Closing summary
We are wrapping up our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but will be back at it on Wednesday. In the meantime, here are the latest developments:
Donald Trump said he “signed” a trade deal with Japan to set tariffs on Japanese imports to the US at 15%. Details are scarce, but Reuters reports that the rate does apply to imported cars, which has angered US automakers because cars made in the US with parts from Canada and Mexico are currently subject to a 25% tariff.
A spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Trump’s “bizarre allegations” that Obama had committed treason in 2016 as “ridiculous”.
It is unclear whether New Jersey has one top prosecutor, or two, or none, after a panel of federal judges voted to replace Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba, whose 120-day term as interim US attorney expires this week, with her deputy, Desiree Grace, before attorney general Pam Bondi responded by removing Grace.
Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Senator Elizabeth Warren said Donald Trump’s claim that he expects to receive $20m in free advertising, public service announcements or similar programming from the new owners of CBS “reeks of corruption”.
Amid calls for Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to testify to Congress, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, plans to meet her in federal prison.
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Trump urges Republican lawmakers to campaign on his lie that gasoline is $1.99 a gallon
In his remarks to Republican lawmakers at the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump urged them to campaign for re-election in the midterms on his wildly false claim that the price of gasoline is down to $1.99 a gallon.
“We hit $1.99 a gallon today in five different states,” Trump said to cheers and applause from the assembled congressional Republicans.
In fact, Patrick De Haan, who tracks prices for GasBuddy, reports that not a single state has prices below $2. The national average for a gallon of gas on Tuesday, $3.14, was down sharply from a year ago, when it was $3.51, but up slightly from $3.12 six months ago when Trump took office.
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Trump claims he struck a trade deal with Japan
Speaking to a gathering of congressional Republicans at the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump claimed that he “just signed the largest trade deal in history, I think maybe the largest deal in history, with Japan”.
“That was done with Japan, they had their top people here,” Trump added without divulging more details.
Japan’s top tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa was in Washington for his eighth round of talks. Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported Akazawa met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
Earlier, Trump had sketched out what he described as the terms of a deal on his social media platform Truth Social that appeared to be more about investment than trade. “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States, which will receive 90% of the Profits,” Trump wrote. “This deal will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs”.
According to Trump, Japan agreed to “open their country to trade, including cars and trucks and rice”, all of which it already imports, and imports from Japan to the US will be subject to a 15% tariff, or import tax. Trump did not explain whether that rate will also apply to imports of Japanese cars, which are currently subject to a 25% tariff he imposed.
Five sources told Reuters later that the deal lowers tariffs on cars imported to the US from Japan to 15%.
Japan currently protects domestic production of rice by charging a tariff of about $2.38/kg on imports after a tax-free quota.
Japanese auto firms already make millions of cars in the US each year, at two dozen manufacturing plants that employ more than 100,000 workers.
Imports of American-made cars to Japan are relatively small in number, but that is thought to have more to do with the preferences of Japanese drivers for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars made domestically .
There was no immediate statement confirming the deal from the Japanese government, and news outlets in Japan simply quoted Trump’s Truth Social post.
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Democrat explains why she voted to rename Kennedy Center venue 'First Lady Melania Trump Opera House'
The representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington Democrat who represents a part of the state that voted for Donald Trump in the past three presidential elections, explained on Tuesday that she voted against a Republican funding bill for the interior department “because it wasn’t a good enough deal for Southwest Washington”.
“It slashes funding by more than half for clean water initiatives in our state and reduces resources for the agencies that maintain our public lands, monitor seismic activity, and run timber sales rural communities rely on,” Gluesenkamp Perez wrote on her X social media account after the bill passed the House appropriations committee.
But the moderate Democrat who has made her willingness to break with her party a selling point in her conservative district, also felt the need to explain why she first voted for one amendment to the bill that deeply annoyed many Democrats.
The amendment, which was introduced by Republicans, conditioned funding for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on one part of the complex in the nation’s capital being renamed the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House”.
Gluesenkamp Perez, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, who owns an auto body shop with her husband, pointed to other provisions of the amendment that she thought were more important than what the opera house on the opposite side of the country from her district is named.
“I also voted for an amendment that would address timber staffing challenges in Washington and strengthen our military readiness”, she wrote. “Rebuilding rural economies matters way more to me than the amendment also renaming an opera house 2,800 miles away.”
