September 25, 2026

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Pour yourself a cup of ambition. Cities across the US and the whole state of California have declared today Dolly Parton Day (it’s 9/25, get it?). So today, in honor of the late icon, consider taking your boss hostage. Hope your day isn’t all takin’ and no givin’.

— Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Holly Van Leuven, Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

News outlets returning to the White House after a legal fight
Oracle’s data center issues
The quarterback giving financial advice

Markets

Nasdaq

26,939.37

+0.01%

S&P

7,704.13

-0.03%

Dow

51,349.98

-0.31%

10-Year

5.162%

+5.0 bps

Bitcoin

$84,311.01

-0.29%

Darden

$207.24

-3.02%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: The Dow had its third down day in a row yesterday, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended mostly flat. But it could have been worse: Stocks fell early in the day as investors warily watched rising bond yields, but pared some losses amid hope for a potential deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Stock spotlight: Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, fell after investors weren’t as impressed with the company’s quarterly results as diners are with their breadsticks.

START THE PRESSES

Reporters return to White House after weeklong ban

CNN camera and reporter on White House grounds

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty Images

President Trump can’t keep CNN, MS NOW, and Politico off ~~his~~ US taxpayers’ lawn, at least for now. Nearly a week after he barred them from the White House, journalists from these outlets regained access yesterday following a judge’s early morning order to temporarily block Trump’s ban.

To refresh: Trump announced last Friday that he was revoking White House credentials for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico (Politico and Morning Brew have the same parent company, Axel Springer), initially saying it was “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” but later calling their reporting a national security risk. The outlets sued to get back in.

Now, things are looking up for the press: “The Court is skeptical—at least on this record—that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation” of the outlets’ press passes, US District Judge Timothy Kelly wrote:

Kelly granted the outlets a 14-day restraining order against Trump’s media ban, while their First Amendment lawsuit challenging it progresses.
The administration’s examples of “objectionable reporting” by CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were “so vague it hardly does the trick,” Kelly’s order said.
The judge added that the outlets have a good shot of proving in court that the administration violated their constitutional due process rights.

The judge issued his order in the wee hours of yesterday morning, but reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were still turned away until around noon, though it wasn’t immediately clear why.

No eyes on Xi

CNN’s TV pool peers—ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC—suspended their White House video coverage all week in solidarity with the excommunicated outlets, which meant that no American network aired live footage yesterday when Trump hosted China’s President Xi Jinping, who’s here to discuss AI, Iran, and Taiwan.

Looking ahead…the networks have said they won’t resume presidential pool coverage until the administration reassures them that CNN will not only regain White House access, but also be readmitted to the pool.—ML

World

Tour de headlines

Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and Elon Musk at state dinner

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

🏛️ At state dinner, Xi said he and Trump reached “common understanding on many issues.” China’s president started the day with good news, announcing that a new pair of pandas would arrive at Zoo Atlanta in the coming days. The leaders held bilateral talks in the Oval Office yesterday before their much-anticipated state dinner. The guest list was heavy on business and tech executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Today, Trump is expected to take Xi to the National Archives to tour an exhibit of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights before China’s leader heads home.—HVL

🏠 Mortgage rates hit 7% for the first time since January 2025. Abstaining from avocado toast probably won’t be enough to help you buy a house: The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 7.03% on Thursday, Freddie Mac said yesterday. That’s up from 6.3% a year ago and represents the first time mortgages have breached the psychologically significant 7% mark in 20 months. That’s likely to hit the already stagnant housing market hard. With inflation remaining elevated and the war in Iran driving up oil prices, the bond market—which mortgage rates tend to follow—has seen large yield spikes. The 10-year bond, which is closely tied to consumer borrowing costs like mortgages, leaped above 5%, and yesterday the 30-year bond had its highest yield since 2004.—AR

⚖️ New York accuses Polymarket of running an unlicensed gambling operation. If you had money on New York suing Polymarket about two months after it went after rival prediction market Kalshi, it’s time to cash in. The lawsuit filed against Polymarket US yesterday is similar to the one the state lodged against Kalshi, asking a judge to block the platform from operating in the state and order it to pay fines because it’s not licensed by New York’s gambling regulator. Prediction markets have argued that they’re not subject to state gambling regulations because they instead fall under the federal regulation of the CFTC (and the agency agrees), but the question is being put to the test in multiple lawsuits. Polymarket plans to fight the suit. “We believe in New York and we’re staying here,” its chief legal officer said.—AR

Oracle sees a murky future

The news adds uncertainty to the gargantuan enterprise, which hinges largely on Oracle paying up:

The $18 billion of debt tied to the project is already trading at 90 cents on the dollar amid concerns that Oracle is too debt-burdened, per a recent Financial Times report.
Oracle’s stock was down nearly 3.5% yesterday, while shares of its developer, Blue Owl Capital, sagged 3.6%.

This is bigger than Jupiter: The project is part of the Stargate initiative to spend $500 billion building data centers for OpenAI, which President Trump touted alongside the leaders of OpenAI and Oracle last year. Silicon Valley’s overall AI infrastructure splurge is projected to make up 3.6% of US GDP between 2025 and 2032.—SK

Friday puzzle

What number comes next in this sequence?

23, 28, 43, 65, 98

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Answer

148. You add up the sum of all the previous digits that have appeared in the sequence so far. So 23 + 5 = 28, 28 + 10 + 5 = 43, etc.

(Source)

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: revisionist, meaning “advocating for reanalyzing historical information.” Thanks to Julia from Ohio for a suggestion that made us look twice. Submit another Word of the Day here.

✤ A Note From Bilt

Cardless Inc. is the servicer of the Bilt Cards. Cardless is a financial technology company not a bank. Bilt Cards are issued by Column N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Mastercard International Incorporated.

Written by Abigail Rubenstein, Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Holly Van Leuven, and Neal Freyman

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