Closing summary
This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. We will be back at it on Tuesday morning, but in the meantime, here are the latest developments:
Ghislaine Maxwell asked the supreme court to overturn her conviction for taking part in and facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, arguing that a non-prosecution agreement with the late sex offender struck by federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008 should have barred any of his co-conspirators from prosecution as well.
Donald Trump said that he did indeed bar Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club for “inappropriate” behavior. But the president explained that what was inappropriate was not, as his aides have suggested, doing something lewd or illegal, but hiring away staff from the club.
An Israeli settler who was sanctioned by Joe Biden as a violent extremist, but removed from the sanctions list by Trump, was arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday after the fatal shooting of a Palestinian activist. The Palestinian man who was killed was denied entry to the United States last month when he arrived in San Francisco for a series of planned talks sponsored by faith groups, including a progressive Jewish synagogue.
The US justice department filed a misconduct complaint against a federal judge who has clashed with the administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador over private comments first reported by a far-right publication.
Justice department files complaint against federal judge who suggested Trump might ignore courts
The US justice department filed a misconduct complaint on Monday against the federal judge who has clashed with Donald Trump’s administration over deportations to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, wrote on social media that she had directed the filing of the complaint against US district judge James Boasberg “for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.”
The complaint stems from remarks Boasberg reportedly made in March to the supreme court’s chief justice, John Roberts, and other federal judges saying the administration might trigger a constitutional crisis by disregarding federal court rulings, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.
According to the far-right publication The Federalist, the comments attributed to Boasberg were included in a memorandum written by another judge to summarize what was said at a private breakfast meeting of about 30 judges and the chief justice.
The comments “have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary”, the complaint says, adding that the administration has “always complied with all court orders”. Boasberg is among several judges who have questioned whether the administration has complied with their orders.
The meeting took place days before Boasberg issued an order blocking deportation flights that Trump was carrying out by invoking wartime authorities from an 18th century law.
The judge’s verbal order to turn around planes that were on the way to El Salvador was ignored. Boasberg has since found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court.
Trump says Epstein's 'inappropriate' behavior was hiring staff away from Mar-a-Lago
In recent weeks, the White House has repeatedly dismissed questions about Donald Trump’s long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein by telling reporters that the future president broke with the notorious sex offender and banned him from Mar-a-Lago around 2004 for doing something “inappropriate”.
“Trump expelled Epstein from the Mar-a-Lago club for inappropriate behavior”, White House communications director Steven Cheung said last week.
The clear implication has been that, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put it, Epstein had been barred from the club, “for being creep”.
This version of Trump’s breach with Epstein tracks with what a member of the club told Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter, in 2020. According to Blaskey, who co-wrote a book about Mar-a-Lago, a club member told her, in what appears to have been a second-hand account, that Trump “kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member. The way this person described it, such an act could irreparably harm the Trump brand, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein”.
Blaskey’s book, however, points to evidence that Epstein remained on the membership rolls of Mar-a-Lago until October 2007, more than a year after he was first arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution from a minor.
On Monday, however, when a reporter in Scotland asked Trump to say exactly why “you threw him out of Mar-a-Lago”, the president offered a different explanation the behavior he found so distasteful.
“For years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein”, Trump said, “because he did something that was inappropriate”.
As Leavitt looked on, the president, unprompted, went on to explain what the late sex offender had done that was inappropriate. “He hired help, and I said ‘Don’t ever do that again’. He stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again’. He did it again and I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out and that was it”.
Trump went on to repeat his false claim that Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s island, “supposedly 28 times.” There is no evidence that Clinton ever visited Epstein’s island, Little St. James, and a spokesperson for the former president said in 2019 that he was never there.
Court records show that Epstein did indeed hire at least one staff member away from Mar-a-Lago. In 2000, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s companion, met a 16-year-old spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, Virginia Giuffre, and offered her a job as a masseuse for Epstein.
Giuffre, who died in April, was one of Epstein’s accusers, said later that when Maxwell brought her to massage Epstein, he was naked, beginning a period during which she said she was abused by a series of the financier’s friends, including, she claimed, Prince Andrew.
Updated
Israeli settler removed from US sanctions list by Trump arrested after fatal shooting of Palestinian in West Bank
An Israeli settler who was sanctioned by Joe Biden as a violent extremist, but removed from the sanctions list by Donald Trump, was arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday after the fatal shooting of a Palestinian activist.
The settler, Yinon Levi, was recorded on video firing his gun during an attack on Palestinians in the village of Umm al-Khair, in Masafer Yatta, which was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
Basel Adra, the Palestinian co-director of the documentary, reported that Awdah Hathaleen, a local activist and journalist who helped make the film, was shot and killed. “My dear friend Awdah was slaughtered this evening” Adra wrote. “He was standing in front of the community center in his village when a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life. This is how Israel erases us – one life at a time.”
Yuval Abraham, the Israeli co-director of the film about the Israeli efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta, shared video of the settler shooting during the attack on the village.
An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025
Last month, Awdah Hathaleen and his cousin, Eid al-Hathaleen, an artist and community leader, were denied entry to the United States at San Francisco International Airport, after their visas were revoked on arrival for a series of planned talks sponsored by faith groups.
