Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are some of the day’s major developments:
Donald and Melania Trump visited Kerrville, Texas, one week after flooding killed at least 120 people, as more than 170 remain missing. They received a briefing on the recovery effort, and held a campaign-style roundtable event in which the president lavished praise on local, state and federal officials, who in turn praised him. The president reacted with hostility to a question from a reporter who said that grieving families wanted to know why their loved ones had not been alerted to the danger in time. He was more pleased with correspondents from partisan conservative outlets and podcasts who praised him and attacked Democrats.
Florida’s most senior Catholic leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, condemned the new immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, and called the gleeful rhetoric around it “intentionally provocative” as well as “unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good”.
A farm worker “has died of injuries they sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action” in Ventura county, California, the United Farm Workers union said.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary who oversees Fema, the federal emergency management agency, let call center contracts expire the day after the catastrophic floods and failed to renew the contracts for another five days, the New York Times reported. As a result, two-thirds of calls from survivors were left unanswered.
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Donald Trump landed in New Jersey a short time ago and is on his way to his golf club in Bedminister. Social media evidence suggests that he appears to have spent the flight from Texas engaged in his favorite pastime: watching Fox News, and using social media to share with the world his thoughts on what he sees on the screen.
That, at least, is the well-informed guess of Acyn Torabi, who posts clips of rightwing news broadcasts on Fox and other channels on social media.
As Torabi noted a short time ago, Trump’s latest social media post, expressing outrage that rocks were thrown at the vehicles of immigration officers in California on Thursday, appeared just after footage of that was broadcast during Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox Friday evening.
“I am on my way back from Texas, and watched in disbelief as THUGS were violently throwing rocks and bricks at ICE Officers while they were moving down a roadway in their car and/or official vehicle,” Trump wrote.
“Therefore, I am directing Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and Border Czar, Tom Homan, to instruct all ICE, Homeland Security, or any other Law Enforcement Officer who is on the receiving end of thrown rocks, bricks, or any other form of assault, to stop their car, and arrest these SLIMEBALLS, using whatever means is necessary to do so,” the president added.
Without knowing that the president often fails to distinguish between what he sees in real life and on TV, readers might have guessed that Trump had just witnessed this during his visit to Texas. However, Torabi, who monitors Fox closely, was able to deduce that Trump was almost certainly referring to a segment on Ingraham’s show that had been broadcast minutes before Trump’s post.
What’s more, Trump’s demand for arrests came after Ingraham made exactly that demand on her show after she played the video.
“They got to pull these cars over and throw these guys down on the ground and arrest that, that’s what they got to do next time,” Ingraham said, as if speaking to an audience of one.
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A press release sent to reporters from the office of the first lady, Melania Trump, about her visit to meet grieving families and first responders highlights the fact that her husband, Donald Trump, praised her in his remarks.
The press release describes their visit and then says, in its second paragraph (with bold lettering in the original):
During a roundtable discussion with emergency personnel and Texas leaders, President Trump acknowledged the First Lady’s compassionate leadership, saying: “We have a wonderful First Lady. She’s done a great job as First Lady, and she’s a very special woman. When she saw and met the people that we met just a little while ago. It’s very devastating.”
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Hours after Donald Trump insisted that officials involved in the response to the deadly flooding in Texas on the Fourth of July were entirely blameless, the New York Times reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) failed to answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line placed by survivors on 6 July.
The agency, which still lacks a confirmed leader, had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers on 5 July because Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, failed to renew their contracts, according to documents seen by the Times.
Noem, who rushed to Texas to be the public face of the Trump administration’s response, introduced a new rule that she must personally approve any expense over $100,000. She did not renew the contracts until Thursday, leaving Fema call centers short-staffed for the first five days after the disaster.
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Miami archbishop condemns Florida detention center known as 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Florida’s most senior Catholic leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, has condemned the new immigration detention center at Dade-Collier airport, officially known as “Alligator Alcatraz”, in an impassioned statement posted on the archdiocese of Miami’s website.
Wenski is a multilingual Florida native, described in an archdiocese biography as “the blond, blue-eyed son of Polish immigrants, he speaks Spanish like a Cuban, Creole like a Haitian and, ironically, only ‘limited’ Polish”.
After expressing sympathy for the goal of removing criminals from the United States, Wenski argued that “most immigrants are hardworking and honest and only want to build a hopeful future for themselves and their families”.
He went on to note that the US faces labor shortages in areas that are staffed by immigrants, including healthcare and agriculture. “Rather than spending billions to deport people who are already contributing positively to our nation’s well-being, it would be more financially sensible and more morally acceptable for Congress, working with the Administration, to expand legal pathways for non-criminal migrants to adjust to a permanent legal status,” the archbishop wrote.
“It is alarming to see enforcement tactics that treat all irregular immigrants as dangerous criminals,” Wenski added. “Masked, heavily armed agents who do not identify themselves during enforcement activities are surprising – so is the apparent lack of due process in deportation proceedings in recent months.”
