Fetterman remains a Democrat, he would hold outsized influence, effectively wielding veto power in a 51-49 majority.

Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Donald Trump has no authority send money to Americans without approval from Congress.

Goldwein added that dividends are something that companies pay when there's a surplus, but the US is running $2tn annual deficits and has $40tn in debt.

"The idea that we've had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable," he said. "We don't have surpluses to give away."

Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed US tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president's tariff program last year.

The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to buy votes in last year's Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to try to boost a candidate who ultimately lost.

Trump's proposal would be legal because the payment would go to everyone regardless of how they voted, or whether they voted at all, said New Mexico-based attorney John Day.

"This is a campaign promise," Day said. "It's not a payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way."

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Vice-president JD Vance appeared to partially row back on Donald Trump's outlandish claims that every adult citizen in the US would receive $5,000 if the Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

"If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000," Trump told a roaring crowd, during a nearly two-hour long speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which he also urged voters to "pretend that I'm on the ballot".

But Vance, speaking after the president, suggested the so-called dividend payments would not go to the wealthy and that it could be paid for by US tariff revenues – though the suggested payment dwarfs what the US has taken in through the protectionist measures.

Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed US tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president's tariff program last year.

The White House has yet to release details on Trump's announcement.

Surrounded by supporters waving American flag placards, Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been "the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency", but devoted much of his speech to fearmongering about what would happen should Democrats win the House or the Senate for the final two years of his presidency.

"There is a crazy little sick cloud over our country," Trump said. "We will defeat communism in America."

The president and Republicans are gambling that throwing a midterm convention – the first the GOP has ever held – can buoy the party, which is predicted to lose control of the House. Yet, Trump's deep unpopularity among Americans – his approval rating is hovering at about 38% – meant many Republican candidates running in competitive races skipped the two-day confab entirely.

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