Closing summary
This ends our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. We’ll be back on Wednesday. Here are some of the day’s developments:
The US senator John Cornyn of Texas asked the FBI to aid Texas law enforcement in locating and arresting Democrats who left the state to forestall a plan sought by Donald Trump to aggressively redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that could help Republicans keep their House majority after the 2026 midterm elections. Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, announced that he had filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court seeking to remove from office state representative Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic caucus, who has sought refuge in Illinois. More here.
The long-running scandal surrounding the disgraced late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein broadened after the New York Times published a trove of previously unseen letters to Epstein from numerous powerful figures as well as unseen photographs from inside his Manhattan mansion. The letters, written to Epstein by a number of high-profile individuals, were reportedly compiled as a birthday gift for Epstein’s 63rd birthday in 2016. More here.
The House oversight committee issued subpoenas to Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as several former attorneys general and directors of the FBI, demanding “testimony related to horrific crimes perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein”. The investigative committee’s Republican chair, James Comer, sent the subpoenas in response to two motions lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis last month, as Congress navigated outrage among Donald Trump’s supporters over the justice department’s announcement that it would not release further details about Epstein, a disgraced financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. Here’s the full story.
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, is said to be ordering prosecutors to present evidence to a grand jury investigating the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia inquiry, according to the Associated Press. The criminal probe follows referrals from Trump administration intelligence officials and targets the investigation that established Moscow interfered in the 2016 election on Donald Trump’s behalf, a source who spoke on condition of anonymity told the AP. More here.
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The Texas house of representatives remained without a quorum after the state’s Democratic lawmakers fled the state capital to prevent the legislature from adopting a Republican-backed plan for redrawing Texas congressional districts.
The Texas house speaker, Dustin Burrows, signed civil arrest warrants for the wayward Democrats – most of whom have gone to Illinois, New York or Massachusetts – to be brought back to Austin.
ICYMI, here’s a recap of some of today’s events:
The Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, responded to Texas governor Greg Abbott’s petition to remove from office state representative Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic caucus who has sought refuge in Illinois, calling his actions “morally repugnant”.
“Lawless Texas Governor Greg Abbott can mimic Donald Trump all he wants, but his baseless lawsuit to remove Texas House Democratic Leader Rep Gene Wu is not only morally repugnant, it’s a weak attempt at Trump-style intimidation,” Martin said in a statement.
“If Trump and Abbott can successfully remove lawmakers for representing the will of their constituents, we do not have a democracy anymore. And if the state of Texas has any law left in it, the Court will immediately dismiss this farce,” he added.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs’s defense team has reached out to Donald Trump about a potential pardon following Combs’s conviction on prostitution-related offenses last month, according to CNN.
“It’s my understanding that we’ve reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon,” Nicole Westmoreland, a member of Combs’s defense team, told the news outlet.
During an interview with Newsmax last week, Trump said that he was unlikely to pardon Combs.
“I was very friendly with him, I got along with him great and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile,” he said.
Westmoreland said this week that Combs “is a very hopeful person, and I believe that he remains hopeful”.
Combs has been behind bars since his September arrest. He faced federal charges of coercing girlfriends into having drug-fueled sex marathons with male sex workers while he watched and filmed them.
He was acquitted last month of the top charges – racketeering and sex trafficking – while being convicted of two counts of a prostitution-related offense.
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Donald Trump will host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for peace talks at the White House on Friday, Reuters reports.
An official told the news wire that it was possible that the framework for a peace agreement could be announced at Friday’s meeting.
The Washington Post was first to report on the talks.
The two countries, both of which won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
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Trump administration cuts New York City’s anti-terrorism funding days after skyscraper attack
The Trump administration said it would cut terrorism prevention funding for New York City, according to a grant notice posted days after a gunman killed four people inside a Manhattan skyscraper.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) stated in a grant notice posted on Friday that New York City would receive $64m less this year from its urban area security fund. The amount was listed in a single line of an 80-page Fema notice on the grant program.
US Congress created the program to help cities prevent terrorist attacks.
“It makes absolutely no sense, and no justification has been given to cut NY’s allocation given the rise in the threat environment,” a spokesperson for the New York state division of homeland security and emergency services said in a statement on Monday afternoon.
Manhattan has been the site of two attacks on high-profile corporate executives in the last year. The most recent attack came from a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle in late July, who killed four people inside an office building that houses the headquarters of the NFL and several major financial firms.
Read the full story here:
After the Texas governor Greg Abbott filed a petition to the state’s supreme court to remove the Texas house of representatives’ minority leader, Gene Wu, the lawmaker said that denying the governor a quorum was “not an abandonment of my office; it was a fulfillment of my oath”.