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Bondi goes to war with federal judges in New Jersey over removal of Alina Habba as US attorney
It was unclear on Tuesday whether New Jersey currently has one top prosecutor, or two, or none, after a panel of federal judges first voted to replace Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba, whose 120-day term as interim US attorney expires this week, with her deputy, Desiree Grace, and Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, then responded by denouncing the judges and removing Grace from her position as deputy.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey’s interim US attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the district court agreed to keep her in place. The US Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, which was submitted by Trump this month.
After the judges voted not to keep Habba in place, chief judge Renée Marie Bumb, who was nominated by George W Bush in 2006, issued an order on Tuesday appointing Grace as US attorney for the district of New Jersey. The order noted that Grace’s appointment would begin either on Tuesday or later in the week, given some uncertainty about when Habba’s 120-day term began.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, also a former defense lawyer for Trump, accused the panel of judges, led by a Republican appointee, of pursuing “a left-wing agenda” by replacing Habba, who had no prior experience as a prosecutor, with Grace, a career prosecutor.
Bondi echoed Blanche’s claim in a social media post in which she wrote that Habba had been the victim of “politically minded judges”.
In response, Bondi wrote, Grace “has just been removed” from her position as Habba’s deputy.
“This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges – especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” the attorney general added.
Habba’s prior legal experience included unsuccessfully defending Trump in civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming the writer E Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s.
The lawyer soon became an outspoken political surrogate for Trump, however, defending him, and attacking Democrats, in a series of television appearances, particularly on Fox and other partisan, pro-Trump outlets.
New Jersey’s two Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, strongly opposed Habba’s nomination and successfully blocked it. Habba has used her time in office to pursue a series of nakedly partisan arrests, including of Newark’s mayor Ras Baraka and the representative LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who was charged with assaulting federal agents during an oversight visit to an immigrant detention center in Newark where Baraka was detained.
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The Senate voted 50-48 on Tuesday to proceed to debate on the nomination of Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, to fill a vacancy as a judge on a federal appeals court. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to join all of the chamber’s Democratic senators in voting against Bove.
There has been speculation that Trump wants his former lawyer, who is just 44, to be in place for possible consideration for a spot on the supreme court if either Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas retires soon.
After Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to dismiss corruption charges against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, in return for his cooperation in immigration enforcement.
Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, refused and wrote to Bove that the mayor’s lawyers had “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed”.
Sassoon also wrote that Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes at the meeting with the mayor’s legal team and ordered that the notes be confiscated.
As our colleague Chris Stein reported, Bove’s nomination for the lifetime position has faced strident opposition from Democrats, after Erez Reuveni, a former justice department official who was fired from his post, alleged that during Bove’s time at the justice department, he had told lawyers that they “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order” blocking efforts to remove immigrants to El Salvador. In testimony before the committee last month, Bove denied the accusation, and Reuveni later provided text messages that supported his claim.
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Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The chamber was scheduled be in session through Thursday before the annual five-week summer recess, but on Tuesday, the Republican majority announced that the last votes of the week would take place the following day. Democrats in turn accused the GOP of leaving town rather than dealing with the outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficker.
“They are actually ending this week early because they’re afraid to cast votes on the Jeffrey Epstein issue,” said Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus.
Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House had already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case’s documents.
“We’re going to have committee meetings through Thursday, and there’s still a lot of work being done,” said the majority leader, Steve Scalise. “The heavy work is done in committee and there is a lot of work being done this week before we head out.” He declined to answer a question about whether votes were cut short over the Epstein files.
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Warren says Trump's claim that new owners of CBS agreed to give him $20m in free ads 'reeks of corruption'
Senator Elizabeth Warren said Donald Trump’s claim that he expects to receive $20m in free advertising, public service announcements or similar programming from the new owners of CBS, “reeks of corruption”.
Warren was responding to Trump’s boast that he would be paid $20m by the new owners of the network in addition to the $16m from the current owners he received on Tuesday to drop his lawsuit claiming that he had been damaged by the routine editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year.
On Monday Warren, and fellow senators Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden, wrote to David Ellison, whose company Skydance needs federal approval to buy CBS owner Paramount, to ask if he struck any “secret side deal” with Trump, or had played any part in the decision to cancel Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s late-night CBS show.
After Trump claimed that he did make a deal with Ellison’s company before federal approval was granted, Warren asked Skydance to confirm the news in a social media post of her own.
“CBS canceled Late Night with Stephen Colbert—a show they called ‘a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist’—just three days after Colbert called out Paramount for its $16 million settlement with Trump”, Warren wrote in a second post. “Was his show canceled for political reasons? Americans deserve to know.”
