Lawsuit from Democratic-led states and voting rights groups can proceed over Trump’s executive order to restrict mail voting
A federal judge in Boston ruled that Democratic-led states and voting rights groups could proceed with lawsuits challenging Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to restrict vote-by-mail ahead of November’s midterm elections.
US district judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Barack Obama, ruled that the potential for Trump’s order to impact the midterm elections meant the plaintiffs’ cases could not wait to be heard.
Trump’s order “both includes multiple specific directives as to certain actions that federal agencies must take at specified times and requires that definite ’substantive outcomes’ be implemented that will affect the upcoming election,” she wrote.
The ruling could open the door to the judge blocking the order from being implemented ahead of the midterm elections.
Officials from 23 Democratic states and the District of Columbia sued in April file to block Trump’s executive order to curb voting by mail, arguing that the order was an unconstitutional effort to interfere with states administering their elections.
The Trump administration, however, is pressing ahead with plans to disrupt votes cast by mail.
As the Guardian reported in May, the US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule.
Nearly one in three Americans voted by mail in 2024, but Trump, who wants to restrict the number of voters by limiting ballots cast by mail, signed an executive order in March that prohibits the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a federal list of citizens deemed eligible to vote in each state by the Department of Homeland Security.
The USPS proposal to implement this order seeks to require states to give the postal service the names and barcodes tied to mail-in ballots for federal elections. The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before the Trump administration can finalize it.
As the Democratic election and voting rights attorney Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket reports, the US Postal Service (USPS) filed a notice on Thursday in federal court saying that it has begun the process of creating a new records system to track mail ballots.
The records system is tied to USPS’ proposed rule stating that it will only deliver mail ballots to voters who are registered with the federal government.
The public comment period on the proposed rule is open until 2 July, and more than 14,000 comments have been submitted by members of the progressive activist group MoveOn.
One public comment submitted by a MoveOn member reads:
“The USPS proposed rule to block mail ballots is outrageous. Many of us choose to vote by mail, either because it is the most convenient or accessible option or, for some Americans, it is the only option. This proposed rule is in violation of each state’s constitutional right and authority to govern election matters. The executive branch of the federal government and its agencies have no role in how a state runs its election proceedings. One in three Americans voted by mail in the last election. It is clear to any thinking person that this is another of Trump’s attempts to control – if not hijack – future federal elections by interfering with legitimate registered voters’ right to vote. USPS’s job is to deliver mail, not decide who gets a ballot.”
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Vance delays trip to Switzerland for Iran talks, White House says
US vice-president JD Vance has postponed his trip to Switzerland for the start of 60 days of talks with Iran’s leaders, as agreed in the memorandum of understanding signed by Donald Trump in the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday.
A White House spokesperson confirmed the delay in a statement provided to the pool reporter for US news outlets who was at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, preparing to travel with vice-president on Thursday night.
“As the Vice President said at his press conference, the plans for the upcoming technical talks have not been finalized, and the U.S. delegation has been prepared to depart at the first available opportunity”, the spokesperson said. “But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable. As of now the Vice President is not departing tonight. We will let you know as soon as we have a concrete update about next steps. We look forward to beginning technical talks as soon as possible.”
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Trump says Iran war taught him 'there are no limits' to his power, then adds: 'I know there are'
Hours after he returned to the White House from Versailles, the historically resonant setting where he signed a memorandum of understanding to end the war he started with Iran, Donald Trump sat down on Thursday for a video interview with Axios.
In excerpts from the interview posted on social media by the outlet, the president gave very confused answers to two questions: what had the war taught him about the limits of his power, and what happened to his determination to accept nothing less than “unconditional surrender” from Iran’s leaders?
The war had shown him that “there are no limits” to his power Trump said in response to the first question.
“No limits?” the Axios correspondent Marc Caputo asked.
“No, none”, Trump said, before immediately contradicting himself by adding: “I haven’t learned that lesson yet; I know there are, but, you know, there are no limits.”