“When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant,” Wu said in a statement. “When that governor holds disaster relief for 137 dead Texans and their families hostage, my moral duty is to sound the alarm – by any means necessary.”
“Unable to defend his corrupt agenda on its merits, Greg Abbott now desperately seeks to silence my dissent by removing a duly-elected official from office,” Wu added.
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Greg Abbott files emergency petition with state supreme court to remove representative Gene Wu from office
Texas governor Greg Abbott filed an emergency petition with the state supreme court seeking to remove the state representative Gene Wu from office.
The move comes after Wu and dozens of other Democrats left Texas to block Republican efforts to redraw congressional district maps.
The lawsuit claims that Wu, who chairs the Texas House Democratic caucus, violated the state constitution by abandoning his office.
In a statement, Abbott said Wu and more than 50 other Democrats had intentionally broken quorum by refusing to return to the state, preventing the House from conducting business.
“Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats have shown a willful refusal to return, and their absence for an indefinite period of time deprives the House of the quorum needed to meet and conduct business on behalf of Texans,” Abbott said. “Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans, and there must be consequences.”
For more details on today’s developments, Kira Lerner, Lauren Gambino and Shrai Popat bring us all the details:
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Trump administration dismisses five out of seven financial overseers in Puerto Rico
The Trump administration has dismissed five out of seven members of Puerto Rico’s federal control board, which oversees the US territory’s finances. The five fired are all Democrats.
The board confirmed in a brief statement that the five had been terminated and noted that the board would continue to fulfill its mandate and work “in the interest of the people of Puerto Rico”.
A White House official said that the board “has been run inefficiently and ineffectively by its governing members for far too long and it’s time to restore commonsense leadership”, the AP reports.
Puerto Rico is struggling to restructure more than $9bn in debt held by the state’s Electric Power Authority, with officials holding bitter mediations with creditors demanding full payment.
The representative Nydia Velázquez, a New York Democrat, criticized the dismissals though she acknowledged what she said were “serious and longstanding concerns” about actions the board has taken, including implementing austerity measures.
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The Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday it would wind down mRNA vaccine development activities under its biomedical research unit.
The unit, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats, and provided billions of dollars for development of Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
HHS said the wind-down includes cancellation of a contract awarded to Moderna for the late-stage development of its bird flu vaccine for humans and the right to purchase the shots, a move first reported in May.
The health agency said it is also rejecting or canceling multiple pre-award solicitations, including proposals from Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, CSL Seqirus , Gritstone and others.
In total, this affects 22 projects worth nearly $500m, the agency said.
HHS said the decision follows a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the Covid-19 public health emergency.
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Barack Obama calls Texas GOP’s move a ‘power grab that undermines our democracy’
Barack Obama called the Texas GOP’s attempts to redraw the state’s congressional lines “a power grab” that threatens democracy.
“We can’t lose focus on what matters – right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections. This is a power grab that undermines our democracy,” Obama said in a post on the social platform X.
With his post, he shared a virtual event hosted by All on the Line, a campaign affiliated with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
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A federal judge on Tuesday stopped the Trump administration from taking $4bn that was meant to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
The US district judge Richard G Stearns in Boston approved a request from 20 Democrat-led states to temporarily block the move while their lawsuit continues.
The states argue that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) does not have the power to shut down the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program and use its $4bn for other purposes. The program is designed to strengthen infrastructure across the country to protect against storms.
Fema announced it was ending the program, but later told the court it was still reviewing it.
“Although the Government equivocates about whether it has, in fact, ended the BRIC program, the States’ evidence of steps taken by FEMA to implement the announced termination portend the conclusion that a determination has in fact been made and that FEMA is inching towards a fait accompli,” Stearns wrote in his ruling.
“The agency has cancelled new funding opportunities and informed stakeholders that they should no longer expect to obtain any unobligated funds,” he added.
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Trump says he will 'probably not' run for a third term
Donald Trump said he will “probably not” run for a third term during an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Still, Trump said, he’d “like to run”, and he has “the best poll numbers” he’s ever had.
The 22nd amendment limits a person being elected to the office of president no more than twice. Trump has previously said that there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.
Trump’s approval rating declined six percentage points compared with last week in a Morning Consult poll. His numbers are also down four points compared with April in a University of Massachusetts poll. Both polls were released Monday.
During a Q&A session with reporters on Tuesday, Trump said that JD Vance would “probably be favored at this point” to lead the Maga movement when he finishes his second term in office.
Trump was asked whether he agreed that the “heir apparent” to Maga is Vance.