Later on Tuesday, Congressman Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, responded to Trump’s boast about the $20m he expects from the network’s new owner with the comment: “He’s bragging about taking bribes… In broad daylight.”
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Obama spokesperson dismisses 'bizarre allegations' from Trump and Gabbard as 'ridiculous'
In a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday, a spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump’s “ridiculous” accusation that Obama had committed “treason” in 2016, by directing his administration to reveal, after the 2016 election, that the Russian government had attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.
Here is the full statement from Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush:
Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.
The statement came after Trump claimed on Tuesday that documents reviewed by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, prove that Obama was “guilty”.
But Gabbard’s accusation is based on the false claim that Obama and officials in his administration had suppressed “intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure”.
Obama and his administration never made that claim. Instead they made the case that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election through a social-media influence campaign and by hacking and releasing, via Wikileaks, email from Democratic officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That conclusion was borne out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and by a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate intelligence committee whose members included then senator Marco Rubio.
Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Trump deflected a question about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, calling the uproar over Epstein “sort of a witch hunt”. He then added the baseless claim that, in 2020, Obama and those around him also “tried to rig the election, and they got caught”.
“The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold”, Trump added.
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The day so far
Despite the best efforts of Donald Trump and his allies to change the subject, the Jeffrey Epstein firestorm – which Trump today derided as “a witch hunt” – just won’t die. This morning, the justice department announced it hopes to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to find out if she has “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims” of Epstein. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said he anticipated meeting with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and other crimes, “in the coming days”. “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case,” David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, wrote on X, inspiring suggestions that Maxwell will seek for a pardon or commutation of her sentence from Trump.
But the New York federal court handling the Epstein and Maxwell case said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury testimony, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions. The justice department did not submit to the court the Epstein-related grand jury transcripts it wants to unseal, the judge said, and requested that the justice department submit the transcripts by next Tuesday under seal, so that the court can decide on the request to unseal them. The government had also not “adequately” addressed the “factors” that district courts weigh in considering applications for disclosure, including “why disclosure is being sought in the particular case” and “what specific information is being sought for disclosure”, the judge wrote.
And despite the GOP’s valiant attempts to blame this all on the Democrats, there is ever more proof in the congressional pudding that this is very much a bipartisan issue (let’s not forget, it was Trump’s Maga base that kicked this all off). The embattled House speaker Mike Johnson (who is among those Republicans who have actually called for the evidence to be released) shut down operation of the chamber a day early, scrapping Thursday’s scheduled votes after the party lost control of the floor over bipartisan pressure to vote on releasing Epstein-related files. That means there won’t be any more floor votes until lawmakers return from summer recess in September.
The House Oversight Committee also voted to subpoena Maxwell for testimony after recess.
Trump announced that a 19% tariff would be imposed on goods imported to the US from the Philippines following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.
The New York Times defended the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.
NPR’s editor-in-chief, Edith Chapin, has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year. It comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.
A US appeals court declined to lift restrictions imposed by Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
The state department claimed one of the reasons for the US’s withdrawal from Unesco was the organization’s decision to admit Palestine as a member state, which was “contrary to US policy and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization” [a charge the Trump administration frequently directs at the United Nations at large]. The state department also said that remaining in Unesco was not in the national interest, accusing it of having “a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy”. Trump pulled the US out of Unesco during his first term too.
Elon Musk may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.
Trump said he had received from CBS parent company Paramount $16m as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.
A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.
• This post was amended on 23 July 2025. An earlier version said the Philippines would pay the agreed 19% tariff. This has been corrected.
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NPR’s editor-in-chief to step down days after Congress cuts $1.1bn in funding
The editor-in-chief of the US public radio network NPR has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year.
Edith Chapin’s announcement comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Donald Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.
Chapin informed Katherine Maher, NPR’s chief executive, of her intention to step down before lawmakers approved the cuts but will stay on to help with the transition, according to what she told the outlet.
Chapin has been with NPR since 2012 after spending 25 years at CNN. She has been NPR’s top editor – along with chief content officer – since 2023.
In an interview with NPR’s media reporter, David Folkenflik, Chapin said she had informed Maher two weeks ago of her decision to leave.
“I have had two big executive jobs for two years and I want to take a break. I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company,” Chapin told NPR.
Nonetheless, Chapin’s departure is bound to be seen in the context of an aggressive push by the Trump administration to cut government support of public radio, including NPR and Voice of America.
Trump has described PBS and NPR as “radical left monsters” that have a bias against conservatives. In an executive order in May, the president called for the end of taxpayer subsidization of the organizations.