When Caputo reminded Trump of what he posted a week into the war – “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” – and suggested, “the MOU doesn’t look like unconditional surrender”, Trump said the agreement, which leaves Iran in control of the strait of Hormuz, and awards it $300bn in reconstruction and economic development funds, “really, probably is unconditional surrender”.
“It is?” Caputo asked skeptically.
“I think so”, Trump said.
As the Guardian diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reports: “Iran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months, after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding.”
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Trump said his reflecting pool renovation 'could last for 100 years'; images show it lasted less than a week
While Donald Trump insisted earlier this month, that his $14.2m resurfacing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool floor with “industrial strength”, “highly sophisticated” sealant “could last for 100 years”, composite images of the pool taken by Reuters photographers over the past week, suggest that it took only a few days for the algae to return and the sealant to peel away and float to the surface.
It has been just eight days since the president invited the crew that performed the work to the Oval Office, where he presented them with signed hats and challenge coins.
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Tourists stop by Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to pick up souvenir chunks of failed waterproof lining
Tourists in Washington DC discovered a new kind of souvenir to take away from the nation’s capital on Thursday, reaching into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to pocket chunks of the recently applied “American flag blue” waterproof sealant that has spontaneously peeled away from the floor, just weeks after it was applied as part of Donald Trump’s $14.2m renovation.
Social networks filled with video images of the blue sealant floating to the surface of the pool on Thursday, including a clip of ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl dipping his hand in the algae-ridden water to grab a piece of the detached sealant.
The HuffPost correspondent Jen Bendery reported from the water’s edge that passersby were stopping to rip off of chunks of the sealant to remember the president’s grand project by.
As our colleagues Callum Jones and Rachel Leingang report, the Trump administration, apparently without irony, continues to insist that its war against algae in the pool is going just as well as its war on Iran:
For days, the pool has been fluctuating between various shades of green, frustrating efforts to ensure it adopts the US president’s preferred color. And by Thursday parts of the coating laid by Atlantic Industrial Coatings in an effort to turn the monument “American flag” blue had appeared to start peeling off.
Workers were seen on site in waders, attempting to fish out algae and eliminate patches of deep green across the pool.
Hours earlier, the US Department of the Interior – which oversees the National Park Service – had claimed the water was “crystal clear”, and blamed the “Fake News Media” for reports to the contrary.
In a statement on X, after eyewitnesses saw the pool looking distinctly murky, the department went so far as to liken the administration’s purported victory against algae to its purported victory against Iran.
“The Reflecting Pool water is crystal clear, and our National Park Service team is now vacuuming up the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the Reflecting Pool – just like the destroyed Iranian Navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” the department’s press office said.
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Trump awards Medal of Honor to three service members who fought in Vietnam and Afghanistan
Donald Trump is currently speaking at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House to award the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest military honor, to three US service members who fought in the American wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
After boasting about the stock market, Trump said that he was there to award “our country’s highest military distinction, the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“I wanted to give it to myself, but I was informed I couldn’t do it”, he joked, as he has in the past.
“But today we present this award, it’s the greatest of awards, to three new recipients: Marine corps Major James Capers; Marine Corps Colonel John W Ripley deceased; and Army Major Nicholas Dockery”, Trump read aloud, accidentally saying the word “deceased” as if it was part of the late colonel Ripley’s name.
The first two awards were for service in Vietnam, a war Trump famously dodged through a medical exemption, thanks to a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels in 1968 from a podiatrist who rented his office from Trump’s father. The third award was for service in Afghanistan.
There was no immediate explanation of why the service members were not recognized in previous decades, but Trump joked to Major Capers, who was, the president said, recommended for the Medal of Honor in 1967, that “maybe this is better”.
While the president referred to the congressional award as “the greatest”, two summers ago, he was widely criticized for suggesting that another award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, is “much better”.
Speaking at a campaign event in 2024, Trump mentioned that, during his first term, he had awarded that medal to one of his donors, Miriam Adelson. Hew then said: “It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor but civilian version. It’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, the soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”
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Donald Trump has just arrived, nearly an hour late, for the Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
He started by boasting about the stock market, and joking that he wanted to award the Medal of Honor to himself.