“Well, I think most likely, in all fairness, he’s the vice-president. I think Marco [Rubio] is also somebody that maybe would get together with JD in some form,” Trump said.
“It’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job, and he would be probably favored at this point,” Trump said.
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Trump says FBI 'may have to' get involved with helping Texas Republicans arrest Democrats
Donald Trump said the FBI “may have to” get involved with helping Texas Republicans arrest Democrats who left the state to block a plan to redraw electoral boundaries.
“The governor of Texas is demanding they come back,” Trump told reporters today. “A lot of people have demanded they come back. You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back. You have to fight it out. That’s what elections are all about.”
Senator John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter to FBI director Kash Patel, imploring him to take “any appropriate steps” to aid Texas law enforcement in locating and arresting Democrats who have fled the state.
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Donald Trump said he plans to name his pick for an open seat on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors “before the end of the week” after the surprise resignation of governor Adriana Kugler.
“We have a couple of candidates,” Trump said during a Q&A session at the signing of an executive order. “Everybody wants it,” he said, “but we’ve narrowed it to a couple of candidates.”
Whomever Trump names to Kugler’s seat will need to be confirmed by the Senate, and the term would be shortened to only a few months and require another Senate vote for a full 14-year term early next year.
He also said that the nominations for the Fed chair are “down to four people right now”.
The nomination for chair of the Fed board would require a separate nomination and Senate confirmation process. Trump has been critical of the current chair of the Fed, Jerome Powell, for not cutting interest rates, even as Fed policymakers balance evidence of both a slowing economy and a weakening job market against the fact that inflation remains well above the central bank’s 2% target and is expected to move higher.
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Trump just signed an executive order to establish a taskforce before the 2028 Olympic Games.
The bill is geared toward mobilizing the federal government to “ensure the games are safe, seamless and historically successful”, according to Trump.
Trump will serve as chair of the taskforce, with JD Vance as vice-chair. State department secretary Marco Rubio, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem and other members of the Trump administration will also be members of the taskforce.
“Some of the greatest brands in America have stepped up to support these Olympic Games as commercial partners, and now, with the creation of this taskforce, we’ve unlocked the opportunity to level up our planning and deliver the largest and, yes, greatest games for our nation ever,” said Casey Wasserman, the chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee.
The games will be held in LA, the first to be hosted in the United States since the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
Wasserman said he expects more than 150 heads of state to come to the games, and that the city will host about 11,000 Olympic and 4,500 Paralympic athletes. The athletes will participate in 800 competitions at 49 venues, according to Wasserman.
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Over 2,000 writers decry Trump’s ‘un-American’ actions in open letter
More than 2,300 members of the Writers Guild of America, including Spike Lee and Adam McKay, have signed an open letter decrying the actions of Donald Trump’s administration that represent “an unprecedented, authoritarian assault” on free speech.
The letter, a combined effort from the WGA East and West branches, cites the US president’s “baseless lawsuits” against news organizations that have “published stories he does not like and leveraged them into payoffs”. It specifically references Paramount’s decision to pay Trump $16m to settle a “meritless lawsuit” about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The letter notes that Trump “retaliated against publications reporting factually on the White House and threatened broadcasters’ licenses”, and has repeatedly called for the cancellation of programs that criticize him.
Additionally, the letter blasts Republicans in Congress who “collaborated” with the Trump administration to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting “in order to silence PBS and NPR”. And it says the FCC, led by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr, “openly conditioned its approval of the Skydance-Paramount merger on assurances that CBS would make ‘significant changes’ to the purported ideological viewpoint of its journalism and entertainment programming.
“These are un-American attempts to restrict the kinds of stories and jokes that may be told, to silence criticism and dissent,” the letter reads. “We don’t have a king, we have a president. And the president doesn’t get to pick what’s on television, in movie theaters, on stage, on our bookshelves, or in the news.”
Read the full story here:
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said she met with President Donald Trump today at the White House.
“I’ve always said that I’ll work with anyone to get things done for Michigan,” Whitmer said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “That’s why I’ve continued to go to Washington, D.C. to make sure that Michiganders are front and center.”
Whitmer, once one of Trump’s political adversaries, said she traveled to the White House to discuss the impact tariffs are having “on Michigan’s economy, especially our auto industry.”
They also discussed “the harm Michigan will face due to changes in the Medicaid program,” according to Whitmer, due to the tax and spending bill signed into law by Trump.
Whitmer, a Democrat whose name has been discussed as a potential leading candidate for the party’s nominee for president in 2028, faces increasing scrutiny over her record and her friendlier relationship with Trump.