Trump later called on Congress to cancel public broadcaster funding over the next two years via a rescission, or cancellation, request. That was approved by both houses of Congress on Friday, taking back $1.1bn.
In an essay published by the Columbia Journalism Review on Tuesday, Guardian writer Hamilton Nolan said that while NPR and PBS will survive, “the existence of small broadcasters in rural, red-state news deserts is now endangered”.
SpaceX warns investors Elon Musk could return to US politics - report
Elon Musk, who infamously served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump before a very public – and very spectacular - bust-up with his former buddy, may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.
The company added that the language laying out such “risk factors” in paperwork sent to investors discussing a tender offer, according to Bloomberg. It is also believed to be the first time this language has appeared in these tender offers.
Earlier this month, Musk announced his decision to start to bankroll a new US political party – the “America” party – and suggested it could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.
The tech billionaire had previously stepped back from his role in Trump’s White House as he sought to salvage his battered reputation which was hurting his companies, including Tesla.
He then fell out with Trump over the president’s signature sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk slammed as “bankrupting” the country (the bill also repeals green energy tax credits that benefit the likes of Tesla).
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Trump says he received $16m payment after Paramount lawsuit settlement
Donald Trump said CBS parent company Paramount paid $16m on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.
Paramount earlier this month agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.
“We have just achieved a BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN in our Historic Lawsuit against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount... Paramount/CBS/60 Minutes have today paid $16 Million Dollars in settlement, and we also anticipate receiving $20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
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Judges vote to replace ex-Trump attorney Habba as interim US attorney of New Jersey
A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.
Habba has been serving as New Jersey’s interim US attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the court agreed to keep her in place. The US Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, submitted by Trump this month.
The court instead appointed the office’s number two attorney, Desiree Grace, the order said.
Last week, the US district court for the northern district of New York declined to keep Trump’s US attorney pick John Sarcone in place after his 120-day term neared expiration. Sarcone managed to stay in the office after the justice department found a workaround by naming him as “special attorney to the attorney general”, according to the New York Times.
Habba’s brief tenure as New Jersey’s interim US attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.
Her office brought criminal charges against US representative LaMonica McIver, as she and other members of Congress and Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, tried to visit an immigration detention center.
The scene grew chaotic after immigration agents tried to arrest Baraka for trespassing, and McIver’s elbows appeared to make brief contact with an immigration officer.
Habba’s office charged McIver with two counts of assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer. McIver has pleaded not guilty.
Habba’s office did not follow justice department rules which require prosecutors to seek permission from the Public Integrity Section before bringing criminal charges against a member of Congress for conduct related to their official duties.
Her office also charged Baraka, but later dropped the case, prompting a federal magistrate judge to criticize her office for its handling of the matter.
Until March, Habba had never worked as a prosecutor.
She represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found that Trump had sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1m for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump’s reputation in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
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Trump announces 19% tariff on goods from Philippines
Donald Trump has announced a 19% tariff rate on goods imported to the US from the Philippines following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.
“It was a beautiful visit, and we concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs [on US goods],” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos’s visit to the White House.
“The Philippines will pay a 19% Tariff. In addition, we will work together Militarily,” Trump wrote, referring to Marcos as “a very good, and tough, negotiator”. Contrary to what Trump wrote, the Philippines will not pay the tariff; it will be paid largely by US importers of Philippines goods.
• This post was amended on 23 July 2025. While Donald Trump said the Philippines would pay the 19% rate, tariffs are placed on goods imported to a country, so the rate will be paid largely by US importers of goods from the Philippines. This has been clarified.
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US appeals court won't lift limits on Associated Press access to White House
On this subject, a US appeals court has declined to lift restrictions imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America as he prefers.
The full US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit kept in place a 6 June decision by a divided three-judge panel that the administration could legally restrict access to the AP to news events in the Oval Office and other locations controlled by the White House including Air Force One.
The DC circuit order denied the AP’s request that it review the matter, setting up a possible appeal to the US supreme court.
In a lawsuit filed in February, the AP argued that the limitations on its access imposed by the administration violated the constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.
Trump in January signed an executive order officially directing federal agencies to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The AP sued after the White House restricted its access over its decision not to use “Gulf of America” in its news reports.
The AP stylebook states that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. AP said that as a global news agency it will refer to the body of water by its longstanding name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.
Reuters and the AP both issued statements denouncing the access restrictions, which put wire services in a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets. Other media customers, including local news outlets with no presence in Washington, rely on real-time reports by the wire services of presidential statements, as do global financial markets.
