Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, will leave her role at the end of this month, Donald Trump announced on social media.
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In a long social media post confirming her departure Leavitt included a direct, partisan attack on the Democratic party. Both parts of the statement would appear to violate the Hatch Act, the federal law that bars federal government employees from engaging in partisan political activity or disparaging a political opponent while on duty.
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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, called on his Republican challenger, congressman Mike Collins, to retract support he expressed one day earlier for a government fund to compensate January 6 rioters who were prosecuted for attacking the US Capitol in 2021.
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Following her defeat for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor, Francesca Hong said that she would support David Crowley in the lead-up to the November general election.
Will Donald Trump's next press secretary be a better liar than the first five?
As Karoline Leavitt prepares to step down from her role as Donald Trump’s fifth White House press secretary, a review of her tenure, and that of her predecessors, makes it clear that the most fabulist president in US history prizes one quality above all else in the women and men who speak for him: a willingness to tell outrageous lies.
Leavitt, as we noted earlier, started her tenure by telling a wild falsehood at her very first news conference, when she claimed that the Biden administration had planned to use $50m in taxpayer dollars to send condoms to Gaza. Later the same day, the Guardian reported that the claim was directly contradicted by USAID records.
Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, also told perhaps his most blatant lie the first time he stepped behind the podium in the White House briefing room. The day after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, Spicer summoned reporters to the briefing room and relentlessly scolded them for not reporting the lie that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe.” Visual evidence made it clear that this was untrue.
Four months later, his successor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted to reporters that FBI agents were privately delighted that Trump had fired FBI director James Comey. Asked by a reporter what she had based that on, Sanders replied: “I can speak to my own personal experience, I’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the president’s decision,” Sanders replied.
Sanders later admitted to the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, an investigation Comey had started, that she invented this claim.
According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report: “Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.”
Stephanie Grisham, whose tenure as press secretary was marked by her failure to hold even one briefing, admitted in her memoir that she had lied for Trump, but she never acknowledged that her biggest lie was told before she even took up the role.
In 2018, when she still worked for Trump’s wife, Melania, Grisham insisted, in the face of concrete evidence to the contrary, that Trump was telling the truth when he claimed that he “predicted” the results of the 2016 Brexit referendum the day before the vote during a visit to Scotland. In fact, as dozens of journalists on that trip confirmed, Trump had actually visited arrived in Scotland the morning after the vote, when the result was clear. Still Grisham doubled and tripled down on the lie to defend Trump’s claim, which he went on to make again and again in the following years.
Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s fourth press secretary, routinely lied for the president throughout the Covid pandemic in 2020, but perhaps never more blatantly than when she was asked, at a June briefing that year, why the president kept using the racist term “kung flu” to refer to the virus, which had emerged in China. “The president doesn’t,” McEnany claimed, two days after he had clearly used that term at a rally in Oklahoma. “What the president does do,” she continued, “is point to the fact that the origin of the virus is China it’s a fair thing to point out”. The very next day, Trump used the racist term again, to great acclaim from his supporters, at a Turning Point USA rally in an Arizona megachurch.
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Jon Ossoff calls on Republican challenger Mike Collins to retract support for payments to January 6 rioters
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, called on his Republican challenger, congressman Mike Collins, to retract support he expressed one day earlier for a government fund to compensate January 6 rioters who were prosecuted for attacking the US Capitol in 2021.
At a campaign event in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday, Collins was asked by one of the rioters, Dominic Box, who was convicted of six federal charges before being pardoned by Donald Trump, if he would support compensating him and other so-called “J6 survivors” now that Todd Blanche has been confirmed as attorney general.
“When the federal government harms you, then yes, they have a liability to you,” Collins replied according to video recorded and posted online by Box. “That’s easy. Yes, sir.”
Ossoff strongly condemned the comments from Collins, his Trump-backed rival in the November midterms.
“Yesterday we heard congressman Mike Collins unacceptably and disgustingly call for taxpayer-funded payouts to the violent thugs who ransacked the United States Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election,” Ossoff said. “Congressman Collins needs to immediately come out and publicly retract his support for these taxpayer-funded payouts to violent insurrectionists.
“Furthermore, the congressman needs to publicly retract his false and disgraceful continued insistence that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, which Donald Trump lost decisively here in Georgia and across the country,” Ossoff added.
Last year, four months after he was pardoned, Box was invited to the White House and posted video of himself behind the podium in the White House briefing room telling his social media followers: “Never would have thought in only a few short months I would be going from the big house to the White House.”
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The US military is “dangerously low” on missiles used in the US-Israel war on Iran, according to an analysis from Bloomberg Economics.
The outlet’s reporting estimates that the US has likely fired more than half of its most advanced Patriot air defense interceptors and about 40% of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) interceptors to defend US forces from retaliatory attacks by Iran during the conflict Donald Trump launched on 28 February.