The Trump administration is considering releasing the transcript of Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, according to a report by CNN.
“A final decision has not been made,” a senior administration official told CNN. The existence of the interview recording has not been previously reported.
Blanche interviewed Maxwell last month in Tallahassee, Florida, over a two-day period. Last week, Maxwell was moved from Florida to a lower-security federal prison in Texas.
This comes as the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Trump justice department today for records related to Epstein.
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Texas AG will pursue court ruling that declares Democrats' seats vacant
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said that he will pursue a court ruling to declare the seats of Democrats who fled the state and denied quorum in the legislature, as vacant.
“Starting Friday, any rogue lawmakers refusing to return to the House will be held accountable for vacating their office. The people of Texas elected lawmakers, not jet-setting runaways looking for headlines. If you don’t show up to work, you get fired,” Paxton said in a statement.
Texas House speaker Dustin Burrows said the chamber would attempt to reach quorum again on Friday, after it failed for a second consecutive day on Tuesday,
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Donald Trump met with his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday to discuss plans for the US to “significantly increase its role in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza”, Axios reports.
Sources told Axios that the Trump administration would take over management of the humanitarian effort in Gaza because Israel is not handling the situation adequately.
The White House did not respond to Axios’ request for comment.
This comes after Witkoff’s visit to Gaza last week to assess the worsening starvation crisis in the region.
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Texas senator asks FBI to help arrest state fleeing Democratic lawmakers
Senator John Cornyn of Texas has sent a letter to FBI director Kash Patel, imploring him to take “any appropriate steps” to aid Texas law enforcement in locating and arresting Democrats who have fled the state.
“In a representative democracy, we resolve our differences by debating and voting, not by running away,” Cornyn writes of the quorum break, now in its second day. “These legislators have committed potential criminal acts in their rush to avoid their constitutional responsibilities and must be fully investigated and held accountable.”
The FBI declined the Guardian’s request for comment.
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Texas House fails to reach quorum for a second day
With only 94 lawmakers present, the Texas House failed again today to reach a quorum to conduct legislative business.
Speaker Dustin Burrows adjourned the House after it failed to meet its 100-member threshold to reach quorum.
He said that the House would try again on Friday at 1pm CT.
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Here's a recap of the day so far:
Democratic legislators from Texas are still hunkered down in various blue states across the country, as they maintain their quorum break over a new congressional map proposed by state Republicans. At a press conference earlier today, Illinois governor JB Pritzker – who has welcomed several fleeing lawmakers – said that Texas Democrats are “leading the way in choosing courage and country over politics and party”.
Meanwhile the Texas legislature will again try to reconvene today, after the Capitol failed to reach quorum yesterday. Governor Greg Abbott has ordered arrest warrants for the absent lawmakers, but these are civil warrants that only apply within state-lines.
For his part, Donald Trump said that the Republican party is “entitled” to the five House seats they could pick up if the Texas map is approved. In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC earlier today, the president criticised blue states for accepting Texas Democrats. “You notice, they go to Illinois for safety, but that’s all gerrymandered. California is gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California. It’s all gerrymandered,” he said.
Texas’ redistricting battle has now turned into an “arms race”, Rep. Gina Hinojosa told me today. She’s one of the state lawmakers who decamped to a Chicago suburb. California governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to push for a special election that could reinstate his state legislature with the power to redraw congressional maps if the Texas map passes. Meanwhile, DNC chair Ken Martin described the quorum break, and in-kind redistricting from blue states as part of Democrats’ plan to “fight fire with fire”.
Beyond Texas, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the justice department for “records related to Epstein”. The committee also issued deposition subpoenas to several high profile individuals, including Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, the DOJ has ordered department officials to launch a probe into how Obama-era officials handled Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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In another nugget from his CNBC interview today, Donald Trump confirmed his plan to raise the tariffs on India “very substantially” over the next 24 hours. This would be an increase on the 25% already in place.
“They’re fueling the war machine. And if they’re going to do that, then I’m not going to be happy,” he said, referring to India’s purchasing of Russian oil.
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While Congress is on recess, members from both parties are hearing from their constituents. To get a taste of how Republicans are dealing with concerns back home, let’s turn to Lincoln, Nebraska.
This is in Republican congressman Mike Flood’s district. And yesterday scores of people turned up to his town hall to make their feelings known on a number of issues: from ICE raids, to the one big beautiful bill, to the Epstein files.
There were several points in the night were Flood was heckled by the crowd, with some even chanting “vote him out”.
Flood faced scrutiny about his decision to vote for Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill. Eventually the crowd erupted into chants of “tax the rich”.