The Trump administration has said the president has absolute discretion over media access to the White House.
The AP won a key order in the trial court when US district judge Trevor McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, decided that if the White House opens its doors to some journalists it cannot exclude others based on their viewpoints, citing the First Amendment.
The DC circuit panel in its 2-1 ruling in June paused McFadden’s order. The two judges in the majority, Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, were appointed by Trump during his first term in office. The dissenting judge, Cornelia Pillard, is an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama.
‘Simple retribution’: NY Times defends WSJ after White House ban from press pool
Further to my last post, the New York Times is defending the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.
“The White House’s refusal to allow one of the nation’s leading news organizations to cover the highest office in the country is an attack on core constitutional principles underpinning free speech and a free press,” the spokesperson said.
“Americans regardless of party deserve to know and understand the actions of the president, and reporters play a vital role in advancing that public interest.”
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White House faces backlash after barring WSJ from Scotland trip press pool over Epstein story
The White House is facing backlash after banning the Wall Street Journal from the press pool set to cover Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to his golf courses in Scotland.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the change was made “due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct”, referring to the newspaper’s recent article alleging the US president sent Jeffrey Epstein a 50th birthday letter that included a drawing of a naked woman. The US president promptly sued the paper for $10bn. The WSJ has stood by its reporting.
“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” said Weijia Jiang, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, in a statement to the Guardian. She added:
Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media.
We strongly urge the White House to restore the Wall Street Journal to its previous position in the pool and aboard Air Force One for the President’s upcoming trip to Scotland. The WHCA stands ready to work with the administration to find a quick resolution.
Jiang said the administration had yet to clarify whether the ban was temporary, or if it was permanently barring Wall Street Journal reporters from the press pool.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement to CNN:
It’s unconstitutional — not to mention thin-skinned and vindictive — for a president to rescind access to punish a news outlet for publishing a story he tried to kill.
But hopefully the Journal reporters who were planning to join Trump for his golf trip are relieved that they can spend their newfound free time investigating more important stories, from Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein to his unprecedented efforts to bully the press.
It marks the second time the Trump administration has punitively barred a publication from the press pool in this way. Earlier this year the White House banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other exclusive access after the outlet declined to use Trump’s new moniker for the Gulf of Mexico. A decision for the administration to control the press pool came shortly after.
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Trump administration must submit more information in the Ghislaine Maxwell case, judge orders
The New York federal court handling the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell case said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury testimony, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions.
“The Court cannot rule on the motion without additional submissions,” the federal judge, Paul Engelmayer, wrote.
The justice department did not submit to the court the Epstein-related grand jury transcripts it wants to unseal, the judge said, and requested that the justice department submit the transcripts by next Tuesday under seal, so that the court can decide on the request to unseal them.
The government had also not “adequately” addressed the “factors” that district courts weigh in considering applications for disclosure, including “why disclosure is being sought in the particular case” and “what specific information is being sought for disclosure”, he wrote.
The government must file a memorandum of law no later than 29 July, the judge went on. He also ordered the government to submit under seal: an index of Maxwell grand jury transcript materials, a complete set of the transcripts, and a set with proposed redactions.
Engelmayer ordered Maxwell and the victims to file their positions on the proposed disclosure by 5 August.
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Trump once again pushed the false claim that the Biden administration and “his group of thugs” allowed 21 million immigrants into the US, following a question about the customs officer who was shot in New York over the weekend. Trump, without proof, said that many immigrants under the Biden administration came from “jails, gangs, drug dealers, mental institutions.”
Trump said that the Biden administration allowed the millions of immigrants into the US for two reasons: for electoral advantage and also because “they hate our country”.
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Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr said that the US is assisting the country in building up its defense system.
“This is an ongoing process and, again, I will stress the point because we feel it is necessary,” Marcos said.
Trump said that, during his first administration, the US went into the Philippines and helped “wipe out terrorists”.
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Trump said that former president Barack Obama led a “gang”, including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, FBI director James Comey, James Clapper and John Brennan, that orchestrated false allegations of Trump and Russia colluding.
This follows a release of documents by director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, alleging that the Obama administration led the groundwork to accuse Trump of colluding with Russia.
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Trump again echoed theories that Democrats, including former president Barack Obama, tried to “rig the election” from 2016 “up to” 2020. He claimed there should be “very severe consequences”.
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Trump lashes out at Powell again
Trump called Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell a “numbskull” during a meeting at the White House, saying he was refusing to cut interest rates “probably for political reasons”. Trump said that Powell did not cut interest rates enough.
