Republican senators defended the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Trump administration’s plan to impose new screening requirements on mail-in ballots only weeks before Election Day. They also rejected President Trump’s claim that conservative justices he appointed, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, had been pressured into ruling against him. Senators said the proposed ballot system would have created chaos, required states to use bar-coded envelopes and voter lists uploaded to a little-tested postal portal, and was too late to implement. Separately, Republican lawmakers defended the Federal Reserve’s independence after Trump demanded rates of 1% or less. The Fed raised rates to between 3.75% and 4%, while stocks initially fell before the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose 1.14% and 1.69%, respectively, on Thursday. Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, called Trump’s 1% target unrealistic while noting inflation remained above the Fed’s 2% target.