Flood was one of the few GOP representatives who held a town hall this August recess, particularly since the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee advised lawmakers earlier this year to forgo holding in-person town halls, per Politico.
Here’s Donald Trump touring the roof of the White House with architects this morning. A few days ago he announced the $200m construction of a new 90,000 sq ft ballroom due to be ready before his term ends in 2029.
Trump says he will announce Fed appointments 'shortly' but Bessent will stay in Treasury job
Donald Trump has said he would “shortly” announce his pick for an open seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors and possibly his nominee to lead the US central bank as well, but added that he had ruled out treasury secretary Scott Bessent from consideration.
In an interview with CNBC this morning, Trump said Fed governor Adriana Kugler’s decision to vacate her seat early was a “pleasant surprise”. The departure of Kugler, whose term would have ended on 31 January, appears to have accelerated Trump’s planning for the central bank, giving him an immediate opening to fill with a person who could also be promoted to the top policymaking role when Fed chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in May.
“It’ll be one of four people,” Trump said, adding that he considered both current White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as “very good” possibilities. He did not name the other two, but is reportedly considering current governor Christopher Waller, who has advocated rate cuts but not at the pace or extent Trump wants.
“There are numerous people that are qualified,” Trump said. “I am going to be announcing that very shortly,” the president said in reference to naming a replacement for Kugler, who was appointed to the Fed’s board by former president Joe Biden. Trump said Bessent would not be in the running for the position because he wants to remain in the top Treasury job.
The nominee would, at least initially, serve the few months remaining in Kugler’s term. But Trump could be explicit that he plans for that person to then be nominated to a full 14-year term after that time, and to also be his choice to replace Powell when the Fed chief’s term expires next May - giving his nominee several months and several policy meetings to begin to influence the policy debate.
“A lot of people say, when you do that, why don’t you just pick the person who is going to head up the Fed? That’s a possibility too,” Trump said.
The nominee to fill Kugler’s seat will need to be confirmed by the Senate, and would require another Senate vote for a full 14-year term early next year. The nomination for the next Fed chief would require a separate Senate confirmation process.
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Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury information largely already public, DOJ says
Much of the information presented to the grand jury that indicted Ghislaine Maxwell for helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls has already been made public, the justice department said in a court filing today.
Donald Trump last month instructed attorney general Pam Bondi to seek the release of the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury material, as he sought to quell discontent from his base of supporters over his administration’s handling of documents from the cases.
This filing underscored how it is unclear whether the public will learn anything new or noteworthy from the potential release of such material. The justice department said much of the testimony from law enforcement officers at Maxwell’s grand jury proceedings in 2020 was corroborated by the victims and witnesses who testified publicly at her trial the following year.
“Much of the information provided during the course of the grand jury testimony - with the exception of the identities of certain victims and witnesses - was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” the department wrote in the filing.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of sex trafficking and other crimes. Last month, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche met with her to see if she had any information about other people who may have committed crimes. Neither party has provided a detailed account of what they discussed. Maxwell last week was moved from a prison in Florida to a lower-security facility in Texas.
The justice department has cited what it calls continuing public interest in the cases in asking Manhattan-based judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer to authorize the disclosure of the grand jury transcripts.
Lawyers for Epstein, Maxwell and their alleged victims are due to share their views on the potential disclosures with the judges by Tuesday.
Separately on Tuesday, the House oversight committee issued a subpoena to the justice department for records related to Epstein.
Democrats are also pushing for the release of Epstein files, saying Trump should be held accountable for breaking his promise to release them.
“I also want to talk to my Republican colleagues in Texas – you wrong for this,” said Texas state representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins. “The reality is, Trump called and they fell down and said ‘what do you want us to do?’ Which says they’re weak, and we don’t need that in Texas.”
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Many of the Texas lawmakers who fled the state to break quorum are speaking now at a press conference with Illinois governor JB Pritzker.
“Texas House Democrats are leading the way in choosing courage and country over politics and party,” Priztker said.
House Oversight Committee subpoenas DOJ for Epstein files
The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the justice department for “records related to Epstein”. The committee has also issued deposition subpoenas to a number of high profile individuals, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, former FBI director James Comey, and former attorney general Bill Barr.
In recent months, the Epstein files have been the Trump administration’s albatross. The fallout over the files has enraged lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home early for August recess to avoid votes on releasing records about the Epstein investigations.
The committee chair, Republican congressman James Comer, issued a deadline of 19 August for the justice department to turn over records related to Epstein.
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Donald Trump’s second presidency has led to allegations of pervasive self-dealing.