“Along these lines, much of the current rhetoric is obviously intentionally provocative,” the cleric added. “It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons’ at the Collier-Dade facility. Common decency requires that we remember the individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives. …
“We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness of the temporary ‘tent’ structures in the Florida heat and summer thunderstorms, not to mention the challenge of safely protecting detainees in the event of a hurricane,” Wenski continued.
The archbishop, who once spent a summer in Haiti learning Creole and devoted 18 years of his career to working with Miami’s Haitian community, also wrote in support of Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans who have lived in the US legally with temporary protected status that the administration is now stripping away.
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Interim summary
Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are now on board Air Force One en route to New Jersey after their visit to observe recovery efforts in Kerrville, Texas, where more than 120 people were killed in flooding in the Fourth of July disaster, and more than 170 remain missing.
Here is an overview of the visit:
The Trumps were greeted in Kerrville by Texas governor Greg Abbott and received a briefing on the recovery effort, including Kerr county sheriff Larry Leitha and W Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas division of emergency management.
They then sat down for a televised roundtable discussion about the emergency response that featured comments from the president and the first lady, as well as from the governor and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, whose presence masked the absence of a confirmed administrator of Fema, the federal emergency management agency Noem and Trump have pledged to eliminate. Both of Texas’s Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, also took part, as did Republican representative Chip Roy, who represents the area.
During the roundtable, Trump asked one of his invited guests, Phil McGraw, the former daytime talkshow host known as Dr Phil, to share some “words of wisdom”.
Soon after he opened the floor to questions from reporters, Trump called a correspondent for a local Texas broadcaster “very evil” for asking him what he would say to grieving families who say that their loved ones could still be alive if officials had warned them of the potential for catastrophic flooding. He then took questions from a series of correspondents for partisan outlets that support him, starting with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend.
The roundtable was notable for its resemblance at times to one of Trump’s campaign events, given that most of the participants he invited to speak were careful to praise him and that he insisted, again and again, that all of the Republican local, state and federal officials had acted admirably and any criticism of their efforts was despicable.
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Farm worker dies of injuries sustained during immigration raid in California, union says
A farm worker “has died of injuries they sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action” in Ventura county, California, the United Farm Workers union said in a statement posted on social media on Friday afternoon.
Federal immigration officers, supported by national guard troops, raided two licensed, legal cannabis farms in Carpinteria and Camarillo on Thursday, arresting about 200 people they said were suspected of lacking legal status to live and work in the United States. Hundreds of protesters who gathered to oppose the raids were later attacked by the officers with chemical munitions.
Earlier on Friday, the union reported that “farm workers were critically injured yesterday during chaotic raids in Ventura County”.
“Many workers-including US citizens, were held by federal authorities at the farm for 8 hours or more. US citizen workers report only being released after they were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones,” the union wrote.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union statement added. “There is no city, state or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately.”
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Trump departs scene of deadly flooding in Texas, having praised local and state officials
Donald Trump and his wife Melania have now left Kerrville, Texas, after completing a roundtable discussion with officials involved in the recovery effort in Kerrville, Texas, which also featured what the president called some “words of wisdom” from Phil McGraw, the former daytime talkshow host known as Dr Phil whose pro-Trump cable network just declared bankruptcy.
The Trumps are now en route by helicopter back to Kelly Field airbase in San Antonio where they will board Air Force One.
According to the pool reporter traveling with them, the president and first lady walked along a rope line of dozens of emergency workers before they left Kerrville.
“This is as tough as we’ve seen,” Trump told the first responders. “The governor is doing a very good job, you’re doing a phenomenal job and we appreciate it,” he added.
Those remarks summed up the message that the president repeated again and again throughout the visit. Everyone, he said, had done a great job and no one in elected office could be blamed remotely for the scores of deaths from the catastrophic flooding.
Those talking points, and Trump’s unwillingness to even answer a question about why so many people in harm’s way had received no emergency warning in advance of the flood waters sweeping them away, oddly echoed the confident assertion a former president, George W Bush, made two decades ago in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, before its deadly toll was clear.
Speaking on 2 September 2005 in Mobile, Alabama, then president Bush effusively praised the response led by Fema director Michael Brown. “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” Bush told him. “The Fema director” and his staff, the president added, as other officials burst into applause “are working 24 hours a day”.
Brown resigned 10 days later and Bush’s praise for the failed federal response was widely ridiculed, including by Will Ferrell in a segment of the comedian’s later one-man show about Bush’s failed presidency.
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Trump calls reporter 'evil' for asking about lack of warnings ahead of flood
Donald Trump berated a CBS News Texas reporter who said that families of the dead are saying that their loved ones could have been saved had emergency warnings gone out before the flooding. “What do you say to those families?” the reporter asked the president.
“Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances,” Trump said with a shrug of his shoulders. He then suggested that the severity of the flooding was unforeseeable and said he had only “admiration” for the local officials.
“Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that,” Trump said. “I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, the job you’ve all done.
“It’s easy to sit back and say, ‘Oh, what could’ve happened here”, Trump added in a mocking tone.
The president then turned to ask for a question from a more friendly corespondent, calling on Brian Glenn, who covers the White House for the pro-Trump network Real America’s Voice, and is the boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia.
