Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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The US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule set to be published on Tuesday.
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An executive order signed with little fanfare on Friday by Donald Trump could have a huge impact on the health of American’s children, because it instructs the CDC to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
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Members of John F Kennedy’s family celebrated the court order on Friday, the late president’s birthday, that Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center cultural complex in Washington DC and must be removed within two weeks.
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Louisiana Republicans approved a new congressional map on Friday which would eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that was at the center of a landmark supreme court ruling gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
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FBI arrests anti-ICE protester seen in rightwing influencer's video threatening officer outside detention Newark center
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced on Friday that the FBI has arrested an anti-ICE protester who was seen on video recorded by the rightwing influencer Nick Sortor threatening a federal officer who beat protesters outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey this week.
Sortor, a former real estate agent from Kentucky who was involved in multiple physical altercations with protesters in Portland last year, celebrated the arrest of the protester seen in his clip one day after he said he had “forwarded it directly to DHS”.
Sortor’s video showed the protester threatening the life of the officer, and his family, but did not show what preceded the confrontation.
Video recorded by another video journalist offered a clue as to what might have set the protester off. In that clip, apparently recorded earlier, the protester who screamed at the federal officer was recorded standing next to another anti-ICE activist who was shoved under a moving truck by another federal officer. The officer who was seen in Sortor’s clip being screamed at then appeared and beat an anti-ICE protester with a baton.
US Postal Service rule change could throw vote-by-mail into chaos for midterms
The US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule set to be published on Tuesday.
Nearly one in three Americans voted by mail in 2024, but Donald Trump, who wants to restrict the number of voters by limiting ballots cast by mail, signed an executive order in March that prohibits the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a federal list of citizens deemed eligible to vote in each state by the Department of Homeland Security.
The USPS proposal to implement this order, posted on the Federal Register website, seeks to require states to give the postal service the names and barcodes tied to mail-in ballots for federal elections. The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before the Trump administration can finalize it.
For people who do not trust the mail, comments can by sent by email, containing the name and address of the commenter, to: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov, with the subject line “Ballot Mail”.
The Postal Service rule changes would also require states to provide unique barcodes applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelopes, saying it “will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts”.
On Thursday, a federal judge in the District of Columbia, Carl Nichols, who clerked for supreme court justice Clarence Thomas and was nominated by Trump in 2019, declined to block Trump’s March order to limit vote-by-mail, but did not rule on its legality.
A federal judge in Boston set a preliminary injunction hearing for Tuesday on a pair of separate lawsuits filed by 24 Democratic state attorneys general and voting-rights groups against Trump and the USPS challenging the voting order.
Trump’s order also directed the administration to use federal data to inform state election officials who is eligible to vote, required the postal service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list, and required states to preserve election-related records for five years.
In April, 37 Democratic senators wrote to the postal service that Trump’s order was “a blatant violation of the Constitution” that would transform the USPS “into an election administration agency with the power to determine who can vote by mail and to establish ballot specifications”.
In 2020, when states relied heavily on vote-by-mail during the pandemic, Trump lost the popular vote by more than 7m votes.
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Trump signs order directing CDC to reduce number of vaccines given to children from 17 to 11
An executive order signed with little fanfare on Friday by Donald Trump could have a huge impact on the health of US children, because it instructs the CDC to cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11.
The vague language of the order, which refers to “a scientific assessment that compared United States childhood immunization recommendations with those of peer nations” published in January by anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy’s health department, disguises the fact that the new recommendation removes vaccines against six diseases from the schedule.
The assessment, co-authored by the subsequently fired Covid vaccine critic Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, concluded that the CDC director should update the childhood immunization schedule “to keep vaccines for 10 diseases – measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, and human papillomavirus (HPV) – for which peer, developed nations share international consensus, as well as varicella (chickenpox) … in the category of vaccines recommended for all children”.
Implementing that recommendation would mean removing vaccines for these diseases from the recommended schedule:
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hepatitis A
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hepatitis B
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meningitis
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rotavirus
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influenza
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Covid-19
The assessment also recommended cutting the number of doses of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine from two or three (depending on the child’s age) to one.