From the acceptance of a luxury jet from the state of Qatar, to the creation of a Trump cryptocurrency, the president has been accused of monetizing the White House while enacting a swath of extreme policy. My colleague, Tom Silverstone, and I travelled across south Florida, visiting Turning Point’s student action summit, meeting the Republican strategist Steve Bannon, and witnessing events at the harsh new detention centre “Alligator Alcatraz”.
I just spoke with Representative Gina Hinojosa, a Texas Democrat who fled the state with her colleagues. She’s now in a suburb outside Chicago.
She confirmed that Ken Martin – chair of the Democratic National Committee – will join the Texas lawmakers in Illinois for a roundtable discussion today.
Rep. Hinojosa said that she’s committed to staying out of the Texas Capitol for “as long as it takes”. She added that Governor Abbott does “not have the power” to remove legislators from elected office, calling it “disrespectful” to voters. She also told me that lawmakers who left the state have “received nothing but gratitude” and messages of support from their constituents.
“It’s not ideal. It’s just the reality,” she said of the redistricting arms race that might escalate across the country if the new Texas map is passed.
“Democrats need to fight to win,” she said. “We fight to win for the day, and we take tomorrow as it comes.”
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‘We are entitled to five more seats’, Trump says on Texas redistricting battle
Speaking to CNBC earlier, the president said that Republicans are entitled to the five more seats they stand to pick up if the Texas GOP’s new congressional map is passed.
“In Illinois, what’s happened is terrible what they’re doing. And you notice, they go to Illinois for safety, but that’s all gerrymandered. California is gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress in California. It’s all gerrymandered,” he added.
'The gave phony numbers in order to win the election', Trump says of fired BLS commissioner
In an interview on CNBC today, Donald Trump said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics under former commissioner Erika McEntarfer – who he fired last week after she issued a jobs report that showed stalled growth – was responsible for issuing “phony” jobs numbers just before the 2024 presidential election.
He went on to say, without evidence, these numbers were rigged to help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Trump cited the revision the BLS made two weeks after the election which was a notable change from the original report. CNBC host Joe Kernen tried to fact check the president by highlighting these were benchmark figures that are part of the BLS’ annual process.
“Those numbers were rigged, Biden was doing poorly,” Trump said.
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Bondi launches grand jury investigation into Obama administration handling of 2016 Russian election interference
Attorney general Pam Bondi has ordered justice department officials to launch a probe into how Obama-era officials handled Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Reuters reports that the DOJ will investigate allegations that the Obama administration manufactured intelligence on Russia’s interference, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Last month, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that she had received “overwhelming evidence” that demonstrates Obama and his national security officials “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” She declassified numerous documents as evidence of what described as “treasonous conspiracy” from the Obama administration to undermine Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.
After Gabbard’s document release, the justice department formed a taskforce in July to investigate the allegations further. Democrats, in response, have criticised Gabbard’s attempts to re-litigate a 2020 bipartisan Senate Intelligence review that did find evidence that Russia engaged in an “aggressive” effort to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
It’s a quiet August Tuesday on the president’s schedule today. The only listed item on his agenda is an executive order signing at 4pm EDT. We don’t know the details of that just yet.
Trump is also speaking on CNBC now, and we’ll bring you the latest from that interview.
The Trump administration’s decision to abruptly terminate a $3bn program helping hundreds of communities prepare for climate disasters and environmental hazards is unconstitutional and should be overturned, a court will hear on Tuesday.
A coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agency’s administrator Lee Zeldin for terminating the entire Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) block grant program – despite a legally binding mandate from Congress to fund the Biden-era initiative.
It’s the first-of-a-kind proposed class action lawsuit that would force the EPA and Zeldin to reinstate the program and each individual grant, rather than forcing the recipients to sue individually.
The $3bn ECJ program was created by Congress through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a long standing source for ire for Trump and his polluting industry allies – to help historically disadvantaged communities come up with local solutions to improve resilience in the face of worsening climate shocks and environmental degradation.
It was intended by Congress to fund community-based projects across the country to tackle longstanding and pressing environmental harms that cause death and ill health from hazards including industrial pollution, lead pipes, flooding and urban heat islands. Almost 350 rural and urban groups, towns and tribes were selected by the EPA from 2,700 applicants, through a rigorous process that included longterm accountability and oversight over the funds.
More than 40 people protesting the war and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza were arrested outside the Trump International hotel in New York City on Monday evening.