Trump White House continues near daily attacks on Biden, six years after the 2020 campaign
We are still waiting for Donald Trump to turn up for a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House, which was scheduled to start more than 40 minutes ago.
The president just returned early this morning from the G7 conference in Evian, France, where he appeared nearly an hour late for the final day’s session, and told the assembled world leaders waiting on him: “I’m the boss.”
The White House was so proud of that wisecrack that it posted video of the moment on YouTube, side by side with a misleading clip of Joe Biden at a G7 event in 2024, under the headline “Choose YourFighter”.
The video of Biden walking away from other world leaders after a parachute demonstration during the G7 in Italy in June 2024, went viral at the time largely because it was misleadingly described in the rightwing media as evidence the 81-year-old president was confused and had wandered off.
As Reuters reported at the time, Biden, in fact, just walked over to a group of parachutists who had just performed a demonstration to congratulate them after a flags ceremony in which paratroopers bearing member-countries’ flags landed near the leaders.
Apparently still stung by his loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Trump has made attacking Biden a near daily theme of his second term in office.
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The day so far
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JD Vance defended the US-Iran deal as a “win-win” for the United States, while several Republicans slammed it as “completely out of step with the president’s goals”. Vance defended Trump’s U-turn on Iran’s right to have “some” ballistic missiles in the name of self-defence (having previously stated that the destruction of Iran’s ballistic missiles as one of the key goals of the war) and insisted that the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil would somehow benefit the US.
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GOP critics, however, expressed concerns that the deal left the US in a worse position than when it launched the war against Iran three months ago. The chair of the Senate armed services committee, Roger Wicker, said he was “concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the president’s goals.” The $300bn fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran included in the memorandum, “though not funded by US taxpayers, would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison,” he added in his statement.
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A handful of other GOP lawmakers also spoke out against Trump’s deal, arguing that the deal had proven to Iran that flexing its leverage over the strait of Hormuz could deliver significant geopolitical results and that there was no guarantee that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions had been curbed. After Trump admitted yesterday that he had changed course on Iran in order to avoid a “worldwide depression”, one House Republican said the president had “effectively acknowledged he lost the war. It’s no longer worth the economic price.”
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Vance also issued an extraordinary rebuke for Israeli cabinet members critical of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding. “If I was in the Israeli cabinet, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance told reporters at the White House press briefing. He warned that Israel “has to respect this peace process” and “not be going wild in Lebanon”, and said the civilian deaths as a result of Israeli strikes were “totally unacceptable”.
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Donald Trump said the US expects “a complete ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel,” adding in a Truth Social post, “We encourage everyone in the Middle East Region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold.”
Trump administration reverses decision to scrap ocean monitoring system
The Trump administration has reversed its decision to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system following an outcry from lawmakers and ocean experts.
The National Science Foundation announced today that it would halt plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, stating: “effective immediately, [it] will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance.”
The agency added that it “appreciates the concerns raised by the range of stakeholders that have informed us they rely on data” from the OOI.
The NSF also said it would “issue a Dear Colleague Letter to collect input from stakeholders and convene an expert panel to assess observational needs, evaluate available data sources, consider responses … and help the agency identify a sustainable path for NSF’s ocean observing systems”.
The OOI comprises more than 900 instruments that collect data on ocean health, including current patterns, climate variability and marine biodiversity. Its observation arrays are located off the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, as well as in the Irminger Sea, a marginal sea between Greenland and Iceland.
The NSF’s announcement follows widespread backlash from scientists and ocean experts who depend on the OOI’s data for research, including estimates of ocean heating rates amid the climate crisis. Experts warned that losing the system could undermine forecasts and early-warning systems for storms and other severe weather events.
The reversal also came a day after the Senate passed a bipartisan bill introduced by the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski that sought to halt what they described as the “reckless dismantling” of the OOI.
According to the bill, no federal funds may be used to decommission the OOI until the NSF “conducts a thorough review and assessment of the network with robust stakeholder engagement”.