San Francisco supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who protested the decision to revoke the visas of the two men and deport them, wrote on Monday:
Just a few weeks ago, Awdah attempted to come to San Francisco to build bridges between cultures — to share a message of peace. He had come to raise summer camp funds to help give Palestinian children experiencing the unthinkable a semblance of a childhood back home. Instead, he was denied entry at SFO. We raised awareness for his mission, attempting to welcome him, but he was sent back. Now we’ve learned he has been murdered.
This is an absolute tragedy, and must be condemned. Sadly, it is just one more example of the human toll brought on by the Israeli government’s occupation of Palestine. We must call it what it is: a genocide of an entire population. For Adwah and many like him, I am calling for this killing of innocent civilians to come to end, and for peace to be promoted once more.
Trump removed the sanctions imposed by Biden on Levi, and more than a dozen other extremist settlers and organizations that terrorize Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on his first day in office in January.
Awdah Hathaleen also documented the campaign of forced expulsions and demolitions for the Israeli-Palestinian magazine +972. Last week, in a report headlined In Umm al-Khair, the occupation is damning us to multigenerational trauma, he wrote:
The demolition forces enter the village. All the children run to their mothers, who scramble to salvage whatever they can from their homes before it’s too late. Everyone watches on anxiously to see who will be made homeless today. The bulldozers gather in the center of the village and then stop. Soldiers disembark. The villagers look each other in the eye, searching for words of comfort, but there are none. Our children ask us why this is happening, but we have no answers.
This was the scene on June 26 in my village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank, when Israeli forces demolished 11 homes, leaving families without shelter in the heat of summer. The demolitions were just the beginning of what became one of the most violent weeks in the history of our small agricultural community: we have since faced a sharp escalation in settler violence, with subsequent attacks seeing settlers shoot live ammunition in the village and destroy our water system during a severe heat wave. …
In the afternoon of July 1, five days after the demolitions, a group of settlers from the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Shorashim entered our village where a group of elderly women were feeding their sheep. They came into the home of my mother, the village elder Hajja Khadra al-Hathaleen, demanding that she make them coffee. When the women told the settlers to leave, one of them began shooting live fire into the air, beating the women with sticks, and spraying pepper spray in their eyes.
In a panic, we called for the police and army to come, not knowing how else to protect our families from the settlers. But when the army arrived, instead of making the settlers leave our land, they started to shout at the village residents and push us out of our homes. In total, six residents were wounded by the settlers: four women, a 5-year-old girl, and a 17-year-old boy. We called ambulances to take the wounded to the hospital, but when they reached the village, the settlers blocked the road, delaying the injured from getting urgent medical treatment.
Updated
Trump administration reportedly blocks Taiwan’s president from travel to US, after Chinese request
As US and Chinese trade negotiators meet in Stockholm on Monday, the Financial Times reports that the Trump administration “has denied permission for Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te to stop in New York en route to Central America, after China raised objections with Washington about the visit”.
Lai had planned to transit the US in August en route to Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize, the newspaper reports, until “the US told Lai he could not visit New York on the way, according to three people familiar with the decision.”
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng met in Stockholm on Monday for more than five hours of talks and are expected to meet again on Tuesday to defuse the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies
Taiwan’s supporters in Washington are concerned that Trump might be willing to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in trade talks and to pave the way for a summit with China’s president, Xi Jinping.
China, which considers Taiwan part of its nation, has called Lai a “separatist” and “parasite”.
China staged large military exercises surrounding the island after then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in 2022.
Updated
European officials say trade deal with US is a bad one
There was widespread discontent across Europe on Monday at the terms of the framework agreement on trade between the European Union and the United States, announced on Sunday by Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
The prime minister of France, François Bayrou, called the agreement for 15% tariffs on European goods imported to the US, “a dark day” for Europe, arguing that the “alliance of free peoples, united to affirm their values and defend their interests”, had opted for “submission”.
Even those who welcomed the deal, like the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who said that it avoided “needless escalation in transatlantic trade relations”, suggested it was a bad deal. Merz said on Monday that while “more simply wasn’t achievable” in the talks, the tariffs would do “significant” damage to the German economy.
Rasmus Jarlov, a conservative member of Denmark’s parliament, and a former minister of business, was scathing. “An illiterate bully and a weak European negotiator walk in to a negotiation room and agree on humiliating Europe and harming its industries with openly unfair trading terms” the Dane wrote on social media. “Only way to make sense of it is that our “ally” has threatened us on security. Must liberate ourselves.”
“The EU played a bad hand about as well as it could have,” Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator now with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute told Bloomberg News. “The EU sees value in healthy, robust and open North Atlantic trade relations; President Trump does not. That simple dynamic put the EU behind the eight ball throughout the negotiations.”
Updated
The day so far
In a rare break with Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the devastated Palestinian territory. During a visit to Scotland, the US president contradicted the Israeli prime minister, who claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing starvation in Gaza. Trump is under growing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinian people having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory. The US president told reporters that Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis”. Here is our report.
Trump also criticised Hamas for not releasing the remaining hostages and said they were “very difficult to deal with”, while suggesting he had asked the Israeli government to change its approach. “I told Israel, I told Bibi, that you have to now maybe do it a different way,” he said.