Fifteen states with Democratic governors are suing HSS and Robert F Kennedy Jr over the administration’s proposed changes to the federal vaccine recommendations, arguing that stripping “vaccines of their universally recommended status, in favor of senseless complexity and equivocation” will “make children sicker and strain state resources”. The suit also complained of a CDC memo downgrading the recommendation for a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
“There seems to be little scientific basis for altering the recommendations that have gone through,” Dr William Schaffner, a professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt University school of medicine and a former member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, told the Association of American Medical Colleges in January.
“If we do not progressively vaccinate children from certain diseases, sooner or later we will see the resurgence of these diseases, just as we are seeing with recent outbreaks of measles,” Schaffner added. “The consequences of that will be more sick children, more visits to the doctor, and more hospitalizations.”
The lawsuit from the states also noted that the health department assessment supposedly aligning the US vaccine schedule with those “peer countries” had “a particular focus on Denmark”.
“But Denmark is not a ‘peer country’ in relation to vaccines because, among other things, unlike the US, it has a small, homogenous population and universal healthcare,” attorneys for the 15 states argued. “And Denmark’s vaccine policies are a global outlier that cannot be retrofitted to the US.”
“Even Danish health officials are baffled by Defendants’ reliance on Denmark,” the attorneys added, referring to comments to the New York Times from an official at Denmark’s equivalent of the CDC.
“It’s not at all fair to say look at Denmark unless you can match the other characteristics of Denmark,” the Danish official, Dr Anders Hviid, told the Times in December.
In that interview, Hviid also noted the irony in Kennedy’s health department relying on Denmark, given that he and other Danish health officials had debunked Kennedy’s theories of vaccine harm.
It seems “to get crazier and crazier in public health from month to month” during the Trump administration, Hviid told the Times. “It is surreal, and it is difficult, from a Danish perspective, to understand what’s going on.”
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Kennedy family welcomes judge's order to remove Trump's name from Kennedy Center
Members of John F Kennedy’s family celebrated the court order on Friday, the late president’s birthday, that Donald Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center cultural complex in Washington DC and must be removed within two weeks.
“An appropriate birthday present on my uncle’s birthday today. A federal judge ruled that President Trump and the Kennedy Center Board acted unlawfully in renaming the Kennedy Center,” JFK’s niece Maria Shriver wrote. “The judge held that only Congress can change the Center’s name and blocked the planned two-year closure. I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over, but for today let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.”
“Perhaps I won’t need that pickaxe after all,” Robert F Kennedy’s daughter Kerry Kennedy wrote. “What a great way to celebrate you on your birthday, Uncle Jack!”
Her brother, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s health secretary, made no immediate comment.
Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of RFK and a former congressman, shared the news without comment on social media. When the name change was presented as a fait accompli in December, he called it illegal. “The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” he wrote. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
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Trump says 'I have no interest in' Kennedy Center after judge orders his name removed from memorial
Six-and-a-half hours after Donald Trump put the world on notice that he was entering the White House Situation Room to make his “final determination” on whether or not there is peace in Iran, the president finally returned to social media to post a 578-word statement on an entirely different matter: his rage at the federal judge who ruled that his name has to be removed from the Kennedy Center.
The president first attacked the judge for having been nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama, and largely focused on the part of the ruling that also instructed the Trump administration to halt the closure of the performing arts center for a two-year renovation.
Trump then turned to his anger over the part of the ruling that gave him 14 days to have his name removed from the Kennedy Center’s facade and website.
US district judge Christopher Cooper, Trump noted, had ruled that his handpicked board members, who “unanimously voted to add the name ‘TRUMP’ onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, ‘TRUMP,’ must be removed”.
Many, many more words followed before the screed ended with the entirely unclear fix Trump said that he was ordering: “we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them.”
“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” Trump wrote.
