Good morning, it's Saturday, Oct. 17. President Trump set aside a new Russia sanctions law two days before it took effect, and one line in his order reaches further than the tariffs.

Also in today's issue: A five-day press secretary, Jail talk for vote counters, Michigan's race turns personal, A measles team for Pennsylvania, A grand jury for Omar's case.

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If you've winced at the pump this year, President Trump made a call late Friday that he says is about you, and a law he signed four weeks ago lost most of its teeth.

Two days before it was set to take effect, Trump signed an executive order waiving nearly all of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. Named for the late South Carolina senator, who died before it passed, it was meant to cut off the money Russia uses for its war in Ukraine. And one quiet line in the order may matter more than the headline tariffs.

Start with those tariffs. A tariff is a tax charged at the border on imports, and it often shows up in store prices. Starting Sunday, the law would have added a 100% tariff on goods from the five biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas if they kept buying, a group that includes China, India and Turkey, according to CBS News. At that rate, a $20 phone case shipped from China would carry another $20 in tax before it reached a shelf. The law also set a 500% tariff on goods from Russia itself.

So why wave it off? The White House says it's about prices. Oil has stayed expensive since the Iran war began, and Trump argues the fighting in Ukraine adds to the pressure. Keeping Russian barrels moving keeps more fuel on the world market. The law allows it: a president can waive its penalties by certifying to Congress that doing so is "in the national interests of the United States."

The other side sees a pattern. A week ago, Trump eased sanctions on Russian diesel under an agreement with Vladimir Putin. Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators called those diesel waivers a "betrayal of the people of Ukraine" and urged Trump to enforce the Graham law. Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy for Putin, called the move "truly historic." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it "unfortunate."

Now that quiet line. The Graham law also barred the president from removing sanctions already on Russia, ABC News reported, and the order lifts that limit. Nothing comes off today; the order says existing sanctions stay. But the administration now has far more room to decide which ones survive, without going back to Congress.

Here's the honest tension. Lawmakers wrote a bill to box in any president on Russia, built in an escape hatch, and saw it used within a month. Supporters say that flexibility is what a president needs to bargain for peace and lower prices. The senators who pushed the law say its powers "require" pressure on Russia, not just allow it. Trump says the waivers stay until officials decide "further action is appropriate."

Watch two things before Nov. 3: whether those senators respond, knowing any new bill could face a veto, and fuel prices. If prices ease, Trump has a concrete argument for voters. If they don't, the trade-off gets much harder to defend.

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Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary after just five days, two U.S. officials told CBS News on Friday. Hours earlier, President Trump said he had urged her to "reconsider" the job, blaming reporters for being "so nasty to her." Her week included a single briefing, where she read prepared remarks for about 10 minutes and took questions from just three outlets. On Thursday, she acknowledged failing the California bar exam in 2011, after years of describing herself as a lawyer. She is expected to move to another administration job, and no replacement has been named. Coming days after the ambassador to Greece was pushed out, it puts White House vetting under a second spotlight in one week. For scale, Anthony Scaramucci lasted 11 days as communications director in Trump's first term.

The Justice Department warned Los Angeles election officials Friday that counting certain ballots could expose workers to criminal charges. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote that anyone who knowingly counts ballots from people "identified by federal agencies as noncitizens" risks becoming an aider and abettor, the legal term for someone who helps commit a crime. President Trump reposted the letter and wrote that they "will all go to jail for a long period of time." It came one day after the department sued California. The key word is "knowingly": a worker would have to know a voter isn't a citizen, and the state calls the federal demand legally baseless. Experts told ABC News the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed. One, from the Brennan Center, said it looks like groundwork to challenge results after Election Day.

Michigan's Senate race turned sharply personal heading into the weekend. Vice President JD Vance called Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a "weasel" on Thursday, and President Trump posted a late-night video calling him a "Muslim radical" and a Muslim Brotherhood member, with no evidence for either claim. The attacks lean partly on old posts by El-Sayed's half-sister about their mother's 1970s activism. He denies any ties and asks voters to "judge me by my actions and my work." Republican Mike Rogers said Friday the race "has never been about how you pray," but about ideology. Underneath sits a real policy choice: El-Sayed backs Medicare for All, a government-run health plan some voters doubt can work. Republican groups lead on TV ads, $119.2 million to $86.6 million, and this open seat could help decide Senate control.

The CDC is sending a "disease detective" team to Pennsylvania at the state's request, as the national measles count passed 4,400 this year. Pennsylvania alone has more than 1,200 cases and six measles-related deaths reported by local officials. Nationwide, about 96% of cases are in people who were unvaccinated or whose status is unknown. Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective, yet the share of kindergartners who got it fell to 92.4% last school year, down from 95.2% before the pandemic. That slide matters most for babies, since the first dose isn't recommended until 12 months, and two of Pennsylvania's deaths were infants. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CDC Director Erica Schwartz still recommend the vaccine, the agency said.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday that agents served multiple search warrants the same day they searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home, and that investigators expect to take the case to a grand jury. Speaking on a podcast, he called it a "strong case" and said Trump didn't want to proceed unless they knew it "couldn't be politically driven." The probe centers on immigration paperwork Omar's late father filed when she was a child. Mullin also floated racketeering law, built for organized crime, as a hypothetical way to reach old conduct, though such cases usually face a five-year time limit. Officials rarely discuss active cases, partly because grand jury rules require secrecy. Omar, who hasn't been charged, calls it an attempt to "weaponize federal law enforcement."

That's how many measles cases the CDC has confirmed this year, the most since 1991. Pennsylvania counts six measles deaths, but the CDC's national tracker lists only two, because the agency now waits for federal death records that can take weeks.

P.S. Should Congress be able to block sanctions waivers? Hit Reply — one word is enough.