Trump also announced that he would cut his deadline for Vladimir Putin to move on Ukraine from 50 days to “10 or 12” saying: “There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.” His final decision on the exact deadline is expected to be made “tonight or tomorrow,” the US president said. Trump went further, adding that he was “not so interested” in talking to the Russian president any more, after being disappointed by the outcome of their previous talks. Our report is here.
Away from foreign affairs, Trump couldn’t escape questions about Jeffrey Epstein, even from across the pond. Asked about his denials that his name appears in the Epstein files and whether the attorney general would have to tell him if it did, Trump claimed (unbelievably) that he hadn’t been “overly interested” in the whole affair and, as usual, blamed the Democrats.
Asked if he would consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and Epstein’s close confidante, a pardon, Trump said: “Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.”
He also told reporters that he “never had the privilege” of visiting Epstein’s island, saying he turned down an invitation from the convicted sex offender in what the president called a moment of good judgment. “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,” Trump told reporters in Scotland. “In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”
He also revealed the reason for his falling out with Epstein, telling reporters in Scotland: “For years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. He did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He stole people that worked for me and I said ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ And he did it again and I threw him out of the place … and that was it. I’m glad I did.”
Trump also today asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein. Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm the president’s reputation. In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump told Murdoch before the WSJ’s article was published that the birthday letter to Epstein referenced in the story was fake, and Murdoch told Trump he would “take care of it”. “Murdoch’s direct involvement further underscores Defendants’ actual malice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, referring to the legal standard Trump must clear to prevail in his lawsuit. His lawyers asked US district judge Darrin Gayles in Miami to compel Murdoch, 94, to testify within 15 days. Gayles ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August.
Ghislaine Maxwell urged the supreme court to take up her pending appeal and overturn her conviction, claiming that she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution. “This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief. Maxwell has serving a 20-year in federal prison since 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls. She has recently had meetings with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche for interviews amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case. Those talks were not mentioned in the latest supreme court filing.
Speaking of those meetings, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, Dick Durbin, and senator Sheldon Whitehouse today called for the release of the transcripts and recordings of the Department of Justice’s meetings last week with Maxwell.
And in another headache for the Department of Justice, it is facing a federal lawsuit for refusing to release a legal memorandum that reportedly cleared the way for Trump’s acceptance of a $400m luxury jet from Qatar’s government. The Freedom of the Press Foundation, represented by the watchdog group American Oversight, filed the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit in Washington DC’s federal district court after the justice department failed to produce the document despite granting expedited processing more than two months ago. The president’s “deal to take a $400m luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny – not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice”, American Oversight’s executive director, Chioma Chukwu, said in a press release. “This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose.” Here’s our story.
Elsewhere, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and ordered that it keep getting Medicaid funds. The judge ruled that Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
Trump asks for swift deposition of Murdoch in Epstein defamation case
Earlier today, Donald Trump asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump promptly sued the Journal, its owners, including Murdoch, and the reporters who wrote the story, on 18 July over the story, which said Trump’s letter included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged birthday greeting “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm the president’s reputation. In a court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers said Trump told Murdoch before the article was published that the letter referenced in the story was fake, and Murdoch told Trump he would “take care of it”.
“Murdoch’s direct involvement further underscores Defendants’ actual malice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, referring to the legal standard Trump must clear to prevail in his lawsuit.
His lawyers asked US district judge Darrin Gayles in Miami to compel Murdoch, 94, to testify within 15 days. Gayles ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August.
Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, declined to comment. Dow Jones has said the Journal stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the lawsuit. Neither Dow Jones owner News Corp nor a spokesperson for Murdoch immediately responded to requests for comment.
The article was published amid growing criticism from Trump’s conservative supporters and congressional Democrats over the administration’s decision not to release additional documents from the justice department’s investigation into Epstein.
Trump and Epstein were friends for years before what Trump has called a falling out.
Legal experts say the president faces a high bar in proving the Journal defamed him, let alone collecting the $10bn in damages he is seeking. The “actual malice” standard means Trump must prove not only that the article was false, but also that the Journal knew or should have known it was false.
Updated
Trump says he turned down invitation to visit Epstein's island
Donald Trump has said he “never had the privilege” of visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island, saying he turned down an invitation from the convicted sex offender in what the president called a moment of good judgment.
Trump’s remarks were his latest effort to distance himself from the political furore over his administration’s mishandling of files related to Epstein’s case and renewed questions over his past relationship with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.
“I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,” Trump told reporters in Scotland. “In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”
Epstein owned a private island in the US Virgin Islands where he entertained prominent people from politics, business and entertainment. Prosecutors have alleged he used the compound to conceal the sex trafficking and abuse of underage victims.
Trump, who socialized with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, also offered new insight into why their relationship ended. The president said he cut ties after Epstein attempted to recruit staff who worked for Trump.
“He hired help. And I said: ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He stole people that work for me,” Trump said. “He did it again. And I threw him out of the place persona non grata.”
Last week, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump had cut ties with Epstein because he regarded him as a “creep”.
The White House has been under growing pressure from Trump’s supporters and political opponents to release more information about the justice department’s investigation into Epstein.
After attorney general Pam Bondi earlier this year promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients and the circumstances surrounding his death, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and no evidence of a client list.