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US travel industry group says plan to stop international flights to Newark airport could cost $8bn and 50,000 jobs
The United States Travel Association, an industry group, sounded the alarm on Friday over comments by Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, that DHS is “drawing up plans” to withdraw immigration processing services at airports in Democratic-run cities and states that restrict local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
As our colleague José Olivares reported this week, Mullin floated the idea in a Fox News interview as a possible way to punish Democratic officials who support protests against an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which is also home to one of the busiest US airports for international visitors.
Customs and Border Protection officers, who screen international visitors, and returning American citizens, are, like immigration enforcement officers, part of the Department of Homeland Security Mullin runs.
Removing those officers from from Newark Liberty international airport or other international airports the USTA warned in a news release, “would cause immediate and lasting harm”.
“CBP officers at Newark Liberty International Airport alone process 5 million Americans returning home each year, and many of them are from states other than New Jersey,” the group noted.
Such a move would also create chaos for millions of international travelers, just weeks ahead of the World Cup.
The USTA estimated that the “overall economic impact to the travel industry would be devastating—an estimated $8 billion in annual international visitor spending would be lost due to CBP officers being removed from Newark Airport, risking nearly 50,000 American jobs”.
A shutdown at Newark, or at any of the nation’s other main airports serving international travelers and imported goods, most of which are in states run by Democrats, would also “imperil cargo operations that bring in over $30 billion in imported goods each year”, the USTA added, increasings costs for US businesses “and raising prices for American consumers”.
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Louisiana Republicans approved a new congressional map on Friday which would eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that was at the center of a landmark supreme court ruling gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The new map reconfigures the state’s sixth congressional district, now represented by Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat. Lawmakers drew the district in 2024 after a court found the map lawmakers enacted after the 2020 census diluted the influence of Black voters and violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The new map will probably give Republicans control of five of Louisiana’s six congressional seats (the previous map had a 4-2 Republican-Democrat split). The bill now goes to Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it.
Federal judge gives Trump two weeks to take his name off the Kennedy Center
A US district judge in Washington DC, Christopher Cooper, ruled on Friday that the Trump administration “violated the Kennedy Center’s organic statute in purporting to rename the Center for President Trump, and in taking steps to effectuate that official renaming, such as installing signage with Donald J. Trump’s name on the front portico of the Center, altering the Center’s website to name the Center for President Trump, and in issuing official materials naming the Center for President Trump”.
In his order, the federal judge, who was responding to a complaint filed by Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty, gave the administration two weeks to pull Trump’s name from the center, which was created by Congress as a memorial to John F Kennedy after his assassination.
Cooper’s ruling instructed the administration to:
within 14 days of the date of this order, (a) remove all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any other individual besides President Kennedy; (b) update the Kennedy Center’s official website to remove all references to the institution as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” or any similar formulation; Case 1:25-cv-04480-CRC Document 49 Filed 05/29/26 Page 2 of 4 3 (c) withdraw any trademark application officially referring to the Kennedy Center as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” or any similar formulation; and (d) file with the Court a sworn declaration from a responsible official of the Kennedy Center certifying compliance with this order.
Should the administration comply, that would mean that the center would not bear the president’s name on 14 June, when he is staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn on his 80th birthday.
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After White House Situation Room meeting ends, still no word on whether Trump has approved deal with Iran
It has now been five hours since Donald Trump announced on his social media platform that he was entering a meeting in the White House Situation Room “to make a final determination” on whether or not to an interim deal with Iran to extend a ceasefire and reopen the strait of Hormuz.
That two-hour meeting apparently ended some time ago, a senior administration official told the Associated Press, and there is still no word from Trump nor any of his aides as to whether he approved the memorandum of understanding that would pause the conflict and open talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
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Here's a recap of the news today:
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Trump says he’s meeting in the Situation Room to ‘make a final determination’ on potential Iran deal. President Trump gave hints about the terms of the proposed US peace deal with Iran, in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, before saying that he was heading into a meeting with White House staff to decide how to move forward.