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Democratic socialist Francesca Hong was on course to win the party’s nomination for Wisconsin governor on Wednesday by a clear margin, according to the polls – presaging the latest in an extraordinary wave of leftwing victories across the country, challenging the party’s establishment.
It was not to be. In a photo finish after a messy campaign, David Crowley eked out a win by a few thousand votes over Hong, raising questions over the limits of the progressive movement that has swept through Democratic contests in recent months.
Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, had exited the race in early July, only to re-enter late in the month, with the backing of the outgoing Democratic governor, Tony Evers. The two barnstormed the state, consolidating support from a more moderate chunk of undecided voters, many of whom believed Crowley would more easily win November’s general election over the Republican Tom Tiffany.
The stakes for the governor’s race are high, both locally and nationally. Tiffany voted against certifying the 2020 election, and Wisconsin is a key part of the presidential electoral map. And Democrats want a governing trifecta after years of a split government so they can enact a more expansive agenda.
Those high stakes resonated with voters in a place where statewide elections are frequently decided by decimal points. Hong was seen as more of a gamble – and it didn’t help that when some voters just started paying attention, they found headlines focused on old tweets about canceling Thanksgiving or defunding the police, putting Hong on the defensive.
The White House said that Donald Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum (NSPM) on Wednesday aimed at empowering federal law enforcement to use cyber tools against transnational criminal organizations that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans.
Trump signed the memorandum directing his administration to “leverage the capability and innovation of the private sector to help conduct these cyber operations under the direction, control, and authority of” the US government, the White House said in a fact sheet.
The White House cited ransomware attacks, financial frauds and other crimes run by foreign-based organized criminal organizations. The memo creates a framework that encourages private sector companies to enter into agreements with other private entities, as well as federal, state, local, tribal and territorial agencies, to gather threat information on transnational criminal organizations and propose cyber operations to address those threats, the White House added.
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In her first press briefing, Karoline Leavitt promised to never lie, and then told a wildly false story about the US sending condoms to Gaza
When Karoline Leavitt appeared in the White House briefing room for the first time as press secretary, on 28 January 2025, she adhered to what was then a longstanding tradition and called on the Associated Press to ask the first question.
Zeke Miller, then the AP’s White House correspondent, asked Leavitt what he called “a question that we’ve asked your predecessors of both parties in this job”.
“When you’re up here in this briefing room speaking to the American public, do you view yourself and your role as speaking on, advocating on behalf of the president, or providing the unvarnished truth? That is, you know, not to lie, not to obfuscate to the American people?”
“I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day,” Leavitt replied. “I would like to point out, while I vow to provide the truth from this podium, we ask that all of you in this room hold yourselves to that same standard.
“We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that,” she went on. “We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.
“So, yes, I will hold myself to the truth, and I expect everyone in this room to do the same.”
Just five minutes later, Leavitt told the assembled reporters, and the American people, a wildly false story to justify Trump’s sweeping order to freeze federal funding by citing what she called important new research from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (or Doge), and the office of management and budget (OMB).
“Doge and OMB also found that there was about to be 50m taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt claimed. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars”.
While Leavitt did not offer any evidence to support this claim, and was not pressed to by reporters in the room, the idea that the United States government had budgeted $50m to send condoms to Gaza quickly went viral, with an assist from Musk and the Fox pundit Jesse Watters, who claimed that day that the condoms were being used by Hamas militants as balloons to float explosives into Israel.
However, as the Guardian reported later that day, a comprehensive report issued in September 2025 by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), showed that not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza. In fact, no condoms were sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, had been sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.
No USAID funding for family planning was budgeted for Gaza.
The USAID report was quickly removed from the government website where it had been posted (but not before it was archived) and the administration never provided any evidence for the claim, even after Trump boasted a day later that his administration had “stopped $50m being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas”.
Experts on US aid to Gaza were baffled by the claim. “We have asked around, and no one is sure what this is referring to,” Steve Fake, a spokesperson for Anera, a non-profit that has partnered with USAID on a five-year, $50m health initiative in Gaza, told CNN at the time. Anera’s program, he added, has “definitely no purchase of condoms”.
The International Medical Corps – a US-based organization that operated two field hospitals in Gaza with US support – also posted a statement on its website detailing its emergency work in Gaza with this clear denial: “No US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms.”
At a subsequent briefing two weeks later, Leavitt defended the White House decision to bar the Associated Press from attending briefings by accusing the news agency of telling “lies” by refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” after Trump claimed the power to unilaterally change the name of the international body of water.
