The Morning Briefing: Friday, October 16, 2026

Washington woke up Friday to a fight over a sitting member of Congress, a president talking openly about a post-election bombing campaign, and an energy ceasefire that fell apart before it started. Here are the six developments that matter most this morning.

Federal probe of Ilhan Omar aims at citizenship and deportation

Less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms, the Trump administration’s investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar is aimed at revoking her American citizenship and deporting her if investigators can prove that she or her relatives lied to immigration authorities when she became a citizen, two people familiar with the matter told USA Today.

On Oct. 12, agents from Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s Washington-area home, carrying boxes of materials under a warrant tied to alleged immigration fraud and false statements, and the Justice Department has subpoenaed some of her relatives. Fox News reported that federal agents also seized Omar’s cellphone during the raid. Omar, a longtime political foe of the president, called the search an intimidation effort meant to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement, writing on social media: “I will not be silenced.” Her spokeswoman Jacklyn Rogers said the push to strip her citizenship “has no basis in the law and has no precedent.”

The fight moved to court Thursday, when 14 news organizations, including the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, Bloomberg, Politico, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, asked a federal judge to unseal the search warrant and the records behind it, arguing the public deserves to know why federal agents searched the home of a sitting member of Congress.

Separately, Senate Republicans are preparing for a possible loss of the chamber. Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley plans two judicial nomination hearings in the Senate’s two-week November session, on Nov. 10 and Nov. 18, to advance as many of President Donald Trump’s nominees as possible before new members are sworn in. Six nominees are awaiting a hearing. Sen. Dick Durbin, the panel’s top Democrat, objected, warning the move sets a precedent Democrats would use later.

Trump floats a post-election “mother of all bombs” strike on Iran

President Donald Trump declined to rule out using the “mother of all bombs” on Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, in an interview with Newsmax broadcast Thursday night. “The mother of all bombs is not nuclear,” Trump said. “It’s not nuclear at all, just an extremely large bomb. It’s like a tiny nuclear bomb.” He added: “I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to.”

CNN reported earlier this week that the Pentagon has developed strike plans that could include the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, citing multiple officials familiar with the matter. The weapon was last used by the U.S. in 2017, against Islamic State positions in Afghanistan. Trump has previously ruled out striking Iran before the elections, which will decide control of Congress. The war has become a major election flashpoint, with voters citing the price of gasoline and diesel as a central campaign issue.

Read more: Trump says U.S. may strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site as Pentagon draws up MOAB plans

Ukraine resumes strikes on Russian refineries; Trump calls it a “disgrace”

Ukraine is hitting Russian oil refineries again. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that Kyiv was ending a three-day pause on the strikes, saying: “We’re done.” On Thursday, Ukraine struck a Rosneft refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region, which handles nearly 5 percent of the country’s refining output and helps supply Moscow; the regional governor said a major drone attack started a fire there.

The pause had followed President Trump’s Sunday announcement of an “energy ceasefire,” which Kyiv said it first learned about from news reports. Zelenskyy said the pause ended because Russia kept striking Ukrainian energy sites anyway, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people. Moscow said Thursday it had hit seven Ukrainian energy facilities, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Ukrainian strikes ran counter to U.S. peace efforts.

Trump was blunt about the resumption. “All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” he told Newsmax on Thursday, after the Ryazan strike. His administration blames the refinery attacks for high diesel prices: diesel averaged $6.32 a gallon nationally on Thursday, about 21 cents below the record set Sept. 22, according to AAA.

Elsewhere, drones struck two chemical tankers near Romania’s Black Sea coast on Thursday, setting them ablaze; seven sailors are missing. Reuters cited a NATO military source saying the drones came from Russia. And Ukraine’s military said normal service on the Starshield satellite terminals it relies on had resumed, after a U.S.-ordered slowdown that Kyiv is still discussing with Washington.

Read more: White House ordered slowdown of Ukraine’s Starshield service, U.S. officials tell Reuters

Warsh keeps markets guessing; October rate-hike odds fall

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh gave markets what they wanted overnight: nothing to fear. Speaking at an International Monetary Fund meeting in Bangkok alongside IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva, Warsh declined to push back on expectations that the Fed will hold rates steady at its Oct. 27-28 meeting. “I don’t pre-judge meetings,” he said. Traders now see only a 13 to 15 percent chance of an October hike, down from about 28 percent a day earlier, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Stock futures pointed to a calm end to a rough week. The S&P 500 and Dow futures edged up, and Asia rebounded: South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.05 percent after plunging 7.6 percent in the prior session, and Japan’s Nikkei gained 1.8 percent. Treasury yields held steady, with the 10-year around 5.08 percent, and Brent crude traded near $105 a barrel. Bitcoin traded around $82,200 and gold futures rose back above $4,200 an ounce.

The calm is fragile. Investors spent the week fretting over the debt funding the artificial-intelligence buildout, and the Nvidia-backed data-center company CoreWeave traded down 2.5 percent in premarket trading. In one of the week’s sharpest moves, Jakarta stocks plunged 11 percent in their worst drop since 1998 after MSCI moved to strip Indonesia’s emerging-market status.

Read more: Jakarta stocks plunge 11% in worst drop since 1998 after MSCI moves to strip emerging-market status

Netflix pushes out content chief Bela Bajaria, names Peter Rice

Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria is leaving the company after a decade, the streaming giant said Thursday. Peter Rice, a former executive at 21st Century Fox and Disney, will take over the roughly $20 billion content operation on Oct. 26.

The change lands at a rough moment. Netflix’s stock has fallen nearly 40 percent over the past year, and viewer engagement grew just 2 percent in the first half of the year. A day before the announcement, the company told staff it was cutting about 1,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its workforce, its biggest round of layoffs since 2022. Netflix reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 20. Paramount closed its own $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Broncos edge Seahawks 17-14 in overtime on Thursday night

Denver won ugly and won anyway. Wil Lutz kicked a 53-yard field goal with 4:53 left in overtime to give the Broncos a 17-14 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night, after Ja’Quan McMillian intercepted Sam Darnold on the first possession of the extra period.

The Broncos (4-2) gained just 168 yards of offense and punted on all six of their second-half possessions, yet still beat the defending Super Bowl champions. Bo Nix finished 17 of 27 for 107 yards. Seattle (3-3) rallied from 14-3 down behind Darnold, who went 27 of 51 for 278 yards with two interceptions, and tied the game on a Jason Myers field goal with three seconds left in regulation. The win drew a harsh review for the home quarterback anyway: former NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said on the Prime Video postgame show that Nix was not playing competitively.

That’s the briefing for Friday, October 16. Check back throughout the day for updates.