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Louisiana lawmakers pass new map eliminating majority-Black district. The Louisiana senate voted 28-10 to approve a new congressional map ahead of the midterms that has dismantled a majority-Black district.
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US judge temporarily halts Trump’s $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization fund’. US district judge Leonie Brinkema of the eastern district of Virginia put a halt on the fund, preventing the administration from “taking any further action” to organize the fund while Brinkema hears legal arguments.
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Former attorney-general Pam Bondi faces closed-door questioning from House committee over Epstein files. Bondi’s appearance came as the justice department has faced criticism in recent months over its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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Musical acts back out of performing at Trump-affiliated concert series. At least seven of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary have dropped out, within 48 hours of the lineup being announced.
As construction crews continue to build the structure that will house the UFC cage fight on White House grounds on 14 June, the Pentagon is making efforts to recruit hundreds of troops to make up the audience for the fight, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
Those who attend will have to fund their own travel to Washington DC, meet the Pentagon’s height and weight requirements and attend in uniform, according to the Post’s sources and internal memos they reviewed.
The Pentagon is specifically seeking junior enlisted personnel and junior officers – those who receive the military’s lowest pay grades – and it’s required that the attenders be “genuine UFC fans”.
“This will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman told the Post.
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Utah releases state voter roll audit amid Trump administration lawsuit
Utah released the results of a year-long audit of the state’s voter rolls, finding that the vast majority of its voters are verifiably US citizens, amid an escalating legal battle with the Trump administration over access to voter registration data.
The audit, launched in April 2025, found that 99.72% of Utah’s registered voters are confirmed US citizens. Of the more than 2 million voter records reviewed, 27 individuals were identified as non-citizens and removed from the rolls. Only 13 of those individuals had ever cast a ballot. The review, released on Wednesday by Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s office, also flagged 25 probable non-citizens, who have been given 30 days to provide proof of citizenship or face removal from the voter rolls.
The Trump administration has made supposed election integrity a central priority, following Trump’s long-running false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him. The administration has pursued voter registration information from a wide raft of states, even at times resorting to lawsuits. But states already regularly monitor and maintain their own voter rolls. In Utah, Henderson’s office noted in a letter to the justice department that county clerks removed more than 109,000 registrations from the rolls between 2022 and 2024 alone, including voters who had died, moved out of state, registered elsewhere, or failed to vote in two consecutive general elections.
While Trump announced he is heading to the Situation Room to make the final determination on the peace deal with Iran, Iranian officials signaled defiance.
Those close to the government denied that a deal had been reached. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that no final understanding had been reached between Iran and the US and that Trump’s post was “in line with his usual pattern of making unilateral and egotistical statements”.
The foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told state media: “Regarding the understanding, as I said while speaking to you, exchanges of messages are continuing, but no final agreement has been reached yet.”
Tasnim reported that there had been no discussion about the nuclear issue, and that Trump’s reports of lifting the US’s own blockade in the strait of Hormuz should be met with “scepticism”.
Iran’s Fars news agency said Trump had published a “mixture of truth and lies” about the terms of an agreement, which did not include provisions for the opening of the strait of Hormuz without fees, or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear material.
You can read more about it here:
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Louisiana lawmakers pass new map eliminating majority-Black district
The Louisiana senate voted 28-10 to approve a new congressional map ahead of the midterms that has dismantled a majority-Black district in the state.
The approval of the map makes Louisiana the second southern state to carve out a district that Republicans have a higher chance of winning, since the supreme court weakened the Voting Rights Act in April.
Louisiana’s senate voted almost entirely along party lines and Republican Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign the map into law. Earlier, Landry pushed to delay the House primary elections, scheduled for 16 May, so that the legislature could draw the new map.
Rescheduled primaries will now be held on 3 November.
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Construction is under way on the White House lawn for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) arena that will host a cage match next month to mark the US’s 250th anniversary and Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, US senator and secretary of state, shared a photo of the construction as well as of the demolished East Wing on X Friday and said:
“This is what Trump’s done to the people’s house: A third of it is rubble. Another third is a cage match. What a metaphor.”