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Karoline Leavitt signs off as White House press secretary with a partisan attack on Democrats, in apparent violation of the law
In a long social media post confirming her departure from the role of White House press secretary at the end of August, Karoline Leavitt promised to remain a “a vocal advocate for MAGA and the Republican Party” and included a direct, partisan attack on the Democratic party. Both parts of the statement would appear to violate the Hatch Act, the federal law that bars federal government employees from engaging in partisan political activity or disparaging a political opponent while on duty.
While Leavitt posted her statement on a personal social media account, it was then shared on the official government account for the press secretary, which still bears her name and image, and by two official White House social media accounts.
In 2019, the US office of special counsel, which is responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, asked then president Donald Trump to fire his White House adviser Kellyanne Conway for “repeatedly violat[ing] the Hatch Act during her official media appearances by making statements directed at the success of your reelection campaign or at the failure of candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President”.
Trump ignored the recommendation and his second term in office has been marked by highly partisan statements from government officials and the social media accounts and websites of multiple federal government agencies.
Early in Trump’s second term he fired the office of special counsel’s leader, Hampton Dellinger, who was eventually ousted after a protracted legal battle.
Two weeks ago, the office of special counsel posted this clear warning to federal employees about their social media activity while at work: “Don’t share or repost content that supports or opposes a political candidate, party or group.”
Here is the section of Leavitt’s statement that might have triggered an investigation by the office of special counsel in a previous administration:
Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least. The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary – and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life.
President Trump has asked me to continue serving as a top advisor to him on the outside, and I will always remain a vocal advocate for MAGA and the Republican Party.
Our country is facing an existential threat from an increasingly extremist Democrat Party that seeks to destroy everything great about America, and I believe it is incumbent upon all of us who care about this country to fight back against that threat. My fight is entering a new phase, but it is far from over.
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Leavitt's time as press secretary - at a glance
Throughout her time in the White House, Leavitt has been a fixture of the administration.
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She often had a combative relationship with members of the press during her regular White House briefings. There were often moments where she derided members of the mainstream media, whom she accused of bias. For example, earlier this year she called Niall Stanage, a reporter from the Hill, a “leftwing hack” after he pressed Leavitt on the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in January. In her social media post announcing her decision to resign, Leavitt said that she “relished holding the liberal media accountable and ensuring the American people hear the truth about President Trump’s successes”.
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Her time as press secretary saw an influx of rightwing media pundits in the briefing room. Leavitt also attempted to take control over which outlets would serve in the White House press pool – a group of dedicated outlets that cover the president’s daily movements. The White House Correspondents’ Association – an independent body that manages the pool – rejected the proposal. Leavitt and her team have introduced a “new media” seat at the White House – which often includes conservative commentators who are friendly with the Trump administration. Leavitt was also a defendant in the Associated Press lawsuit, which saw her press team block the AP from serving in the press pool in retaliation for the outlet refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
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Leavitt became one of the president’s most loyal foot soldiers. During his first term, Donald Trump cycled through four press secretaries. His first, Sean Spicer, left the White House after six months. Leavitt, however, proved a key ally for Trump – often receiving praise. However, she is not the president’s longest-serving press secretary. Sarah Huckabee Sanders served in the role for almost two years in the first Trump White House.
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Leavitt achieved a number of firsts while in office. At 27, she was the youngest press secretary in US history. And when she announced she was pregnant in December last year, she became the first ever expectant press secretary.
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However, Leavitt had to postpone her maternity leave after the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting. Leavitt delayed her leave to deliver the administration’s first on‑camera response after the shooting in April.
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Trump says press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave role to spend more time with family
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, will leave her role at the end of this month to spend more time with her family, including her two young children, Donald Trump announced today.
The president said on social media that it was a “decision I totally understand and respect”, while adding that Leavitt would become one of his “top outside advisors” when she leaves the administration.
Leavitt was 27 when she assumed the role of press secretary at the beginning of Trump’s second term. She is the youngest person in US history to hold the role. She was previously a press aide during the first Trump administration, before launching an unsuccessful bid for a US House seat in New Hampshire, her home state.
“Karoline has been a real leader in the White House, and has done a phenomenal job fighting for Justice, Liberty, and Freedom, since 2018,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Leavitt gave birth to her second child, a daughter, in May of this year, and recently returned from parental leave.
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As we noted earlier, the special primary to replace Lindsey Graham as the Republican nominee for US Senate in South Carolina has resulted in a runoff between Darline Graham – the late senator’s sister – and congressman Ralph Norman.
The race is set for 25 August and Norman released an ad today highlighting his credentials for the job.
“You shouldn’t have to guess where your next senator stands. With me, you already know,” Norman said in the new spot.
Graham, however, has received Donald Trump’s endorsement and clinched 33% of Tuesday’s votes.