Those findings sparked an angry outcry from some of Trump’s supporters who have long believed the government was covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful – theories which Trump and his allies have long fuelled.
Trump’s efforts to deflect attention from the case have so far faltered. On Monday, the president again called the story “a hoax”.
“It’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion,” Trump claimed once again.
Trump flew with Epstein aboard his plane at least six times, according to logs for flights spanning from 1991 through 2005. None of those trips were to Epstein’s private island.
Trump has denied ever being on the plane and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Updated
Democrats call for DoJ to release recordings of Ghislaine Maxwell meetings
The top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, Dick Durbin, and senator Sheldon Whitehouse have called for the release of the transcripts and recordings of the Department of Justice’s meetings last week with Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Trump administration is trying to look like it’s doing something amid unrelenting bipartisan uproar over its mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, while Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes, is seeking to have her conviction overturned.
In a letter to deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, who met with Maxwell on 24 and 25 July, the senators said:
It seems likely this meeting is another tactic to distract from DOJ’s failure to fulfill Attorney General [Pam] Bondi’s commitment that the American people would see ‘the full Epstein files,’ especially in light of credible reports that FBI officials were told to ‘flag’ any Epstein files in which President Trump was mentioned and that Attorney General Bondi told the President that his name appeared in the files …
Given her documented record of lying and her desire to secure early release, there are serious concerns that Ms. Maxwell may provide false information or selectively withhold information, in return for a pardon or sentence commutation; indeed, President Trump noted to reporters on Friday that he is ‘allowed to’ pardon Ms. Maxwell, and Ms. Maxwell’s defense attorney said, ‘We hope he exercises that power.’ Your false claim that the meeting is the ‘first time’ DOJ has reached out to Ms. Maxwell also raises questions about the Trump Administration’s motives.
The Senators further pushed for the justice department to provide full transparency to Epstein and Maxwell’s victims and survivors with respect to any decisions it makes regarding Maxwell’s appeal to the supreme court; and demanded that the justice department would not offer a pardon or commutation of sentence to her in exchange for information or advocate for a pardon or commutation of sentence on her behalf to the White House in exchange for her cooperation.
The letter goes on:
Rather than engaging in this elaborate ruse, DOJ should simply release the Epstein files, as Attorney General Bondi promised to do.
Updated
On Monday afternoon, about 100 protesters gathered in Balmedie, the closest village to Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course, waving Palestinian flags and chanting:
You are not welcome here.
Kay Collin, a retired modern studies teacher, said she had made the trip from Edinburgh because “watching what is happening in Gaza, if it was happening to my grandchildren I would hope other people would stand up for them”.
While many people cited the starvation crisis in Gaza as the most urgent reason for their protest, Trump’s policies on immigration, transgender rights and cuts to international aid, and there were placards and chants accusing him of misogyny and bullying behaviour.
Jenna Harpin, a mother of four from Portsoy, said she was “disgusted” at how much money was being spent by the Scottish and UK governments on hosting Trump’s visit, especially as a time when local councils were making cuts to vital services.
The protesters marched through the village as the police presence swelled in anticipation of Trump’s arrival. Local access had been significantly restricted with lines of police officers blocking off the beach and snipers spotted on the dunes.
Updated
Ghislaine Maxwell urges supreme court to overturn her conviction
Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and close confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, has urged the supreme court to take up her pending appeal and overturn her conviction, claiming that she was covered by an agreement Epstein made with federal authorities that shielded her from prosecution, Axios is reporting.
“This case is about what the government promised, not what Epstein did,” Maxwell’s attorneys told the justices in a new brief.
Maxwell has serving a 20-year in federal prison since 2022 for carrying out a years-long scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls.
She has recently had meetings with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche for interviews amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case.
Those talks were not mentioned in the latest supreme court filing.
“President Trump built his legacy in part on the power of a deal – and surely he would agree that when the United States gives its word, it must stand by it,” Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement. “We are appealing not only to the supreme court but to the president himself to recognize how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted.”
Asked earlier today if he would consider giving Maxwell a pardon, Donald Trump said:
Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.
He has previously not ruled it out, asserting that he has the power and authority to issue one.
Updated
Trump acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza and tells Israel to let in ‘every ounce of food’
Donald Trump told Israel to allow “every ounce of food” into Gaza as he acknowledged for the first time that there is “real starvation” in the region.
During a visit to Scotland, the US president contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu after the Israeli prime minister claimed it was a “bold-faced lie” to say Israel was causing hunger in Gaza.
Trump is under growing pressure to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, with dozens of Palestinian people having died of hunger in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by the UN and other humanitarian organisations to Israel’s blockade of almost all aid into the territory.
Starmer privately pressed Trump on Gaza during the trip, government sources said.
The US president told reporters that Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis in a rebuke to Netanyahu, who claimed earlier on Monday that there was “no starvation in Gaza”.
Asked whether he agreed with this assessment, Trump said:
I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.
He later added:
We can save a lot of people, I mean some of those kids, that’s real starvation, I see it and you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more involved.
Asked what he would ask Netanyahu for next time they spoke, Trump said:
We’re giving money and we’re giving food, but we’re over here … I want him to make sure they get the food. I want to make sure they get the food, every ounce of food.