“Dismantling the [OOI] is supreme stupidity, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and destroying a vital source of climate data. Our simple, bipartisan bill blocks this incredibly shortsighted decision and preserves these critical ocean monitoring sensors that keep coastal communities and fishers safe,” Merkley said yesterday.
Trump administration quietly shifts $352m in federal funds for White House ballroom
Donald Trump’s administration has quietly redirected $352m in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the president’s controversial White House ballroom project, despite repeated promises by Trump that the construction would be financed by private donations
The funds were drawn from the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s signature tax legislation passed last summer on Republican-only votes. The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.
About $340.8m of the funding was placed into an account labeled “Procurement, Construction, and Improvements” on 12 June, according to the office of management and budget (OMB) database. Another account labeled “Operations and Support” was also approved the same day, adding another $10.75m to the budget.
The move came after Congress explicitly refused to provide $1bn in funds for the “East Wing Modernization Project”, the Trump administration’s official name for a 90,000-sq-ft ballroom being built on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing.
The administration argued the funds were needed for legitimate security upgrades, pointing to recent threats against Trump, including an alleged plot to attack Sunday’s UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House south lawn.
“The East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the president, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said. “President Trump and generous American patriots are funding the ballroom to the tune of approximately $400m, which will be a secure and appropriate venue for presidents for generations to come.”
Those disrupted attacks, Ingle said, “proves exactly why” the project is needed for events at the White House, which include “drone-proof structures and drone ports among other critical security enhancements”.
Senior legislators were unconvinced. “That’s a big problem,” Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina who is retiring at the end of the year, told Notus.
That sounds like a different way to fund the East Wing project. On its face it doesn’t sound right.
Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii on the appropriations committee, also told the outlet:
I don’t know whether it’s the ballroom, but it sounds like the ballroom.
The art of the fail? Trump's Iran deal - podcast
Donald Trump is claiming his Iran peace plan is a victory for Washington, despite the 14-point agreement revealing significant concessions to Tehran. Under the deal, Iran will reopen the strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets, while talks will continue over the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme.
In today’s edition of The Latest podcast, Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.
Iran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months, after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding, my colleague Patrick Wintour reports.
Claiming a historic victory over the US, Tehran said the strait was under its control and a European plan for a naval mission to escort ships though the strait would not be welcome.
It comes as the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will maintain the security zone in south Lebanon as long as our security needs require it”, referring to the more than 600 sq km of Lebanese territory occupied by Israeli troops along the border.
On Iran, Netanyahu stated that Israel would continue to “adhere to the supreme objective” of not allowing Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Iran insists the deal referring to territorial integrity of Lebanon requires a full Israeli withdrawal, making Donald Trump accountable for Israel’s withdrawal.
Here’s Patrick’s report:
Politico also quotes Senate majority leader John Thune as saying he anticipates an administration briefing on the US-Iran memorandum of understanding “early next week”.
Thune said he felt the deal is “good for Americans” because it opens up the strait of Hormuz, but warned on the $300bn fund:
I don’t think there ought to be any financial incentives or any financial relief given to Iran absent their commitment to end the nuclear program.
As they gear up to face tough midterm elections in November, some Republicans are relieved at the memorandum of understanding with Iran - though many are still privately questioning what the purpose of Trump’s war actually was.
After the president said yesterday that if he had not struck a deal, “the alternative would be a worldwide depression”, one House Republican told Politico:
The president didn’t mean to, but he effectively acknowledged he lost the war. It’s no longer worth the economic price.
GOP Senate armed services chair slams US-Iran deal as 'completely out of step with the president’s goals'
While JD Vance was briefing reporters earlier, Republican senator Roger Wicker, who is chair of the Senate armed services committee, said he was “concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the president’s goals.”
The $300bn fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran included in the memorandum, “though not funded by US taxpayers, would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison,” Wicker added in his statement.
He also said it would be an “error” to “force” Israel to stand down against Hezbollah, and added: “I also oppose the US lifting of any sanctions on Iran, or unfreezing Iranian funds, in exchange for Iran’s mere agreement to negotiate for another 60 days.”