Photos of cranes and other construction equipment on the White House lawn on Tuesday showed the beginnings of the temporary construction. Trump has said that the finished project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House”.
Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like. The octagon-shaped cage will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.
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Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar met with his US counterpart Marco Rubio in Washington today, as Trump signaled he was making a “final determination” on a potential agreement with Iran.
“The secretary thanked the minister for the constructive role Pakistan continues to play in realizing President Trump’s vision for peace in the Middle East and its mediation efforts with Iran,” the US state department spokesman, Tommy Pigott, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, sources have told the Iranian state news agency Fars that Trump’s latest comments are a “mixture of truth and lies” and an attempt to portray a “fake victory”.
The sources added that it has “become clear to almost everyone” that his claims are invalid.
“Trump claimed that Iran was obligated to open the strait of Hormuz without tolls, even though no such clause appears in the text of the agreement,” the agency reported.
And on Trump’s assertion that Washington and Tehran would coordinate on destroying Iran’s enriched uranium, it added: “Well-informed sources emphasised that not only does this not appear in the memorandum of understanding, but this claim is fundamentally baseless.”
According to the Fars report, Trump also didn’t mention key clauses relating to the release of frozen Iranian assets and the inclusion of Lebanon – where Israel continues to intensify its attacks and expand its partial occupation – in any deal to end fighting.
Pam Bondi testifies before House panel over Epstein files release
The former attorney general Pam Bondi is testifying before the US House oversight and reform committee this morning to answer questions about the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its release of the Epstein files under her leadership.
In Bondi’s prepared opening statement, obtained by the Guardian, she defended the department’s record under her leadership, saying: “We demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to transparency in the department’s search for, collection and review of the Epstein files.
“This was an enormously complicated and labor-intensive process,” Bondi said in her remarks. “To the best of my knowledge, the department produced everything required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
“As the head of a large department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself,” she added, saying that she “delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche”.
“The team of professionals who reviewed all of the materials that we collected assured me the only materials that were withheld were either nonresponsive, privileged or duplicative,” she said.
During her opening statement, Bondi admitted that “there were redaction errors” but said that “since day one of this process, this department has been committed to accountability and transparency”.
You can read more about her opening statement here:
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Trump says he's meeting in the Situation Room to 'make a final determination' on potential Iran deal
President Trump gave hints about the terms of the proposed US peace deal with Iran, in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, before saying that he was heading into a meeting with White House staff to decide how to move forward.
He said that Iran should agree to never having a nuclear weapon or bomb, the strait of Hormuz should be opened immediately without tolls, all remaining water mines should be detonated by Iran, the US should take over the “nuclear dust” or the enriched uranium buried under Iran’s collapsed nuclear complexes and no money will be exchanged until further notice, outlined Trump.
He went on:
Other items, of far less importance, have been agreed to. I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination.
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Growing Republican mistrust in the healthcare system has widened health disparities between liberals and conservatives, who are more likely to avoid vaccines and the medical system in general, according to a new study.
Neil O’Brian, a political science professor at the University of Carolina, Chapel Hill and one of the authors of the study published in Nature Human Behaviour, said that his team saw two phases to the phenomenon.
“Part one is this gap starts to emerge in the 2010s, and it seems like it’s a byproduct of education polarization,” O’Brian explained, “Folks without a college degree move to the right. Folks with a college degree move to the left. That happens for a variety of reasons. Education is a pretty strong predictor of health.”
The second phase began during the Covid-19 pandemic, when social determinants of health, including education, could no longer explain the expanding gap in health outcomes.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor, said he won’t be marching in this year’s Israel Day Parade, during a news conference Thursday.
“I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government clear,” Mamdani said, adding that ample security measures will be in place. He said:
As the mayor of our city, I take seriously the responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of every New Yorker at every event, regardless of my attendance.