Trump criticised Hamas for not releasing the remaining hostages and said they were “very difficult to deal with”, while suggesting he had asked the Israeli government to change its approach. “I told Israel, I told Bibi, that you have to now maybe do it a different way,” he said.
Israel announced over the weekend that it would suspend fighting in three areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery, while the UK confirmed it was working with Jordan to carry out airdrops into the territory.
Starmer is due to convene an emergency cabinet meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza this week. Ministers will be presented with a peace plan which the UK is working up alongside France and Germany.
The prime minister is under pressure from senior cabinet ministers and more than 220 MPs to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, after Emmanuel Macron announced that France would do so at the UN general assembly in September. Trump dismissed the idea on Monday but suggested he had no objection to the UK or other allies doing so.
Trump also said the US and its allies would set up “walk-in” food centres without barriers in the region, though he gave little detail about how these would operate.
Updated
DoJ sued for withholding legal memo on Trump administration’s $400m jet gifted by Qatar
The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit against the Department of Justice failing to release a legal memorandum that reportedly justified the Trump administration’s acceptance of a $400m jet gifted by the Qatar government.
CBS News reported today that preparations were under way to refit the jet to be used as Air Force One, with floor plans or schematics having been seen by senior US officials. The renovation is set to cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
The Trump administration’s decision to accept the jet as a gift from the Qatari royal family has been heavily criticised, and raises serious legal, ethical and constitutional concerns.
The May 2025 memorandum, reportedly signed by attorney general Pam Bondi, who previously lobbied on behalf of the Qatari government, purportedly concluded that the Trump administration’s acceptance of the jet was legally permissible. The administration accepted the jet just days later.
The circumstances surrounding the jet deal, including reports that the transaction may have been initiated by the Trump administration and that it followed a lucrative Trump private business arrangement in Qatar, have only heightened calls for transparency.
“President Trump’s deal to take a $400m luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny – not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, which is representing FPF in its litigation.
This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose. The DoJ cannot sit on its hands and expect the American people to wait years for the truth while serious questions about corruption, self-dealing, and foreign influence go unanswered.
Updated
JD Vance is in his home state today to continue promoting the GOP’s sweeping tax-and-border bill. He’s in Canton, Ohio, to talk about the bill’s “benefits for hard-working American families and businesses”, according to his office. The visit marks Vance’s second trip this month to sell Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill as he becomes its chief promoter on the road.
In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, this month, Vance told attendees at an industrial machine shop that they should be able to keep more of their pay in their pockets. The White House sees the new law as a clear political boon, sending Vance to promote it in swing congressional districts.
Updated
Talks between Canada and the US on a trade deal are at an intense phase, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney told reporters on Monday, reiterating that an agreement without any tariffs at all was unlikely.
The two sides are working towards an agreement by 1 August, the date Trump is threatening to impose a 35% tariff on some Canadian imports.
“The negotiations are at an intense phase. It’s a complex negotiation … we will only sign a deal that’s the right deal,” Carney said. “There is a landing zone that’s possible, but we have to get there, and we’ll see what happens,” he told a televised press conference in the Atlantic province of Prince Edward Island.
The US struck a framework trade agreement with the European Union on Sunday, imposing a 15% import tariff on most EU goods.
“It’s improbable that there will be deals without any tariffs at all,” he said when asked whether Canada would escape being hit. “But there is a question about the level, there are questions about the size of tariffs.”
Updated
Planned Parenthood leaders welcome court ruling
Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said in a statement:
“We’re encouraged by today’s ruling, which protects access to care for Medicaid patients in Massachusetts while this case moves forward. At a time when reproductive health care access is under constant attack, this decision is a powerful reminder that patients, not politics, should guide health care. In Massachusetts and beyond, we will keep fighting to ensure everyone can turn to the provider they trust, no matter their insurance or ZIP code.”
Shireen Ghorbani, interim president of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, also released a statement:
“We are grateful that now all Planned Parenthood patients with Medicaid can come to their local health centers for the high-quality, essential care they need. Generations have relied on Planned Parenthood as experts in sexual and reproductive health care and as a welcoming and trusted provider in their communities. We will continue this fight in the courts to protect our patients’ freedom to get the care they need.”
Updated
The judge’s ruling on Planned Parenthood replaces a previous edict handed down by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston last week. Talwani initially granted a preliminary injunction specifically blocking the government from cutting Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood members that didn’t provide abortion care or didn’t meet a threshold of at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.
“Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” Talwani wrote in the order today. “In particular, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.”
Judge blocks effort to defund Planned Parenthood and says it must continue to get Medicaid funds
A judge has blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and orders that it keep getting Medicaid funds.
A federal judge ruled today that Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
Planned Parenthood had sued the Trump administration earlier this month over the provision in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.
“The true design of the Defund Provision is simply to express disapproval of, attack, and punish Planned Parenthood, which plays a particularly prominent role in the public debate over abortion,” Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit.
Updated
Donald Trump has asked a US judge to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its 17 July article about Trump’s relationship with the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reports Reuters.
Updated
Dropped cases against LA protesters reveal false claims from federal agents
US immigration officers made false and misleading statements in their reports about several Los Angeles protesters they arrested during the massive demonstrations that rocked the city in June, according to federal law enforcement files obtained by the Guardian.