He joins a handful of other Republican senators speaking out against Trump’s deal (see my earlier post). When asked about that criticism earlier, Vance said those Republicans should “have a little bit of faith in the president of the United States”.
“The idea that he is going to strike a deal that’s bad for the American people, it’s preposterous” he said.
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Back to Donald Trump for a second (sorry), the president has reiterated that the United States expects “a complete ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel.”
“We encourage everyone in the Middle East Region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Associated Press reports that Michelle Obama spoke directly to her husband when she stepped up to the podium.
“Eight years in the crucible and not once did you melt in the heat. Not once did you let it harden you. Instead, you used it to reveal your truest essence,” she said. “Your stubborn optimism and unflinching courage. Your dazzling brilliance and unpretentious decency. Your ferocious work ethic and absolutely unshakable moral fiber. And to do it all as a first.”
She ticked off highlights from her husband’s eight years in office, including ordering the raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, “standing up for marriage equality” and “listening to science.”
“And you did it all with such grace and class and cool,” she said. “You made the hardest job in the world look like a walk in this beautiful park.”
Obama appeared to wipe away a tear as she praised him, the AP reported.
Michelle Obama also referenced the current “anxious and divisive times” and warned against being cynical or complacent as “everything feels so upside down.” She pitched the center as “a respite from all that.”
It’s not every day that this many celebrities gather together (in a way that benefits this blog, at least). So here are even more photos of the scene in Chicago at the Obama Presidential Center:
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It appears that president Donald Trump didn’t make it to the event at the Obama Presidential Center. It’s unclear whether he was invited.
Either way: Trump’s absence is not exactly surprising.
The latest conflict between them came when a UFC fighter said disparaging comments about the former first lady at the White House and Trump did nothing about it.
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For the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago, Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned original works by 30 artists from diverse backgrounds, a bold move never seen at such scale at a presidential library. It also forms a quiet rebuke of Obama’s successor, who has filled the Oval Office with stiff presidential portraits while plotting the demise of cultural stalwarts such as the Kennedy Center and Smithsonian Institution.
“They love art,” said Valerie Jarrett, chief executive of the Obama Foundation, reflecting on how the Obamas took a similarly inclusive approach to curating the White House. “We want people who come here to look at a piece of art, stand next to a stranger, have a conversation about that piece of art and how it touches them each in their own individual ways.”
The privately funded $850m presidential centre, opening nearly a decade after Obama left office, sits on a 19-acre campus in Chicago’s Jackson Park, close to where he lived as a young man and entered politics. It includes a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, an NBA-regulation basketball court, a recording studio and a sledding hill built because a young Michelle Obama never had one growing up on the city’s famously flat South Side.
The new artworks are dotted throughout. Jarrett insisted: “None of the art makes political statements.” But that depends on the definition of “political”. It does engage with the roots of African American history, the struggle for civil rights and the specific cultural legacy of Chicago.
Here are some more photos from the dedication ceremony of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago:
Dedication ceremony for Obama Presidential Center under way in Chicago
Meanwhile, in Chicago, thousands of invited guests, led by former presidents and heads of state, converged on a lakefront park to dedicate the Obama Presidential Center, a sprawling campus of granite, nature and art designed as a hub of civic life and culture honoring the 44th president of the United States, Reuters reported.
Former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama were joined at the event by the other three living former presidents — former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Joe Biden — and their wives, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Jill Biden.
Obama’s two daughters, Malia and Sasha, sat with their parents on the main stage of the ceremony.
Reuters reports that the roster of VIPs in attendance also included former vice-president Kamala Harris and her spouse, Douglas Emhoff, former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi and such foreign dignitaries as former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.
The occasion, under partly cloudy skies, marked the ceremonial opening of the Obama Center, an $850 million development that local historians say marks the greatest single investment in a century in Chicago’s long-neglected South Side.