The parade, scheduled Sunday 31 May at noon, can be viewed from various access points on Madison Avenue. Organizers have said the “safety of our community is paramount” and thanked the NYPD for keeping their celebration safe, on their website.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch who stood by Mamdani at the news conference said she would be at the march to oversee the security but also to participate.
“We are not messing around with security at this year’s parade,” she said. “This Sunday, New Yorkers will see the most extensive security plan that the NYPD has ever put together.”
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US judge temporarily halts Trump's $1.8bn 'anti-weaponization fund'
A US judge has blocked president Donald Trump’s administration from moving forward with his proposed $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund”, Reuters reported on Friday.
US district judge Leonie Brinkema of the eastern district of Virginia put a halt on the fund, preventing the administration from “taking any further action” to organize the fund while Brinkema hears legal arguments.
The fund is meant to compensate victims of government “weaponization”, Trump has said. It was created as part of an agreement to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, after his tax records were leaked.
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Musical acts back out of performing at Trump-affiliated concert series
At least seven of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary have dropped out, within 48 hours of the lineup being announced.
Bret Michaels on Friday had become the latest name to withdraw, citing a deteriorating atmosphere around the event and threats being made.
“Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of,” the frontman of the band Poison said in a statement on social media. He added that his decision was “not about politics”.
“Concerns have also been raised regarding the safety of my fans, band, crew, family and myself, including threats that are completely unfounded and unforgivable. Because of that, I have made the difficult decision to step away from this performance,” he added.
During this week Morris Day, Young MC, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory, Martina McBride and Milli Vanilli all either dropped out or expressed surprise that they had ever been booked.
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On Friday morning, Trump took to Truth Social to post about Jill Biden, the former first lady. He said she was finally admitting that she didn’t know what was wrong with former president Joe Biden when he performed poorly during a June 2024 presidential debate.
She said that she thought he was having a “stroke,” and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do. The only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse. In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple “choke,” leading to his ignominious defeat.
Trump’s post comes after a 30-second clip of the former first lady’s interview of CBS was released Wednesday. In it, she said:
I was frightened, because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never … As I watched it, I thought: ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke … And it scared me to death.
The interview will be aired two days before Jill Biden’s View from the East Wing, a memoir about her time in the White House, including an account of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and his decision to withdraw, is released.
Vice-president JD Vance said Washington and Tehran are close to agreeing a deal to extend their ceasefire in the Middle East war, but the potential breakthrough still hangs on president Donald Trump’s approval.
Trump remained notably silent into Friday morning, despite US sources telling AFP a deal just needed his sign-off, underscoring the volatility of talks three months after the war rattled the Middle East and the global economy.
“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president is going to sign the MOU,” Vance told reporters on Thursday. “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points. We’ve made a lot of progress here.”
The justice department’s inquiry into E Jean Carroll is part of an investigation into an entity backed by the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, according to people familiar with the matter.
A source familiar with the investigation told the Guardian that Carroll is not the subject of the investigation, but said that it was related to Carroll and her deposition, and is more focused on Hoffman’s non-profit. The non-profit, American Future Republic, helped fund a lawsuit in which Carroll won $5m in damages in 2023 against Donald Trump based on allegations Trump sexually assaulted and defamed her. Carroll won a second, $83.3m defamation award against the president in 2024. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
The justice department investigation is being led by Andrew Boutros, the US attorney for the northern district of Illinois, where the non-profit is based.
A second person familiar with the matter said the Hoffman-entity investigation involves potential money-laundering conspiracy and obstruction.
The Department of Justice declined to comment. On Thursday evening, Boutros posted on X: “In light of wide-spread reporting and intense media and public interest into the E Jean Carroll matter in New York, the Chicago US Attorney’s Office can confirm that it has not opened – and has never opened – a criminal investigation into E Jean Carroll. Any claim to the contrary is categorically false.”
The White House is pushing Congress to approve a $250 bill bearing Donald Trump’s portrait, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said, which would require changing longstanding federal law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency.
Speaking from the White House at a news conference, Bessent said the bill would be in celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, and that the treasury has already started preparing for the possibility of the new currency.
