Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the key issues in the U.S. midterm elections, cyberattacks targeting Russia and Ukraine, and Iran’s proposal to end the war.
Closing Messages
Democrats and Republicans made their final pitch to voters on Monday in the run-up to Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. Early polling suggests that Democrats will likely win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate in what would be a crushing blow to President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. According to experts, the White House’s poor handling of the Iran war could be to blame.
In the eight months since U.S. and Israeli forces first launched strikes on Iran, fuel prices have skyrocketed, energy infrastructure has come under fire, and fighting has upended critical supply chains. Products from batteries to medical supplies to sulfur have borne the brunt of the U.S.-Iran war. And the wallets of U.S. voters are far from immune to the fallout.
The cost of living for the average American household has grown by around $2,000 since the war began, according to economists at Moody’s Analytics, or roughly $265 billion for U.S. consumers in total. Coupled with Trump’s continued tariff war with Canada, dissatisfaction with high inflation rates has dropped Trump’s approval rating to 38 percent, per NBC News’s polling average.
Democrats are capitalizing on these figures to try to win control of one or both chambers of Congress. Doing so would give them more leverage to challenge Trump’s foreign-policy agenda, such as by blocking Trump’s national security nominees, cutting off further military funding for the Iran war, investigating alleged corruption within the president’s inner circle, and even trying to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Republicans, meanwhile, tried to distance themselves from Trump’s Iran policies on Monday and instead focused on tried-and-true conservative talking points, such as the need for immigration crackdowns, low taxes, and the (unsubstantiated) threat of Muslim lawmakers in office.
Trump echoed a few of these arguments during a speech at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday. “We have to keep our Congress strong, free, a little bit of apple pie,” Trump said, adding, “We’re not looking to have a jihadist be in our Senate,” in a thinly veiled reference to Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is vying to represent Michigan.
Yet Trump spent the bulk of his remarks—originally advertised as a closing midterms campaign speech—discussing topsoil, graffiti stains, piping, algae, limestone, and other construction elements of his capital renovation projects.
It is unclear if these issues will be enough to convince voters to back the Republican Party.
Trump has already vowed to “veto everything” if Democrats take back Congress. In an interview with the New York Post published on Monday, the U.S. president did not rule out issuing preemptive pardons to his aides and allies, such as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose company recently came under heavy criticism after the Trump administration reportedly cut off Ukraine from military-grade Starlink internet services. And the administration has already asked the U.S. Supreme Court to temporarily block around 20,000 mail-in ballots from counting in California as part of its growing bid to sow distrust in the U.S. electoral system.
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The World This Week
Tuesday, Nov. 3: South Korean President Lee Jae-myung hosts Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hosts Chilean President José Antonio Kast.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosts Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.
Wednesday, Nov. 4: Israeli President Isaac Herzog begins consultations with party leaders.
South Africa holds municipal elections.
Friday, Nov. 5: Chinese President Xi Jinping hosts Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker.
Saturday, Nov. 6: New Zealand holds a general election.
Pope Leo XIV begins a multiday trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru
Monday, Nov. 8: Turkey begins hosting the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference.
G-7 foreign ministers hold a two-day meeting in France.
What We’re Following
Phony alerts. Residents in Ukraine and Russia received phony emergency alerts late Sunday and early Monday that warned of high radiation levels, chemical threats, ballistic missile attacks, and on-the-ground fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of hacking the Ukrainian emergency alert app and said his country had hacked Russia back in response.
The messages, some of which were riddled with spelling errors, did not appear to worry many locals. However, the cyberattacks did cast new uncertainty over the security of both nations’ emergency alert systems. It also highlighted the very real and ongoing threat of Russian ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine. On Friday, the United States unveiled a $2.1 billion deal to supply 500 more Patriot interceptors to Ukraine; however, sources told Reuters that it could take years for the missiles to arrive, even though Kyiv currently has inadequate air defenses.
This week’s incident occurred just as a limited cease-fire in the Ukrainian city of Oleshky expired on Monday. U.S. first lady Melania Trump had negotiated the six-day truce to allow humanitarian aid to reach the devastated city. However, on Monday, Kyiv accused Moscow of using the pause to strengthen its military position in the area. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded that any troop movements there were “standard practice” and that Ukraine likely did the same thing.
Last-ditch negotiations. Iran announced a two-day plan on Monday that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume nuclear talks with the United States. The deal, which could be implemented within a week, would only occur if Washington agreed to meet Tehran’s seven conditions for ending the war. Those include an end to the U.S. military blockade on Iranian ports, a U.S. waiver on Iranian oil sales, and the cancellation of new U.S. sanctions on Tehran, among other concessions.
“The basis of dialogue and talks between Iran and the U.S. via mediators is still Iran’s seven-step proposal, which is now condensed, making it possible to implement it within two days,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said. Trump, however, rejected that deal in September and has since repeatedly threatened to launch fresh strikes on Iran.
“The only reason why I’m not finished with Iran is I want to be nice,” Trump said on Sunday at a campaign rally. “But at some point, we’re going to have to give them [Iran] the hammer.” Whether such a resumption of fighting will ultimately happen—and if so, when—remains anyone’s guess. Asked on Monday if he’s considering striking Iran after the U.S. midterms, Trump simply said, “No.”
Meanwhile, Persian Gulf nations are preparing themselves for a possible return to heavy fighting, which they expect could trigger Iranian retaliatory strikes on their civilian infrastructure. Alongside deadly Houthi strikes on Saudi energy facilities, experts fear that the region is not ready to absorb renewed warfare. “Gulf producers spent five decades persuading the world that their supply could withstand regional wars,” Amir Handjani wrote in Foreign Policy. “Eight months of fighting on two fronts have badly weakened that case.”
A win for Moscow? Acting Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova won the country’s presidential runoff on Sunday, making her Bulgaria’s first elected female head of state. According to the Central Election Commission on Monday, Yotova clinched 57.6 percent of the vote, putting her in double digits ahead of former interim Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov, who secured 39.5 percent. She will be inaugurated on Jan. 22.
Yotova’s win marks a larger victory for the country’s ruling Progressive Bulgaria party. The Russia-friendly group, led by Prime Minister Rumen Radev, secured 131 seats during parliamentary elections in April. Yotova retaining power means that the party’s agenda will now have even less resistance, as Radev and Yotova are united in their support for lifting international sanctions on Moscow as well as their opposition to providing Ukraine with further military assistance.
At the same time, Yotova and Radev have both sought to maintain Bulgaria’s European friendships. Being a member of NATO and the European Union has forced Sofia to exercise a delicate balancing act of fostering closer relations with Russia while also not angering Bulgaria’s traditional allies. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Yotova on her win on Sunday, writing on X, “From security and defence to our competitiveness and energy independence, I look forward to continuing our joint work.”
Odds and Ends
Four continents, 30 countries, 31,000 miles. English adventurer Karl Bushby completed his 28-year journey around the world on Monday, walking from Punta Arenas, Chile, to his mother’s home in northern England. During that time, he dodged war in the Darién Gap, was airlifted to safety while crossing the Bering Strait, and swam across the Caspian Sea and English Channel. Visa struggles, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic came close to sapping his resources for good, but the now 57-year-old explorer remained adamant on completing his odyssey entirely on foot. “They say it takes a village, but literally it took a world to get me here,” Bushby said.