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In the aftermath of the hotly contested Democratic primary in Wisconsin, a number of candidates and nominees broke bread (literally) today at a “unity” brunch.
On social media, Sarah Godlewski, Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, shared a picture of the table – which included David Crowley and Francesca Hong, as well as Wisconsin’s Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin. A number of other federal and state officials were also at the event.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
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Following her defeat for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor, Francesca Hong said that she would support David Crowley in the lead-up to the November general election. “This campaign was not about getting one person into office. It is about a building movement for permanent affordability and a government that puts working people first,” Hong said in a statement.
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For his part, Crowley vowed to unite a fractured coalition heading into November’s general election. At a press conference after his narrow victory, the Democratic nominee welcomed those who voted for Hong in Tuesday’s primary to join him in the lead-up to November. “I look forward to earning their support,” Crowley told reporters. He said his focus to unite voters “no matter where you fall on the political spectrum” in order to beat his GOP challenger, Tom Tiffany, in November.
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In Minnesota, Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman, Trump supporter and election denier, has refused to concede defeat in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, despite trailing by a double-digit margin the morning after polls closed. The Associated Press called the race for Lisa Demuth, the Minnesota House speaker, late last night. Told by a reporter on his own streaming channel, LindellTV, that the AP had declared the race over, Lindell dismissed the wire service outright. “I’m not going to give up this race until the votes are counted,” Lindell said. “That’s nonsense.”
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The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides – but no cabinet officials – in the astonishing decoy operation to get him off Air Force One, via a catering truck, in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat last month in Turkey. Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a US official familiar with the operation and corroborating material reviewed by the outlet, which first reported the story on Monday.
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The Trump administration has finalized a rule ending federal Medicaid funding for gender‑affirming care for transgender minors. Under the policy, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will bar states from seeking federal reimbursement for what the administration calls “sex‑rejecting procedures”. In practice, that includes puberty blockers – which are reversible – hormone therapy and, in rare cases, surgeries for trans youth. More here
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Prices in the US rose 0.1% in July, with overall inflation cooling slightly to 3.4% – but still higher than a year ago. The latest consumer price index report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that core inflation, which measures price changes without volatile goods such as food and gas, rose by 0.2% in July, after not really changing in June compared with the month prior.
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The Trump administration has again asked the supreme court to intervene to fully implement his executive order restricting the use of mail-in ballots ahead of November’s midterm elections that will decide control of Congress. The justice department filed a request today asking the court to put on hold a decision made Tuesday by the US district judge Indira Talwani that blocks the US Postal Service from nationwide enforcement of the directive’s tighter rules for voting by mail.
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Trump sued over $100,000-a-month early-access offer to Truth Social posts
Donald Trump has been sued after a subscription service charging up to $100,000 a month for early access to his posts on his Truth Social platform sparked allegations of corruption.
The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the southern district of New York, was brought by the Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation against Trump, two of his aides and the executive office of the president.
It targets “Truth API”, a paid data feed launched on 1 August by the Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social. The complaint calls the arrangement “extraordinary, corrupt and unconstitutional”.
The service gives paying subscribers faster access than the general public to posts from 10 of the platform’s highest-profile accounts, including Trump’s own account, as well as those of the vice-president, JD Vance; press secretary Karoline Leavitt; and other senior officials. Subscribers pay $100,000 a month, or $60,000 a month for a three-year commitment.
The White House and Trump Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Trump has a history of using Truth Social to disclose market-sensitive news, including posts on tariffs and the war on Iran, which have triggered swings in stock and oil prices. Trump Media’s interim chief executive, Kevin McGurn, has even promoted the service as a way to give businesses fast access to the platform’s “most market-moving” posts. He has described it as a “high-margin” product meant to provide a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue”.
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Close aides but no cabinet officials joined Trump in Air Force One ruse – report
Earlier this week, astonishing reports emerged around Donald Trump being secretly spirited off an Air Force One jet on a catering truck and into a different plane in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat last month in Turkey.
Democrats have called for an immediate congressional hearing into the ruse, and critics have raised serious questions over why reporters and the public had been deliberately misled. According to my colleague Martin Belam in this morning’s First Thing newsletter, more than a hundred aides, officials and reporters were kept onboard, without being told there was a threat to their lives.
“It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to President Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place,” said Steven Cash, executive director of the Steady State and a former CIA intelligence officer and senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch.
Today, the Washington Post (paywall) further reports that the president was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides – but no cabinet officials.
Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a US official familiar with the operation and corroborating material reviewed by the paper, which first reported the story on Monday.
According to the Post’s report, a few lower-profile aides were also present, but the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and other officials at the highest level of the government were not. Indeed, the story goes:
Other senior administration officials, military personnel, Secret Service agents and journalists remained on the legacy Air Force One plane, which had been deemed too risky for the president’s travel.