“I think he’s done a bad job. But he’s going to be out pretty soon anyway, in eight months he’ll be out,” Trump said.
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Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr said that he was “very happy” to be meeting with Trump to “reaffirm the very strong ties between the Philippines and the United States.”
The United States is the Philippines’ only treaty partner, Marcos Jr said, emphasizing that the “strongest, closest” ally to the Philippines is the US.
Trump: 'very close' to finishing trade deal with Philippines
Trump said on Tuesday that the US and the Philippines are “very close” to finishing a trade deal.
“We do a lot of business with you,” Trump told the Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “I was surprised to see the kind of numbers – they’re very big and they’re going to get bigger under what we’re doing and what we’re proposing.”
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Trump said during a White House meeting that Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. comes from a “great family” with a “great family legacy.”
Marcos Jr’s father, Ferdinand Marcos, was a right-wing dictator in the Philippines, having ruled under martial law for a period during his two-decade presidency. His rule, violently targeting political dissidents, led to extreme poverty for much of the Philippine population. Marcos was overthrown in 1986.
Key takeaways from Mike Johnson's press conference
Keen to put on a show of Republican unity and blame the Democrats for the ongoing Epstein furore, which the Trump administration is very much struggling to contain, House speaker Mike Johnson sought to reaffirm Donald Trump’s commitment to “transparency” and securing the release of all “credible” evidence relating to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
“I believe in maximum transparency,” Johnson said, later adding:
The president himself has said that he wants maximum transparency and all credible evidence to be turned over to the American public, so that everyone can make their own decisions. We’re owed that.”
He attacked what he called the “Democrats’ endless efforts to politicize the Epstein controversy and the whole investigation”, accusing the opposition of a “charade” and playing “political games”, conveniently ignoring the fact that a lot of the heat on Trump’s administration is actually coming from his own party and support base.
Indeed, asked about Republican Thomas Massie and his discharge petition to release the Epstein files, Johnson accused him of “seeming to enjoy inflicting pain on [his] own teammates”. He went on:
I don’t understand Thomas Massie‘s motivation. I really don’t. I don’t know how his mind works ... Thomas Massie could have brought his discharge petition anytime over the last four and a half years.”
If there was any room left for interpretation about Johnson’s frustration with his colleague, he ended with that most southern expression of saltiness, saying of Massie: “Bless his heart.”
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Oversight committee votes to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell over Epstein files
The House oversight subcommittee has approved a motion to issue a subpoena for imprisoned Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to testify before Congress.
The motion was offered by Republican congressman Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, during a hearing of the subcommittee on government operations. According to Axios, Burchett said he did not consult Donald Trump, who has been trying to put the controversy to bed, beforehand.
Oversight committee chair, Republican congressman James Comer of Kentucky, directed Burchett to introduce the motion and will seek to subpoena Maxwell “as expeditiously as possible”, a committee spokesperson told Axios.
Comer told Axios he also did not speak with Trump or House speaker Mike Johnson about the matter.
The motion passed by a voice vote, with only four members – three Republicans and one Democrat – present.
Earlier this morning, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said he would will meet with Maxwell in the next several days.
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With the floor paralyzed over the Epstein crisis, House GOP leaders have canceled its scheduled Thursday votes.
The House’s last votes before August recess are now scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The House now won’t vote again until 2 September.
Johnson accuses the Democrats of playing “political games” and a “charade” over the Epstein case.
Johnson says 'credible evidence' will be revealed
“We have to make sure that the credible evidence is revealed and we’re doing that,” says Johnson.
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Johnson goes on:
The president himself has said that he wants maximum transparency and all credible evidence to be turned over to the American public, so that everyone can make their own decisions. We’re owed that.”
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He says there is a dual responsibility between wanting transparency and also protecting Epstein’s victims.
“We have to do both things at the same time,” Johnson says.
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“I believe in maximum transparency,” says Johnson.
Mike Johnson accuses Democrats of 'politicizing' Jeffrey Epstein investigation
House speaker Mike Johnson also chimes in on the “Democrats’ endless efforts to politicize the Epstein controversy and the whole investigation”.
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House majority leader Steve Scalise just repeated the Trump administration’s usual claims about the Democrats “covering up” the Epstein files and highlights efforts to get court documents unsealed (Donald Trump has asked US attorney general Pam Bondi to seek the release grand jury testimony related to the criminal prosecution).
“We’re going to continue pushing for that transparency,” Scalise says.