“As treasury secretary, I have two mandates for US currency at present: that no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say ‘In God we trust’,” Bessent said. “So, right now, there is proposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate, to change the first requirement, so that a living person – Donald J Trump – could be on the $250 bill.”
The Washington Post reported that two of Trump’s political appointees at the treasury had pushed staff to start preparing prototypes of a $250 bill with Trump’s image, raising concerns that doing so would breach federal law.
But Bessent said the treasury would “stick to the law” and that “it’s all up to Capitol Hill”.
The artist responsible for the prototypes is a Briton named Iain Alexander, who described himself online as a royal portrait artist, sculptor and a former Olympic squad swimmer, according to the Post.
Meanwhile, the South Carolina state Senate vote on redistricting has failed, with some senators saying it was simply too late to change district lines.
Longtime representative Jim Clyburn condemned a White House-led effort he said had been aimed at “zeroing Democratic voters, zeroing African American voters out of the process.”
“I know the state, and I am embarrassed that so many people in our legislature will allow strangers in Washington to tell them what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” Clyburn said as he cast his vote in Orangeburg on Tuesday.
It is part of the Republican strategy to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterms.
Republicans have moved quickly to try to leverage a recent Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.
Louisiana House approves congressional redistricting to benefit Republicans
Republicans in Louisiana are poised to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that elected a Democrat in response to a recent US Supreme Court ruling that its map constituted an illegal racial gerrymander.
A redistricting plan passed on Thursday by the state House would give Republicans a chance at picking up an additional seat in this year’s midterm elections, AP reports.
It also would protect House speaker Mike Johnson from facing a more difficult reelection. The plan needs only a final Senate vote, which could come on Friday, to go to Republican governor Jeff Landry.
“We drew this map in an effort to safely maximize Republican strength,” said state representative Beau Beaullieu, a Republican who chairs the chamber’s redistricting committee.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in late April, several other Southern states already have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.
Bondi to face closed-door questioning from House committee over Epstein files
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Former attorney-general Pam Bondi is testifying before the US House oversight and reform committee, a long-awaited appearance that brings fresh scrutiny of the administration’s release of the Epstein files.
The committee announced in late April that Bondi would be appearing before the panel as part of its investigation, shortly after Democrats on the committee filed a civil contempt resolution against her.
Bondi’s appearance comes as the justice department has faced criticism in recent months over its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, after the department failed to meet the act’s 19 December deadline to release the relevant files, instead releasing what it claimed were the full files on 31 January.
Bondi was bullish in previous public testimony when confronted by lawmakers and it is unclear whether she will bring the same approach today. The session will be held behind closed doors.
The transcribed interview will give lawmakers a chance to dig for information on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and other related matters, including the prison sentence of his former girlfriend and confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I think she absolutely could clear up many missing pieces if she wanted to,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “Now it’s a question of whether or not she is willing to be transparent.”
Survivors of Epstein’s abuse have also raised concerns that sensitive personal information was improperly disclosed in the files, while several lawmakers have also criticized some of the redactions in the documents. The department has maintained that it acted in accordance with the law.
In other developments:
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A jury in Spokane, Washington found an Afghanistan War veteran and two others guilty of federal conspiracy charges on Thursday for their part in a protest last June outside the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.
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New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, said that state health inspectors were denied full access to the privately run Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, where detainees are staging a hunger and labor strike over health and sanitary conditions, and protesters rallying outside have been tased, pepper-sprayed and detained.
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At least six of the nine featured musical acts recruited to play on the National Mall in Washington DC this summer, in a concert series planned by the Trump administration to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, have dropped out of the concert series, just one day after the lineup was announced.
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US vice-president JD Vance on Thursday told reporters that Washington was “not there yet” with Iran but he said the parties were close, adding that the US was in a position where it could substantially set back Tehran’s nuclear program. Earlier, Iran’s Tasnim news agency, citing a source close to the negotiating team, said the text of a potential memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two countries had not yet been finalised or confirmed.