It remains unclear whether all the top administration officials involved were aware they were flying on a different plane than the president or whether they, like the reporters assigned to be in the pool covering him, were kept in the dark.
In his first public comments about the operation, Trump told reporters last night at Joint Base Andrews that the decision for him to take an alternative flight was made by the Secret Service.
“The plane that I was on was at greater risk,” he said. “Because that would be the plane that I think that they would be more likely to go for.”
Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, called the operation “unprecedented and surreal” and “downright scary” on CNN yesterday. “There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president.
“I want to know what precautions were taken to make sure that all of the passengers on that Air Force One, which was judged too dangerous for the president to fly on, what precautions were taken to keep the staff and reporters on that plane safe?”
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Mike Lindell refuses to concede in Minnesota primary despite getting far fewer votes
Mike Lindell, the pillow salesman, Trump supporter and election denier, has refused to concede defeat in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, despite trailing by a double-digit margin the morning after polls closed.
The Associated Press called the race for Lisa Demuth, the Minnesota House speaker, late last night. With almost all votes counted, Demuth was more than 45,000 votes ahead of Lindell, who had the backing of Donald Trump, beating him by 43.4% to 32.5%. Businessman Kendall Qualls, backed by the Republican state party, was trailing in third.
Told by a reporter on his own streaming channel, LindellTV, that the AP had declared the race over, Lindell dismissed the wire service outright. Asked why he wouldn’t accept the call, he questioned the AP’s authority to determine the outcome and insisted that hundreds of thousands of votes remained uncounted.
“I’m not going to give up this race until the votes are counted,” Lindell said. “That’s nonsense.”
Lindell did not return a request for comment on what steps he will take next to contest the election, as he waits for the votes to come in.
Lindell built his political career on the false claim that Trump’s 2020 defeat was the product of a rigged and stolen election, spending what he has said were tens of millions of dollars pursuing that conspiracy theory through lawsuits, documentaries and conferences, even as courts repeatedly threw it out. Last month he settled a $1.3bn defamation suit brought by voting technology company Liberty Vote, formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems, regarding the stolen election lies.
Lindell’s campaign was also dogged by questions over his own eligibility to run. He was, for weeks, not registered to vote in the state whose governorship he was seeking – his registration remained active in Texas, tied to a property owned by a company in Lufkin, even as he told reporters he had re-established Minnesota residency. Minnesota’s same-day registration rules meant he could still cast a ballot, and run, regardless.
Trump, who has failed to carry Minnesota in three consecutive presidential elections, made a late, personal push for Lindell on Tuesday, urging Minnesota Republicans on social media to hand him a decisive win and praising his commitment to “free and fair” elections.
Lindell’s defeat extended a run of losses for Trump-endorsed candidates, including House races for Andy Ogles, a representative in Tennessee, and Amir Hassan, a navy veteran in Michigan who lost to a candidate who had dropped out.
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Trump administration again urges supreme court intervention on mail-in ballots
Donald Trump’s administration has again asked the US supreme court to intervene to fully implement his executive order restricting the use of mail-in ballots ahead of November’s midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.
The justice department filed a request today asking the justices to put on hold a decision made yesterday by the US district judge Indira Talwani in Boston that blocks the US Postal Service from nationwide enforcement of the directive’s tighter rules for voting by mail.
Trump signed his executive order in March after years of calling for restrictions on voting by mail and pushing false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. A reminder that he has never provided evidence for that and has voted by mail himself.
Talwani’s decision yesterday, in a case brought by several voting rights groups and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, effectively expands on an earlier order she issued in June preventing the enforcement of Trump’s order in 23 mostly Democratic-governed states and Washington DC, which had also challenged the action as unconstitutional.
The administration has already asked the supreme court to pause the June decision. In its brief filing today, the justice department urged the court to lift that decision and make clear that the ruling applies to the judge’s action yesterday as well.
The administration contends that the lawsuits are premature as federal agencies have not yet taken any concrete actions that affect the plaintiffs, and so any harm they allege is speculative.
Trump’s executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to the states a list of US citizens eligible to vote in each state, and the justice department to prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local election officials who issue ballots to people deemed “not eligible” to vote in federal elections.
It also required the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. The Postal Service recently moved to implement Trump’s directive.
In siding with the voting rights groups yesterday, Talwani wrote that the executive branch of the federal government had no authority to regulate elections, a responsibility that the US constitution assigns to individual states.
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Marquee Minnesota primary races set the stage for historic victories in November
In Minnesota, the outcomes of some of the key primary races we’ve been watching have set the stage for historic victories come November.