The officers’ testimony was cited in at least five cases filed by the US Department of Justice amid the unrest. The justice department has charged at least 26 people with “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers and other crimes during the protests over immigration raids. Prosecutors, however, have since been forced to dismiss at least eight of those felonies, many of them which relied on officers’ inaccurate reports, court records show.
The justice department has also dismissed at least three felony assault cases it brought against Angelenos accused of interfering with arrests during recent immigration raids, the documents show.
The rapid felony dismissals are a major embarrassment for the Trump-appointed US attorney for southern California, Bill Essayli, and appeared to be the result of an unusual series of missteps by the justice department, former federal prosecutors said.
The Guardian’s review of records found:
Out of nine “assault” and “impeding” felony cases the justice department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges.
In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video.
One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester.
One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government’s most high-profile cases.
Trump claims he hasn't been 'overly interested' in furor about his links to Jeffrey Epstein
Asked about his denials that his name appears in the Epstein files and whether the attorney general would have to tell him if it did, Donald Trump said he hadn’t been “overly interested” in the whole affair and, as usual, blamed the Democrats.
I haven’t been overly interested.
You know, it’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth … The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files.
He suggested that his enemies could have put material in the files that was fake, and added that if the Democrats had had damaging material to use against him, they would have used it before the election.
Referring to the Wall Street Journal’s report that he drew a picture of a nude woman as part of a lewd birthday letter for Jeffrey Epstein when they were close friends, Trump said:
I don’t do drawings. I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings. Sometimes you would say, would you draw a building? And I’ll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for a charity stuff. But I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings of women, that I can tell you.
He also claimed his poll ratings had increased by 4.5 points since this “ridiculous Epstein stuff” has been in the news “because people don’t buy it”. (He is of course ignoring the fact that much of the criticism and pressure has come from his own furious support base and even the likes of House speaker Mike Johnson have called for the release of the files).
Updated
Trump claims nobody has approached him about giving Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon
Asked if he would consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon, Donald Trump said:
Nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.
Talking and negotiation 'most sensible' option for securing hostages in Gaza, says Trump
Asked what the “various plans” are that he earlier referred to for securing the remaining hostages, which he said he had been discussing with Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump said “there are a couple of alternatives, some of them are very strong”.
“The most sensible alternative is talking and negotiation,” he said.
He then added that talking would be more difficult now as there weren’t as many hostages left because Hamas had been using them as a shield.
I said … the number’s going to be at a point where you’re not going to be able to get them back, unless you’re going to be very energetic, or to put it a different way, unless you’re going to be very ruthless, violent.
Updated
Donald Trump continues his criticism of Fed chair Jerome Powell, saying, “a smart person would cut [interest rates]”.
“You know he leaves very soon,” he added of Powell. “I’ll miss him greatly.” (Powell’s tenure as chair is due to end in May 2026, the president has mused many times about wanting him gone before that.)
Updated
'He's got to make a deal,' Trump tells Putin as he threatens to use secondary tariffs on Russia
Asked if he thought Vladimir Putin had lied to him about his commitment to a ceasefire in Ukraine, Donald Trump said he wouldn’t say “lie” but there were times when they had had a good talk, and he thought Putin might agree to a ceasefire, but then nothing happened. He said this had happened too often, and he didn’t like it.
Well, I don’t want to use the word lying. [But] it seemed on, let’s say three occasions, [we were close to] a ceasefire and maybe peace, and you divide it up and you do whatever you have to do, obviously, to get to the end. And all of a sudden missiles are flying into Kyiv and other places. And I say, what’s that all about? You know this has happened on too many occasions, I don’t like it.
He then repeated his threat of sanctions and secondary tariffs on Russia “unless we make a deal”, even as he says “I don’t want to do that to Russia, I love the Russian people, great people”. He said of Putin:
He’s got to make a deal. Too many people are dying.
Asked again about his new 10-12 days deadline, he said he would confirm the exact timing “tonight or tomorrow”.
There is no reason to wait. If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait?
Asked if he felt Putin respected him personally, Trump said he’d “always got along with president Putin” and “had a great relationship with him”, even if he was “tough” on him.
I thought we’d be able to negotiate something. Maybe that’ll still happen, but it’s very late down the process. I’m disappointed.
He then said that Russia had “massive” land is “could be so rich” and “thriving like practically no other country,” but “instead they spend all of their money on war and killing people”.
He added:
I’m not so interested in talking any more.
Updated
Trump says the US will set up 'food centres' in Gaza
Trump said the US will set up “food centres” in Gaza, without elaborating on what this would actually mean in practice. He did acknowledge that starvation across the territory is real. Addressing the media alongside Keir Starmer in Scotland, the US president said:
We’re going to set up food centres and we’re going to do it in conjunction with some very good people and supply funds and we just took in trillions of dollars.
We’ve got a lot of money and we’re going to spend a little money on some food and other nations are joining us, I know your nation’s joining us, and we have all of the European nations joining us.
Trump has described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “terrible” and has blamed Hamas for the “mess” in the territory and for the failed ceasefire talks.
But he rarely openly criticises his close ally, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose war he fuels by providing him with money and sheltering Israel on the diplomatic stage.
He said earlier that he was speaking to Netanyahu about getting back the remaining hostages, and said they are talking about “various plans”.