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House Republicans are busy during this press conference so far touting the Trump administration’s so-called successes on immigration and the sweeping tax and spending megabill, but they’re very much glossing over the fact that they “have lost control of the floor over their Jeffrey Epstein blow-up, and they’re struggling to chart a path out of the crisis”, per Politico.
“GOP leaders are talking with Trump administration officials, searching for ways to appease Republican members incensed over the lack of public information and speaker Mike Johnson’s handling of the matter broadly.”
Politico reports that according to House majority leader Steve Scalise, Republican leaders and others are now trying to “expedite” the administration’s release of information over the August recess – which seems to be a U-turn from Johnson’s stance yesterday that he would not allow votes on any measures relating to Epstein before Congress breaks for the summer.
“I think a lot of members are frustrated that for years, Democrats covered for Epstein. But ultimately, they also know that President Trump’s in court right now trying to unseal the documents, and for whatever reason, the courts have sealed a lot of those records,” Scalise told Politico.
“We hope they unseal those and show them to the public and we’re trying to get that expedited.”
Johnson also addressed the issue inside the conference meeting, Politico reports, citing people familiar with his private remarks: “He mostly reiterated what he’s been saying publicly, that President Donald Trump and the House GOP are pushing for ‘transparency’ but some caution is needed to protect the names of victims.”
“He pressed House Republicans to not let Democrats score political points on Epstein, appearing to suggest they should hold the line against any Epstein-related votes for now.”
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There is a feed at the top of the blog if you’d like to follow along this House GOP leadership press conference.
Coca-Cola says it will launch Coke with cane sugar in US after Trump post
Coca-Cola has laid out plans to launch a product made with US cane sugar this year, days after Donald Trump claimed the company had agreed to replace high-fructose corn syrup.
The announcement came on Tuesday in Coca-Cola’s earnings report. It confirmed a 16 July post on Trump’s Truth Social platform in which the president said Coca-Cola “agreed” to use “REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States”.
“This will be a very good move by them – You’ll see,” Trump’s post said. “It’s just better!”
The drink maker’s Mexican Coke is made with cane sugar and already sold in the US.
However, experts say that making drinks with cane sugar instead of corn syrup doesn’t make it healthier.
Eva Greenthal, senior policy scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, previously told CNN:
Excess consumption of sugar from any source harms health. To make the US food supply healthier, the Trump administration should focus on less sugar, not different sugar.
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Mike Johnson to hold press briefing
House speaker Mike Johnson and his GOP leadership colleagues are due to give a press conference at 10am ET amid ongoing internal party drama over the Epstein case. I’ll bring you any key lines here.
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US cites 'anti-Israel rhetoric' as a reason for quitting Unesco
The US state department claimed one of the reasons for the US’s withdrawal from Unesco was the organization’s decision to admit Palestine as a member state, which was “contrary to US policy and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization” [a charge the Trump administration frequently directs at the United Nations at large].
Israel welcomed the US decision to quit Unesco, Reuters reports.
Unesco officials said all relevant agency statements had been agreed with both the Israelis and the Palestinians over the past eight years.
“The reasons put forward by the United States to withdraw from the Organization are the same as seven years ago even though the situation has changed profoundly, political tensions have receded, and Unesco today constitutes a rare forum for consensus on concrete and action-oriented multilateralism,” Unesco chief Audrey Azoulay said.
“These claims also contradict the reality of Unesco’s efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism.”
Diplomats said it was felt at Unesco that the withdrawal was inevitable for political reasons, given that Joe Biden had brought the US back and had promised to repay arrears from the first time Donald Trump pulled out.
Unesco, whose full name is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is best known for designating World Heritage Sites, including 26 in the US, such as the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.
The US initially joined Unesco at its founding in 1945 but withdrew for the first time in 1984 in protest against alleged financial mismanagement and perceived anti-US bias, returning in 2003 under George W Bush, who said the agency had undertaken needed reforms.
You can follow our live coverage on Palestine here:
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Epstein crisis forces House GOP to scrap votes
House Republicans will scrap several votes this week as the internal party drama over Jeffrey Epstein derails a key committee that handles legislation on its way to the floor, Politico reports.
The House Rules Committee came to a standstill on Monday night as GOP leaders struggled to contain rank-and-file Republicans and their Democratic allies clamoring for a floor vote to compel the publication of materials related to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.
Committee Democrats had planned to force a vote that evening on legislation that would call for the release of the materials, as the panel worked to tee up floor consideration on a slate of unrelated bills.