In the North Star state’s gubernatorial race, the Democratic nominee, Senator Amy Klobuchar, will face off against Lisa Demuth, the state’s house speaker. Whoever emerges victorious will be the first woman to lead Minnesota. And if Demuth wins, she’ll also be the first Black governor in the state’s history.
In the race to replace retiring Senator Tina Smith, another all-female competition has emerged. The Democratic lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, and Republican Michelle Tafoya won their respective primaries. If Flanagan wins, she will be the first Native American woman elected to the Senate.
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'This campaign was not about getting one person into office': Hong says she will support Crowley in lead up to November general election
Following her defeat for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor, Francesca Hong said that she would support David Crowley in the lead-up to the November general election.
“This campaign was not about getting one person into office. It is about a building movement for permanent affordability and a government that puts working people first. Our movement is strong and the work isn’t done,” Hong said in a statement, emphasizing that her goal moving forward was to ensure Tom Tiffany, the GOP nominee, is unsuccessful.
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As the war in Iran shows few signs of easing, a reminder that US gas prices are hovering around $4 a gallon, according to AAA. That is almost 90 cents more than it was this time a year ago.
Donald Trump continued to insist that the US has “total control” of the strait of Hormuz, despite cargo traffic through the vital waterway only a fraction of what it was before the war began in February.
Trump said that he thinks the US will “KEEP” control of the chokepoint. “Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” the president added. “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid … Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer. Praise be to Allah!”
Trump administration finalizes rule to cut Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care
The Trump administration has finalized a rule ending federal Medicaid funding for gender‑affirming care for transgender minors.
Under the policy, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will bar states from seeking federal reimbursement for what the administration calls “sex‑rejecting procedures”. In practice, that includes puberty blockers – which are reversible – hormone therapy, and, in rare cases, surgeries for trans youth.
The rule takes effect 13 October. Beneficiaries will have up to six months to claim coverage for hormone therapy medications after that date. Federal funding for talk therapy related to gender dysphoria will continue.
“We are not going to pay for our innocent children to undergo these barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The move marks the latest step in the White House’s broader effort to strip federal support from providers treating trans youth, despite gender‑affirming care being endorsed by major US and international medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. Providers stress that treatment plans follow extensive evaluations and involve families throughout.
Trump claimed that “dozens of U.S. hospitals have already ended this so‑called ‘gender‑affirming care,’” citing pressure from his administration. Earlier this year, STAT news reported that more than 40 hospitals have paused or stopped some services for trans youth since Trump returned to office. In February, the Guardian reported that NYU Langone Health, one of New York City’s major hospital networks, would shut down its gender‑affirming care program for minors.
The new rule leans on a Department of Health and Human Services report that questions the medical consensus that gender‑affirming care can be life‑saving for transgender youth.
When Crowley was asked how he plans to get progressives on board, he said that that he wants to engage with voters “no matter where you fall on the political spectrum”.
“So many people have felt like they’ve been on the menu because nobody has asked them to lend their voices to the solutions,” Crowley added, while noting his ultimate goal is to beat his Republican challenger, congressman Tom Tiffany, in November.
Crowley says he will work to earn the support of Hong's supporters as he accepts Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor
At a press conference on Wednesday, David Crowley accepted the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin governor, and vowed to unite a fractured coalition heading into November’s general election.
He thanked Francesca Hong, his progressive challenger, noting that her campaign “reminded people across Wisconsin that there are no long shots in believing in a better future and fighting to expand opportunities to every family.”
He welcomed those who voted for her in Tuesday’s primary to join him in the lead up to November.
“I look forward to earning their support,” Crowley told reporters.
The newly minted nominee said that while the messy Democratic primary has been branded as a “battle between the left and the center”, it’s ultimately an inaccurate characterization.
“We may not agree on every policy. We may not use the same labels, but we all want safe communities, strong schools, affordable health care, good-paying jobs, and a brighter future for all of our children,” he said.
He added: “Every one of us has something much bigger to unite around, and that is keeping Maga extremism from bringing the chaos we see in Washington into our neighborhoods right here in the state of Wisconsin.”
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Alabama voters cast ballots again in redrawn district that dilutes Black voting power
Rachel Leingang and Maanvi Singh
Some Alabama voters took to the polls for the second time this primary season after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature reconfigured four of the seven districts.
The redrawn district map came after the US supreme court dismantled a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and several southern states moved to redistrict and consolidate Republican power. In June, the supreme court ruled that Alabama could use a redrawn congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in this year’s midterm elections.
The new map poses steep challenges for Shomari Figures, the Democratic representative who was first elected in 2024 after the creation of a new district that included the mostly Black cities of Mobile and Montgomery. But the district no longer includes Mobile, Figures’s home town. Rhett Marques, a Republican state representative and small-business owner who became part of the new district, won the primary to challenge Figures in November.