The protest, organized by IfNotNow, a Jewish-American anti-occupation group, had begun earlier in the evening at Columbus Circle. Hundreds gathered under the banner “Trump: Jews Say No More” to demand an end to the war in Gaza and that the Trump administration pressure Israel to allow greater humanitarian aid to enter into territory, as health officials there continue to report deaths from starvation and malnutrition.
“Let’s not mince words, the Israeli government’s blockade of Gaza is a policy of ethnic cleansing by way of forced mass starvation,” said Morriah Kaplan, IfNotNow’s interim executive director, during her speech to the crowd. “It is an unbearable, unspeakable, unfathomable affront to our shared humanity and those who are carrying it out and are deploying our Jewish symbols, language and traditions to defend and justify it, which is why I’m heartened to see such a range of Jews and Jewish organizations coming together today to say with one voice that we oppose these atrocities, not in spite of our Judaism, but for many of us, because of it.”
“We need the US government to use its considerable leverage to end these horrors,” she added.
Protesters held signs that read “stop ethnic cleansing”, “never again is now” “stop starving Gaza” and “not in our name” and speakers included Ruth Messinger, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the T’ruah CEO, and Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller.
“Yesterday was the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av in which Jews mourn the destruction of the people of Israel,” Lander said, “and what we’re witnessing right now is destruction caused by the State of Israel.”
Rwanda reached deal with US to take in up to 250 migrants, government says
The United States and Rwanda have agreed for the African country to accept up to 250 migrants deported from the US, the spokesperson for the Rwandan government and an official told Reuters, as president Donald Trump’s administration takes a hardline approach toward immigration.
The agreement, first reported by Reuters, was signed by US and Rwandan officials in Kigali in June, said the Rwandan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that Washington had already sent an initial list of 10 people to be vetted.
“Rwanda has agreed with the United States to accept up to 250 migrants, in part because nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement, and our societal values are founded on reintegration and rehabilitation,” said the spokesperson for the Rwandan government, Yolande Makolo.
“Under the agreement, Rwanda has the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement. Those approved will be provided with workforce training, healthcare, and accommodation support to jumpstart their lives in Rwanda, giving them the opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the last decade.”
Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter will travel to Washington later on Tuesday for meetings with US authorities on improving Switzerland’s customs situation, the government said.
“The aim is to make the US a more attractive offer in order to reduce the level of additional tariffs on Swiss exports, while taking US concerns into account,” the government said in a statement.
Switzerland, home to some of the world’s best-known luxury brands, was left stunned after the US president on Friday imposed one of the highest tariff rates in his global trade reset. Industry associations said tens of thousands of jobs were at risk.
Local media had reported that after three months of talks, negotiators believed they had secured a 10% tariff on exports to the US, a key market for Swiss products such as luxury watches, jewellery and chocolate but also machinery and pharmaceuticals.
But after a 30-minute call with Keller-Sutter on Thursday evening variously described as “bad-tempered”, “disastrous” and “badly misjudged”, Trump imposed a levy even higher than the 31% he had announced on his so-called “liberation day” in April.
Switzerland’s blue-chip stock market index opened 1.8% lower on Monday, the first day of trading since the tariff announcement on Swiss National Day, a public holiday. The cabinet said after an emergency meeting it would improve its offer to Trump.
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Putin doubts potency of Trump's ultimatum to end the war, sources say
Russian president Vladimir Putin is unlikely to bow to a sanctions ultimatum expiring this Friday from US president Donald Trump, and retains the goal of capturing four regions of Ukraine in their entirety, sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters.
Trump has threatened to hit Russia with new sanctions and impose 100% tariffs on countries that buy its oil - of which the biggest are China and India - unless Putin agrees to a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Putin’s determination to keep going is prompted by his belief that Russia is winning and by scepticism that yet more US sanctions will have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties during the years of war, according to three sources familiar with discussions in the Kremlin.
The Russian leader does not want to anger Trump, and he realises that he may be spurning a chance to improve relations with Washington and the West, but his war goals take precedence, two of the sources said.
Putin’s goal is to fully capture the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Russia has claimed as its own, and then to talk about a peace agreement, one of the sources said.
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Mike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.
The excursion followed Johnson’s arrival in Israel on Sunday on an unannounced visit with other Republican lawmakers, and his meeting with Israeli defense minister Israel Katz and foreign minister Gideon Saar.
Johnson’s visit to the West Bank is the highest profile by a senior US political figure since then secretary of state Mike Pompeo went to Psogat in November 2020 during the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency.
It is a private trip hosted by a pro-Israel advocacy group, an Axios report said, and not an official congressional delegation. The outlet said Johnson traveled with fellow Republican representatives Michael McCaul, Nathaniel Moran and Michael Cloud of Texas, and Claudia Tenney of New York.