But rather … work through the Democratic disruption, Republicans chose instead on Monday to recess the rest of the Rules meeting altogether, with House majority leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) saying it was “unlikely” that the panel would reconvene this week at all. Later, lawmakers said there were no plans to return at all.
That means House members will depart for August recess at the week’s end without being able to vote on legislation that would not otherwise be able to pass on the chamber floor with a simple majority vote.
“See you in September,” said Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). McGovern, in a statement, accused Republicans of making their own mess.
“Democrats on the Rules Committee gave Republicans a choice — either vote to release the Epstein Files, or keep them a secret. Republicans are so afraid of taking that vote that they are torching their own agenda instead of doing something they promised the voters they would do,” he said. “Trump and his top allies have been pushing this for years — and people aren’t going to forget about it in a month.”
Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus has told CNN:
I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully. We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.
Maxwell was convicted of federal sex trafficking charges in 2021, and she is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. She had been accused of procuring teenage girls for Epstein’s sexual abuse.
Trump pulls US out of Unesco for second time
Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the UN culture and education agency Unesco, repeating a move he had already ordered during his first term, which had been reversed under Joe Biden.
The withdrawal from the Paris-based agency, only two years after the US rejoined, will take effect on 31 December 2026.
“President Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from Unesco - which supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are totally out-of-step with the commonsense policies that Americans voted for in November,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
The state department said remaining in Unesco was not in the national interest, accusing it of having “a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy”.
Unesco chief Audrey Azoulay said she deeply regretted Trump’s decision, but that it was “expected, and Unesco has prepared for it”.
The agency had diversified its sources of funding, receiving only about 8% of its budget from Washington, she said.
Unesco was one of several international bodies Trump withdrew from during his first term, along with the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement global climate change accord and the UN Human Rights Council.
During his second term, he has largely reinstated those steps.
Unesco officials said the US withdrawal would have some limited impact on programs the United States was financing.
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Deputy attorney general planning to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell 'in coming days'
As the Republican party remains in a state of flux over the Jeffrey Epstein debacle and the Trump administration continues to desperately try to claw back the narrative on the issue, the justice department has asked Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell if she would be willing to speak with US prosecutors. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said that he intends to meet with Maxswell “in the coming days” with the aim of finding out if she has any “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims”.
He wrote on X:
Justice demands courage. For the first time, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislaine Maxwell to ask: what do you know? At @AGPamBondi ’s direction, I’ve contacted her counsel. I intend to meet with her soon. No one is above the law—and no lead is off-limits.
In a statement posted on X before that, Blanche said:
This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead. The joint statement by the DOJ and FBI of July 6 remains as accurate today as it was when it was written. Namely, that in the recent thorough review of the files maintained by the FBI in the Epstein case, no evidence was uncovered that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.
President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. If Ghislane Maxwell [sic] has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.
Therefore, at the direction of Attorney General Bondi, I have communicated with counsel for Ms. Maxwell to determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the Department. I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days. Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now.”
Last week Donald Trump instructed attorney general Pam Bondi to begin the process of unsealing grand jury testimony in Epstein’s criminal case.
That followed publication of a Wall Street Journal story alleging that Trump sent Epstein a “bawdy” birthday letter several decades ago, though Trump has claimed the letter is fake and is now seeking billions in a defamation lawsuit against the WSJ.
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Mike Johnson says there won't be an Epstein files vote before September
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, has pushed back against growing calls for a vote on releasing any files on Jeffrey Epstein – saying he does not plan to allow votes on any measures relating to the convicted sex offender before Congress breaks for the summer.
A number of Trump supporters in Congress have argued for a vote to show transparency and introduced a non-binding resolution calling for the release of additional Epstein files. But Johnson, a key ally of the president, told CNN on Monday there would be no vote before Congress returns in September.
He said:
My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing, and if further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we’ll look at that, but I don’t think we’re at that point right now, because we agree with the president.”
It remains to be seen whether that effectively tamps down Republican clamor for more information.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has a bilateral meeting the the president of the Philippines today. The president will greet Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House at 11am ET before a meeting set for 11.15am and a lunch at 11.45am.
The two leaders are expected to talk about trade ahead of a fast-approaching tariff deadline on 1 August.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday: “Perhaps this will be a topic of discussion. You will all see for yourselves in the Oval Office, as you always do. But the August 1 deadline is just the start date for when the United States of America will begin collecting this revenue from all of the countries around the world who the president has sent these letters to.”
We’ll bring you all the latest politics news as it happens.
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