Here’s a round-up of some of the key takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:
Son-in-law of Trump cabinet official secures GOP nomination in Wisconsin House race
Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of transportation secretary Sean Duffy, won the Republican nomination for Wisconsin’s seventh congressional district.
The seat is currently held by Tom Tiffany, who as we noted earlier, ran unopposed for the GOP nomination for governor.
Alfonso, 26, received Donald Trump’s support for the primary and won in a landslide – beating four other Republican candidates in a red district that was represented by Duffy from 2011-2020, when he left Congress
Outgoing Wisconsin governor praises Crowley victory in hotly contested Democratic primary
Tony Evers, the outgoing Wisconsin governor, praised David Crowley on his victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the governor’s race.
“He’s the future of our party,” Evers said. “I can’t wait for him to be our next governor.”
Evers’ endorsement spurred Crowley to re-enter the race in July, after the Milwaukee county executive initially suspended his bid.
Crowley will now face Tom Tiffany, a Trump-endorsed Republican congressman who ran unopposed in the Republican primary.
Core inflation, which measures price changes without volatile goods like food and gas, rose by 0.2% in July, after not really changing in June compared to the month prior.
While the latest data shows there has been a 2.9% drop in gas prices from June to July, there has been a 25% hike compared to this time last year.
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US prices up 3.4% compared to a year ago, according to latest data
The latest consumer price index report has been released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Prices in the US rose 0.1% in July, with overall inflation cooling slightly to 3.4% – but still higher than a year ago.
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Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll spend the day in private meetings. At 10.30am ET he’ll meet with military service members and law enforcement. That’s currently closed to the press but we’ll let you know if that changes.
We’ll also be keeping an eye out on his reaction to Tuesday’s key primary results.
WHO says Trump vaccine shake-up goes against evidence
The World Health Organization has warned that Donald Trump’s bid to overhaul child vaccination in the United States went against “decades of evidence”.
President Trump signed an order Monday pushing for a rethink of school vaccine mandates and repeating calls for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be separated into three separate shots.
His health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr founded an anti-vaccine group and has long promoted a disproven link between the MMR shot and autism, AFP reported.
But WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the science is “unequivocal: vaccines – including the MMR vaccine – are safe and do not cause autism.”
“Vaccination policy should be guided by rigorous, independent and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence,” he warned in a post on X.
He said that the WHO is “concerned that recent changes to US immunisation policy are not aligned with decades of evidence that show when children are most vulnerable to disease.”
Darline Graham to face Ralph Norman in South Carolina Republican primary runoff
Senator Darline Graham, appointed to complete the Senate term of her late brother, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina will face congressman Ralph Norman in a runoff election for the Republican nomination.
Graham held a narrow lead in the polls going into the abbreviated special primary on Tuesday, which predicted a close contest for second place. Norman, Russell Fry, a congressman, and Mark Sanford, a former governor, had polled within a point of each other in the most recent survey from the Trafalgar Group.
The winner of the runoff on 25 August will face Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee and a pediatrician, in November.
Graham has loudly trumpeted her endorsement from Donald Trump, but also enjoys the support of South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, and John Thune, the Senate majority leader. In recent interviews the political outsider sought to convince people that her experience, and focus on affordability, made her the right candidate.
“I ran a state agency. I turned it from a struggling agency into a national model. I think that’s great experience to bring to the table,” Graham said, addressing reporters after casting her ballot on Tuesday. She highlighted the passage of a sanctions bill targeting Russia during her short tenure in Washington. “I was the deciding vote on Todd Blanche as attorney general. So I think I’ve accomplished a whole lot in three weeks.”
Trump administration set to spend at least $900m on White House construction - report
President Donald Trump’s administration is to spend at least $900m for construction projects on the White House grounds, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing records.
Instead of securing money directly from Congress, the administration has gathered funding from other agencies and private donors and directed it to an account that holds a few million dollars for routine maintenance of the White House, the report said.
Confidential contracts and related planning documents indicate that the administration plans to use money in that account for White House “modernization projects,” the report added.
In July, Donald Trump hid in a catering truck and reportedly secretly switched planes in a security ruse prompted by a credible Iranian assassination threat.
In this video, the Guardian breaks down the footage from that day, showing how the president reportedly boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras and then was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies preflight.
Trump’s actual location was concealed from journalists and some White House staff, who thought they were traveling with Trump on the older plane.
Progressive Peggy Flanagan sweeps Minnesota Senate primary in race defined by anti-ICE anger
Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, won the Democratic primary for US Senate in a race centered on immigration enforcement after the Trump administration crackdown turned deadly and destructive earlier this year.
Flanagan ousted congresswoman Angie Craig in yet another example of progressive campaigns toppling moderates amid an anti-establishment wave among Democrats.