Johnson told Israeli settlers on Monday that Israel was the “rightful owner” of the contested Palestinian territory, according to a report published on the pro-Palestinian website Common Dreams, and separately, Marc Zell, the chair of Republicans Overseas Israel.
The former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioners and non-partisan economic groups have criticized Donald Trump’s shock firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer.
Trump, without any evidence to back his claims, alleged McEntarfer “faked” employment numbers in the run-up to the 2024 election to boost Kamala Harris’s chances and said that the recent data was “rigged” to make Trump and Republicans look bad.
The Trump administration has continued to repeat the allegations. The National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, a Trump appointee, has claimed “all over the US government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can,” in justifying the firing.
Friends of BLS, a group chaired by former BLS commissioners Erica Groshen, an Obama appointee, and William Beach, Trump’s appointee during his first term, strongly criticized the firing of McEntarfer, Trump’s allegations, and called on Congress to act.
“We call on Congress to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge the Commissioner’s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained,” Friends of BLS wrote in a statement. “This rationale for firing Dr McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers.”
The Association of Public Data Users, the National Association for Business Economics and the American Economic Association also criticized the firing.
US border agents were directed to stop deportations under President Donald Trump’s asylum ban, CBS News reported Monday citing two unnamed Department of Homeland Security officials.
The direction comes after a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit on Friday partially granted an order that limited the asylum ban, saying it cannot be used to entirely suspend humanitarian protections for asylum seekers, according to CBS.
Officials at Customs and Border Protection were instructed this weekend to stop deportations Trump’s asylum ban and process migrants under US immigration law, CBS said.
Last month, a lower court judge blocked Trump’s ban on asylum at the US-Mexico border, saying that Trump had exceeded his authority when he issued a proclamation declaring illegal immigration an emergency and setting aside existing legal processes.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the challenge to Trump’s asylum ban in February on behalf of three advocacy groups and migrants denied access to asylum, arguing the broad ban violated US laws and international treaties.
Texas governor threatens arrest of Democrats absent at redistricting vote
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Texas governor Greg Abbott has escalated the standoff over redrawing the state’s congressional districts by threatening to arrest Democratic lawmakers who are using their collective absence from the state capital to prevent the move.
More than 50 Democrats have fled from Texas, staging a kind of temporary political exile in Democratic-led states, Reuters reports. It is intended to deny Republicans in Austin the quorum necessary to vote on their redistricting plan, championed by president Donald Trump.
By redrawing lines in hopes of flipping some seats in the US House of Representatives currently held by Democrats, the Republican Party aims to protect its narrow majority in next year’s congressional midterm elections. Trump has told reporters he expects the effort to yield as many as five additional House Republicans.
During Monday’s statehouse session in Austin, the Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives issued civil warrants for the wayward Democrats – most of whom have gone to Illinois, New York or Massachusetts - to be brought back to Austin.
“To ensure compliance, I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement.
But the move seems largely symbolic. The warrants apply only within the state, and breaking quorum is not a crime that would allow Texas authorities to pursue extradition from other states.
Read our latest story here:
In other developments:
The former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioners and non-partisan economic groups have criticized Donald Trump’s shock firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer.
About 600 former Israeli security officials, including previous heads of the Mossad and the military, have urged Donald Trump to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza as the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, considers expanding the conflict.
Mike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.
More than 40 people protesting the war in Gaza and worsening humanitarian crisis were arrested outside the Trump International hotel in New York City on Monday evening.
Donald Trump’s special envoy is expected in Moscow days before the US president’s deadline on Friday for Russia to make progress on ending the war in Ukraine or face increased US sanctions.
The US state department has prepared plans to impose bonds as high as $15,000 for some tourism and business visas, according to a draft of a temporary final rule. The bonds would be issued to visitors from countries with significant overstay rates, under a 12-month pilot program.
The Trump administration is seeking to block veterans from receiving abortions at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs in cases of rape or incest, or when a veteran’s pregnancy has imperiled their health, according to new paperwork filed by the administration.
The Swiss stock market has plunged, the cabinet has held crisis talks and the country’s president has been accused of mishandling a vital phone call with the White House after Donald Trump hit the country with a shock 39% export tariff.
News Corp, part of the Murdoch family media empire, has announced it will bring a version of the brash rightwing New York Post to California in early 2026.
Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she feels the Republican party has lost touch with its base – but she said she has no plans to leave the party.
More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress signed a letter that urges the Trump administration to recognise Palestinian statehood, in a draft copy shared with the Guardian.
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