'I might not attack the only powerful ally I have left,' Vance says in excoriating rebuke of Israeli critics of US-Iran deal
And finally, asked about reports that Benjamin Netanyahu is fuming over the deal with Iran, Vance issues an extraordinary rebuke to Israeli critics, particularly members of Netanyahu’s cabinet who have lambasted the deal and Trump. He says:
Donald J Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time.
If I was in the Israeli cabinet, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.
He adds that over the last three months of war, two-thirds of the weapons used to defend Israel were produced in the US.
The problem for Israel is not Donald J Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.
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Vance says he is planning to lead the US negotiating team as they try to reach the final agreement with Iran.
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Asked if he’s still going to Switzerland tomorrow for the formal signing ceremony, Vance says: “I may, it just depends exactly on when the Iranians can get there.”
Vance says he plans to go to Switzerland for talks with Iran this weekend, but that the plan could change.
“We think these technical negotiations are going to start sometime this weekend. That’s still the plan, but that could change,” he says. “I suspect this weekend but I’m not sure.”
Vance also dodged a question about whether Cuba is “next”, telling reporters to “ask Marco [Rubio]”.
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Vance is pressed several times on Iran’s ability sell oil again under the deal.
He insists that the waiving of sanctions on Iranian oil is not a “new benefit” given that Iran was already selling oil before the war and insists that this will benefit the US because “we can see where the money moves now”.
But that’s not true. Before the war, under the weight heavy sanctions, Iran had to sell its oil at a steep discount. It can now sell its oil freely, to more countries (in more currencies), and charge more for it.
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Israel has to 'respect this peace process', says Vance, adding that civilian deaths 'not acceptable'
Asked about Trump’s recent criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Vance says that while Israel has the right to defend itself, “the Israelis, just like everybody else, have to respect this peace process.”
He added:
The president has grown frustrated sometimes that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden, there’s a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That’s not acceptable.
He adds the the administration is “quite confident” that it can lift sanctions on Iranian oil without congressional approval.
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Vance says Congress should have received the formal signed copy of the memorandum of understanding this morning (or will do later today), and the White House is planning to brief lawmakers soon.
US expects Israel to not 'be going wild in Lebanon', says Vance
Vance says the deal is about wider peace in the region, and that while the US expects Hezbollah to not attack Israel, it also expects “that the Israelis are not going to be going wild in Lebanon”.
Asked if he’s worried about Trump making him the “fall guy” if the deal with Iran goes sideways, Vance says he thinks the president was “joking” when he said he would blame him if the deal proves a failure.
Vance also jokes that his appearance on ABC’s The View earlier this week as evidence that he can hold his own in “very hostile negotiations”, claiming he and panellist Joy Behar “are best friends now”.
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Vance is asked about the shift in Trump’s stance regarding Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.
Trump stated on 28 February that destroying Iran’s missiles and missile industry was a key objective of the war. Yesterday, however, he told reporters in Paris that it would be “unfair” for Iran to not have “some” ballistic missiles, because other countries have them.
Attempting to clarify Trump’s comments, Vance says:
Countries don’t give up the right of self-defence.
Israel doesn’t give up the right of self-defence if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. The Iranians don’t give up the right of self-defence in their country.
But we do expect that, as part of the final deal, they are not going to be able to build the kind of missiles that can broadly threaten the entire world.
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Vance says 60-day period in Iran deal begins today
Vance says the 60-day window laid out in the memorandum of understanding to reach a final agreement with Iran begins today.
“I would say the 60-day period officially started today. It was signed late, and it may have even been signed technically, you know, because of the time shift, I think it’s signed technically today, Iran time,” he says.
If that is the case, it would set a deadline for the final deal between Iran and the United States as 17 August.
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Vance also repeated the administration’s claims that the US’s war has destroyed Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities, but it has been reported that US intelligence estimates suggest that Iran has retained about 70% of its pre-war ballistic and cruise missile stockpile.
Vance stresses that “the United States isn’t giving up a cent of money to Iran” and that the sanctions relief and other economic benefits in the bargain “only happens if the Iranians perform”.
He calls the situation a “win-win” for the US.