“It’s time to fight for what people actually need,” Flanagan recently told the Guardian. “And so often I think Democrats are like: ‘What do we think we can win?’ Instead of: ‘What are the fights that we should be picking?’”
Flanagan will now face Michele Tafoya, a Republican former National Football League sideline reporter, in November. If she wins, Flanagan will become the first Native American woman in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the state’s gubernatorial race proved a rebuke of Donald Trump’s endorsement power as Mike Lindell, an election denier and pillow salesman, lost to Lisa Demuth, the Minnesota house speaker. Demuth will face Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic US senator, in November, where Klobuchar is favored to win.
Lindell’s significant campaign liabilities had led his own party to speak out against his campaign. He is contending with ongoing defamation cases because of his election denialism, as well as a potential campaign finance violation for handing out free pillows at a parade. He recently stepped down as CEO of MyPillow, which faces legal claims for unpaid bills.
Minnesota leans Democratic. It has not elected a Republican statewide since 2006, when Tim Pawlenty won a second term as governor and a Republican presidential candidate has not won the state since 1972.
David Crowley defeats Francesca Hong to win Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor
David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, won the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor after beating the Democratic socialist Francesca Hong.
Crowley pulled off a last-minute victory after re-entering the campaign and snagging an endorsement from Tony Evers, the outgoing governor.
With most votes counted, Crowley had 39.8% of the vote, ahead of Hong’s 39.4%, according to the Associated Press: a lead of just more than 3,000 votes. The race came down to the wire, with Hong and Crowley running close to each other as each batch of results came in.
Polls had shown Hong as a clear frontrunner during the campaign, but with large chunks of voters still undecided and an ever-changing field of candidates, polling was difficult. Polls in Michigan had similarly shown the progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed with a more sizeable lead than he ended up with in his victory in the Democratic primary for US Senate.
Crowley’s pitch to voters in the waning weeks of the campaign was electability: he felt he was more poised to win against Tom Tiffany, a Republican congressman and ardent Trump supporter who ran unopposed in the Republican primary. Tiffany voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election, which Trump lost.
Crowley previously told the Guardian:
We knew that the stakes were too high for me to sit on the sideline, and that we need the best candidate, not just with executive leadership, but somebody who has a proven track record of getting things done. And that’s what voters want. They want someone they can trust. And that’s why we got back into this race.
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Trump says Secret Service and military wanted him off Air Force One in Turkey due to threat
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
President Donald Trump said he slipped away from Air Force One after a trip last month in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat that he insisted didn’t scare him.
When US intelligence allegedly found a credible threat that Iran plotted to kill him last month, Trump left Air Force One in a catering truck, an episode first reported by the Washington Post and also by the New York Times.
Trump downplayed the extraordinary nature of the subterfuge, as well as the risk to the people – White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters – he left on the plane.
“They wanted me to go on a different flight, different plane,” Trump told reporters after returning from an event in Ohio, saying he had little choice in the matter.
“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it,” he said. “I get a lot of threats.”
While the president was reportedly snuck out the side door of the plane, more than a hundred aides, officials and reporters were kept onboard to fly towards Britain, without being told there was a threat to their lives.
It comes as Democrats called for a congressional briefing over a stunning charade. Critics now question why reporters and the public had been deliberately misled.
“It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to president Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place,” said Steven Cash, executive director of the Steady State and a former CIA intelligence officer and senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch.
Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, called the operation “unprecedented and surreal” and “downright scary” on CNN. “There has to be a congressional briefing because it involves not just the safety of the president.
“I want to know what precautions were taken to make sure that all of the passengers on that Air Force One, which was judged too dangerous for the president to fly on, what precautions were taken to keep the staff and reporters on that plane safe?”
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
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David Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, pulled off a last-minute victory after re-entering the Wisconsin governor’s race and snagging an endorsement from Tony Evers, the outgoing governor. The race came down to the wire, with Francesca Hong and Crowley running close to each other as each batch of results came in. Republican Tom Tiffany easily secured his party’s nomination.
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In Minnesota, lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan handily won the Democratic primary for US Senate, beating moderate US representative Angie Craig in a race animated by anti-ICE sentiment. She will face Michele Tafoya in the general.
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In the Republican bid for Minnesota governor, House speaker Lisa Demuth scored an upset, beating pillow salesman Mike Lindell, who had gotten Trump’s endorsement. She will face Amy Klobuchar in the general.
And in hotly contested congressional races:
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Luke Bronin beat incumbent John Larson in Connecticut’s first congressional district.
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Matt Little won a three-way race in Craig’s district, Minnesota’s third congressional district.
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Rebecca Cooke won the Democratic primary in her third try to unseat Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s toss-up third congressional district.
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