Earlier, when he was saying much the same on the doorstep with Starmer, he said:
I told Bibi that you’re going to have to now maybe do it a different way.
Updated
Starmer says UK's Online Safety Act will not censor Trump's Truth Social social media company
Asked if he’s worried the UK’s Online Safety Act is going to censor Truth Social, Trump jokes that he does not think that is likely.
Starmer says the act is not about censoring sites. He says the UK is committed to free speech. But children should be protected from things like suicide sites.
Trump says Congress passed similar legislation, supported by his wife. He goes on:
I cannot imagine him censoring Truth Social … I only say good things about him and his country.
Updated
Trump gives Russia '10 or 12' days to move on Ukraine as 'no progress made'
Donald Trump said his new deadline for Russia over its war in Ukraine would be “about 10 or 12 days from today”.
“I’m going to make a new deadline, of about 10, 10 or 12 days from day. There’s no reason in waiting. It was 50 days, I wanted to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”
Updated
Trump claims he has stopped six wars around world
Donald Trump just claimed he’s stopped six wars. “I’m averaging about a war a month,” he boasted.
He refers to India and Pakistan, and Congo and Rwanda, but it’t not clear what the other wars he supposedly ended are.
The British prime minister Keir Starmer and Donald Trump are speaking again now at Turnberry golf course.
You can follow along live below.
Further to my previous post, Donald Trump the number one priority in Gaza was getting people fed, because “you have a lot of starving people”, adding that he was not going to take a position on Palestinian statehood at the moment.
Speaking alongside British prime minister Keir Starmer at his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, said the United States had provided $60m for humanitarian aid, and other nations would have to step up.
He said he discussed the issue with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen yesterday, and she told him European countries would step up their assistance very substantially. He said he also planned to discuss the humanitarian situation with Starmer during today’s visit.
Trump said he would not comment on a push by French president Emmanuel Macron to back Palestinian statehood.
Trump also criticized the Hamas militant group for not agreeing to release more hostages, living and dead, and said he had told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s approach would probably have to change.
“I told Bibi that you have to maybe do it a different way,” Trump said, echoing similar comments made on Sunday.
Asked if a ceasefire was still possible, Trump said: “Yeah, a ceasefire is possible, but you have to get it, you have to end it.” He did not elaborate on what he meant.
Updated
Donald Trump also said he was reducing the 50-day deadline he gave Russia over its war in Ukraine, saying he was disappointed in Vladimir Putin.
“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” he said. “I’m going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number.” He did not give a new deadline.
Donald Trump has said that the European Union is going to send more aid to help Gaza and that he plans to ask British prime minister Keir Starmer to help.
Trump, speaking alongside Starmer in Scotland, also said he had told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his fight in Gaza against Hamas would have to be different after talks on a ceasefire and hostage release fell apart last week.
The United States is still working on aspects of its EU trade deal, including steel and digital services taxes, even as it meets with China this week to push talks forward and continues negotiations with India, the US trade representative said on Monday.
“There are certainly areas to keep working on in different sectors,” Jamieson Greer told CNBC in an interview, referring to the US-EU framework announced over the weekend.
On China, he said: “I don’t expect some kind of enormous breakthrough today. What I expect is continued monitoring and checking in on the implementation of our agreement thus far.”
Updated
Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on US president Donald Trump in a televised speech on Monday to exert all efforts to end the war in Gaza and to allow entry of aid to the enclave.
“He is capable of stopping the war”, Sisi said.
The Scottish first minister has said he will seek to ensure president Donald Trump knows the “strength of feeling” in Scotland over the humanitarian situation in Gaza when they meet.
John Swinney said president Trump is “best placed” to put pressure on the Israeli government. They are due to have a meeting tomorrow when president Trump opens his new golf course in Aberdeenshire, and the first minister’s team has not denied reports they will have dinner on Monday.
Speaking to the PA news agency, the First Minister said: “I want to use the opportunity of president Trump’s visit in Scotland to pursue some of the domestic and international concerns of the people of Scotland.”
Relief for US tariffs on Scotch whisky would be one of the key issues, he said.
Swinney said people had been “horrified” by events in Gaza, adding: “We need to take action to secure a ceasefire in the Middle East.
“We need to take action to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground for the people of Gaza and the individual who is perhaps best placed to apply that pressure to the Israeli government is president Trump.
“And I want to ensure that president Trump appreciates the strength of feeling in Scotland that that should be the case.”
US immigration officers made false and misleading statements in their reports about several Los Angeles protesters they arrested during the massive demonstrations that rocked the city in June, according to federal law enforcement files obtained by the Guardian.
The officers’ testimony was cited in at least five cases filed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) amid the unrest. The DoJ has charged at least 26 people with “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers and other crimes during the protests over immigration raids. Prosecutors, however, have since been forced to dismiss at least eight of those felonies, many of them which relied on officers’ inaccurate reports, court records show.
The DoJ has also dismissed at least three felony assault cases it brought against Angelenos accused of interfering with arrests during recent immigration raids, the documents show.
The rapid felony dismissals are a major embarrassment for the Trump-appointed US attorney for southern California, Bill Essayli, and appeared to be the result of an unusual series of missteps by the DoJ, former federal prosecutors said.