Vance is here, and he starts by claiming that Trump’s peace deal with Iran “is already bearing real fruits for the American people”, with 12.5m barrels going through the strait of Hormuz last night and gas prices dropping below $4 today for the first time since the conflict began.
Iran didn’t shoot at any ships overnight, he adds, and the US Navy allowed more than a dozen ships through to Iranian ports.
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While we wait for Vance to arrive, earlier today in Brussels, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the US will restart military action and reimpose a blockade against Iran if it does not fulfil its commitments under the agreement signed yesterday.
“The president has pointed out that we will be prepared to recommence if underneath the timeline of these talks, Iran does not do what it says it’s going to do,” Hegseth said after a meeting with Nato defence ministers.
“If Iran doesn’t comply, then we’re more than able to reimpose an ironclad blockade,” he added.
He also slammed Nato for its perceived lack of support for US in its war against Iran, as my colleague, Jakub Krupa, reports on the Europe live blog.
Hegseth said:
The United States has defended Europe for generations, and the President said all he said was that our jets would need to take off from bases in Europe or our ships from ports to strike targets in the Middle East, Iranian targets that threaten European interests even more directly than they threaten us.
But too many of our allies said no, or tried to drown us in arcane legal debates, or criticised us publicly for doing what they aren’t prepared or able to do themselves. It was shameful.
These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access facing an overflight that never should have been in question at all.
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JD Vance to hold White House press briefing
And that’s all the supreme court is giving us for now, folks. But don’t worry, JD Vance is due to hold the White House press briefing at the top of the hour, where he will no doubt face questions on the details of the deal with Iran the president signed last night at Versailles – a deal which some of Trump’s allies are already seeking to pin on the vice-president.
Though that could end up being very much to Vance’s advantage. “Without question, the biggest potential political liability Vance had was the unpopularity of the war in Iran,” one person close to the White House who supports the deal told Politico last night. “So it’s fascinating to watch his biggest enemies in the GOP unwittingly inoculate him from that liability by branding him as responsible for the peace deal.”
The person went on: “[Vance] now gets to do a media tour defending the president - AKA the kingmaker of our party - from their idiotic criticism of the deal. While even his critics would acknowledge that the vice-president is a smart guy, sometimes what really matters in politics is how stupid your enemies are.”
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Supreme court backs challenge to ban on gun ownership for drug users
The supreme court has sided with a marijuana user who wants to legally own a gun, the latest in a line of firearm cases from a court that has expanded gun rights.
In a 9-0 ruling, the justices sided with Ali Danial Hemani, a resident of Texas who was charged with felony gun possession after he acknowledged being a regular marijuana user. Hemani wasn’t charged with any other crimes or accused of using the weapon under the influence.
The 1968 Gun Control Act makes possession of a firearm illegal for anyone who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance”.
That gun restriction led to the 2024 conviction of Hunter Biden, who later that year received a pardon from his father, then-president Joe Biden. Prosecutors had accused him of lying about his use of narcotics in 2018 when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun.
Hemani argued that a federal law barring gun ownership from anyone who uses drugs illegally violates the constitution’s second amendment.
The decision is a loss for the Trump administration, which had defended the 1968 law despite arguing against other gun restrictions.
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Supreme court releases opinions
The supreme court has started releasing opinions, so far it has issued a ruling backing a challenge to a federal law barring drug users from owning guns.
We’ll bring you any more updates here as we get them.
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Indeed, this morning’s Washington Post Early Brief (paywall) asks the question: “Are we back to where we started on Iran?”
The memorandum ends the fighting, reopens the strait of Hormuz and gives Trump a chance to claim he prevented a broader economic crisis. But many of its core terms appear to return the US and Iran to roughly where they were before the conflict: with Iran’s government still in power and its long-term nuclear commitments still unresolved.
Before the war, the strait of Hormuz saw the free flow of shipping, including roughly a fifth of the world’s oil traffic. Reopening the water way essentially restores the status quo.
Iran and the US had also already engaged in negotiations - albeit brokenly - on a framework over Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions. The negotiations were in pursuit of a deal to replace the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under President Barack Obama, which Trump vehemently criticized and left during his first term.