US senators from both major parties plan to introduce bills this week targeting China over its treatment of minority groups, dissidents and Taiwan, emphasizing security and human rights as president Donald Trump focuses on trade with Beijing.
The three bills, seen by Reuters ahead of their introduction, have Democratic and Republican sponsors, a departure from the fierce partisanship dividing Washington.
Trump’s push to reach economic agreements between the world’s two biggest economies has strong support in Congress, especially from his fellow Republicans, but has prompted some China hawks to worry that the US government is de-emphasizing security issues.
“It does appear that President Trump is keen to negotiate some kind of deal with China, and gaps are opening between his approach to China and the approaches of some members of his team, as well as with Congress, which overall has been quite hawkish on China,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The desire for a hard line on China is one of the few truly bipartisan sentiments in the perennially divided Congress, even as many lawmakers support Trump’s efforts to rebalance the bilateral trade relationship.
“The United States cannot afford to be weak in the face of the People’s Republic of China and its aggression around the world,” said Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a lead sponsor of all three bills.
Australia won’t receive Aukus nuclear submarines unless US doubles shipbuilding, admiral warns
The US cannot sell any Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia without doubling its production rate, because it is making too few for its own defence, the navy’s nominee for chief of operations has told Congress.
There are “no magic beans” to boosting the US’s sclerotic shipbuilding capacity, Admiral Daryl Caudle said in frank evidence before a Senate committee.
The US’s submarine fleet numbers are a quarter below their target, US government figures show, and the country is producing boats at just over half the rate it needs to service its own defence requirements.
Testifying before the Senate Committee on Armed Services as part of his confirmation process to serve as the next chief of naval operations, Caudle lauded Royal Australian Navy sailors as “incredible submariners”, but said the US would not be able to sell them any boats – as committed under the Aukus pact – without a “100% improvement” on shipbuilding rates.
The US Navy estimates it needs to be building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of 2.00 a year to meet its own defence requirements, and about 2.33 to have enough boats to sell any to Australia. It is currently building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of about 1.13 a year, senior admirals say.
The national congress of Palau has said it “cannot accept” a United States proposal for the Pacific Islands nation to accept asylum seekers from third countries, as its president holds annual funding talks in Washington.
Palau’s national congress wrote to president Surangel Whipps Jr earlier this month urging him to reject the request by the Trump administration.
A letter signed by Senate president Hokkon Boules and House of Delegates speaker Gibson Kanai, viewed by Reuters, said the congress strongly supports Palau’s partnership with the United States, but “cannot accept this specific proposal”.
Palau, with a population of 17,000, has a compact of free association with the United States providing economic assistance in return for allowing the US military access to its territory.
“We advise against proceeding further on this matter only because of the practical issues that the introduction of refugees would raise in our society,” said the letter, dated 21 July.
Top US and Chinese economic officials will begin the latest round of trade negotiations in Stockholm on Monday afternoon local time at the Rosenbad government office, a source familiar with the planning of the talks said.
Discussions are continuing regarding any tariff exemptions for the wines and spirits sectors in the framework trade deal between the European Union and United States, a senior European Commission official said on Monday.
The official added that talks in this regard were more advanced in the spirits sector, as opposed to the wines sector.
Trump and Starmer to meet in Scotland with trade deal on the agenda
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that president Donald Trump will host the British prime minister Keir Starmer at his golf resort in western Scotland on Monday for talks ranging from their recent bilateral trade deal to the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza, the two governments said.
Trump, riding high after announcing a huge trade agreement with the European Union late on Sunday, said he expected Starmer would also be pleased, Reuters reported.
“The prime minister of the UK, while he’s not involved in this, will be very happy because you know, there’s a certain unity that’s been brought there, too,” Trump said. “He’s going to be very happy to see what we did.”
Starmer had hoped to negotiate a drop in U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs as part of the talks, but Trump on Sunday ruled out any changes in the 50% steel and aluminium duties for the EU, and has said the trade deal with Britain is “concluded”
British business and trade minister Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC the talks with Trump offered Britain a good chance to advance its arguments, but he did not expect announcements on the issue on Monday.
Trump and Starmer were expected to meet at 12pm BST (7am ET) at Trump’s luxury golf resort in Turnberry, on Scotland’s west coast, before travelling on together later to a second sprawling estate owned by Trump in the east, near Aberdeen, where he is due to arrive at 5.25pm.
Hundreds of police officers were guarding the perimeter of the Turnberry course and the beach that flanks it, with a helicopter hovering overhead, although there was no sign of protesters outside the course.
Starmer was arriving from Switzerland, where England on Sunday won the women’s European football championship final.
In other developments:
Donald Trump has announced a tariff deal with the European Union to end months of difficult negotiations between Washington and Brussels after meeting the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. “This is really the biggest trading partnership in the world so we should give it a shot,” the president said before the private meeting started.
US House speaker Mike Johnson said he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie said a pardon should be on the table for the jailed Epstein confidante if she were to give helpful information around the Epstein case.
A top US medical body has expressed “deep concern” to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures, including cancer screenings, should be covered by insurance companies. The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US preventive services task force because he regards it as too “woke”, according to sources.
Thai and Cambodian leaders will meet on Monday for talks to end hostilities, Thailand said, after pressure from Donald Trump to end a deadly border dispute.