The terms of the MOU diverge substantially from Trump’s initial threats to obliterate Iran unless it agreed to “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” back in March. And it diverged from long-standing conservative criticisms of Obama’s deal that lifted sanctions on Iran.
After Donald Trump’s signing of the 14-point agreement with Iran yesterday at the Palace of Versailles – the home of humiliating treaties - the question of what the president’s war was actually for continues to divide some Republicans and foreign policy hawks.
GOP senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally, appeared to soften his view of the memorandum of understanding yesterday (from this to this) after a “very lengthy and productive” conversation with US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“After this discussion, it is my opinion that signing the MOU will be beneficial to the United States, in as much as the strait of Hormuz will begin to open, and the hostilities with Iran will stop,” Graham wrote on X. “Whether or not the United States can reach an acceptable, verifiable deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program and other issues is yet to be determined, but I see little downside to trying.”
But a handful of other Senate Republicans were more scathing in their views.
Outgoing Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, who Trump failed to back in a tightly fought primary last month, said that the whole affair had Ronald Reagan “rolling over in his grave”. He wrote on X:
Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future.
Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.
Ted Cruz, who has backed the war, said the president was getting “very poor advice when it comes to this deal”.
Susan Rice, a former official in the Obama and Biden administrations was more blunt in her assessment, calling it “the biggest national security blunder in decades”, while Democratic senator Adam Schiff said it was “hard to imagine a more thorough capitulation”.
Iran gets sanctions relief, the release of frozen funds, the ability to export oil, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund. The US gets a reiteration of the vague promise Iran won’t develop a nuke.
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In case you missed it, last night Donald Trump signed a 14-point agreement with Iran, claiming it delivered a “major win” for the United States – even as it made significant political and financial concessions to Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and prevent a “worldwide depression”.
In extraordinary remarks yesterday, Trump went from threatening Iran with a new wave of attacks to suggesting the country had basic rights to enrich uranium for civilian use, that he would not pressure Tehran to abandon its ballistic missiles programme and the US was “going to have to give back” billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets.
Those remarks, as well as the full text of the agreement – which was hailed by the Hezbollah chief, Naim Qassem, as a “great victory” – are likely to fuel anger in Israel and among hardliners in the Republican party who had urged Trump not to make a deal with Tehran.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, signed the agreement yesterday from Tehran. US vice-president JD Vance is also expected to sign the deal at a more formal ceremony in Geneva tomorrow.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said:
The agreement is a record of US failure. People will see it and judge.
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Supreme court to release opinions with several high-stakes rulings to come including birthright citizenship
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The supreme court is expected to render at least one judgment today as the term is set to come to an end later this month. There are a series of cases yet to be decided that are relevant to Donald Trump, including his attempt to limit birthright citizenship and plan to remove legal protection from Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
Generally, terms last between October and late June – but the most significant cases are often left until the end of the term.
There are two main immigration-based decisions yet to be made. One pending ruling is on Trump’s desire to ban birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and those whose parents are temporary residents.
“Birthright citizenship is one of America’s most consequential commitments – the idea that where you are born, not where your parents came from, determines your belonging to this nation,” said Adam Strom, executive director and co-founder of Reimagining Migration, in The74. “For the millions of immigrant-origin children in our schools, this isn’t an abstraction. It’s the ground they stand on.”
The court also has a case that will decide if the US can terminate the Temporary Protected Status that has allowed Haitian and Syrian immigrants to live and work in the country.
Other significant cases include Trump’s wish to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
In other news:
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Donald Trump has signed a 14-point agreement with Iran, claiming it delivered a “major win” for the US. The Guardian’s Andrew Roth argues that the US entered war with maximalist goals and exited it with a pragmatic decision to end conflict despite political cost.
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A teenager has died after being thrown to the ground on Wednesday when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away from its driver, police in New York have said.
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On Wednesday, court proceedings revealed that Luigi Mangione’s legal team plans on pursuing a psychiatric defense during his upcoming Manhattan state court trial over the killing of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson.
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