“Brian, go ahead please,” the president said.
Glenn’s question on who had first alerted Trump to the disaster was followed by a comment from the correspondent who said that as a native Texan he had received hundreds of messages thanking Trump for his response. Glenn mentioned that he had already told this to the president, referring to having made the same statement earlier this week during a televised cabinet meeting, but said he wanted to repeat it to make sure everyone in the room had heard it. “Thank you on behalf of Texas,” Glenn concluded.
“Thank you very much.” Trump said. “Well that’s a nice reporter.”
A short time later, another pro-Trump correspondent used the opportunity to further politicize the event by asking Trump to comment on the criticism of the disaster response from “ghouls on the left like Jasmine Crockett”, in reference to the Texas congresswoman who has recently been leading Republican senator John Cornyn in polls ahead of his race for re-election next year.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the federal government’s emergency declaration of a major disaster was the fastest he was aware of, addressing a round table of local officials about flooding in Kerrville.
“Whenever there’s a disaster or catastrophe, the first thing we focus on is saving lives, prioritizing those lives every minute,” Abbott said, “Every hour counts.”
Trumpcriticized the previous administration’s response to Hurricane Helene in his remarks while praising Fema’s current leadership. Notably, requests for federal assistance in western North Carolina have been denied under the Trump administration.
Abbott cited the response by the Coast Guard in Texas, “literally saving lives right and left”. Abbott said he was committed to long-term recovery for the community. “We’re here for the long run, to maintain our operations to search and find everybody that we can, as well as ensure that we’re going to rebuild this community … not just to rebuild, but to rebuild in a better way.
He noted that the Texas legislature would reconvene in 10 days.
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In rare public comments, First Lady Melania Trump expressed her sympathy with flood victims at a round table in Kerrville, Texas.
“All parents lost beautiful young souls. Sympathy from all of us to the community, to everybody who lost a loved one. We are grieving with you. Our nation is grieving with you. We just met with the wonderful families. We pray with them. We hug. We hold hands. They share the stories.”
Melania Trump said she was there to honor lost lives.
“And I will be back. I promise to them. I just pray for them and am giving them my strength and love.”
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Trump likens flooding to 'giant wave ... best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf'
Donald Trump praised law enforcement officers and first responders to deadly flooding in Texas while holding a roundtable discussion in Kerrville with administration leaders and local officials.
“Every American should be inspired by what has taken place,” Trump said. The president said he had spent time speaking with people in the community who have been affected by the flooding.
“All across the country, Americans hearts are shattered,” Trump said. “We’re filled with grief and devastation, the loss of life, and unfortunately, they’re still looking. They’re still looking. There’s a lot of missing children, possibly, mostly, we don’t know, but they’re still looking, and they’ll find everybody. But it’s not an easy thing.”
Trump likened the flooding to “a giant, giant wave in the Pacific Ocean that the best surfers in the world would be afraid to surf”.
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Trump says he and first lady are in Texas to 'express love and support'
“Well, this is a tough one … It’s hard to believe the devastation,” said Donald Trump said as a roundtable discussion about flooding began in Kerrville, Texas.
“Trees that are 100 years old just ripped out of the ground,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen a lot of bad ones. I’ve gone to a lot of hurricanes, a lot of tornadoes. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is a bad one.”
Trump is meeting with local officials and first responders, observing the damage which he said had “claimed at least 135, 140 lives,” so far.
“We just visited with incredible families that – I mean, look – they’ve been devastated. They lost their child or two children, and just hard to believe. I’ve never seen anything like a little narrow river that becomes a monster, and that’s what happened. But the first lady and I are here in Texas to express the love and support and the anguish of our entire nation in the aftermath of this horrific and deadly flood. Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen.”
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Donald Trump is about to sit down for a round table discussing flood relief and recovery with first responders and local officials at the Happy State Bank Expo Hall in Kerrville.
Questions have arisen about the alert system employed by local safety officials and a slow federal response to the flooding. Fema records obtained by NBC News in Dallas investigative reporters show that Kerr county officials in Texas did not use Fema’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System to send warnings with safety instructions to all mobile phones in the affected area during critical hours on 4 July.
And bureaucratic hurdles created by a focus on cost-cutting appear to have kept some federal emergency responders from immediately deploying assets in the wake of the flood, CNN reported.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins and Texas senators Tex Cruz and John Cornyn spoke with officials in the hall while waiting for Trump and the first lady to arrive for the roundtable.
Before arriving at the hall, the presidential motorcade stopped at an area near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville near an overturned tractor trailer and downed trees. Damage appeared to be more extensive near the riverbank. Trump, his wife and Texas governor Greg Abbott took a briefing about flooding there from local officials.
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Border czar: Ice don’t need probable cause to grab someone
White House border czar Tom Homan told Fox News on Friday morning that Ice agents can ignore probable cause and profile people suspected of illegal migration based on their physical appearance.
A federal judge is expected to issue a ruling on Friday on a restraining order aimed at curbing immigration enforcement operations in southern California. Asked about constraints on the crackdown, Homan replied, “People need to understand, Ice officers and border patrol, they don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them and question them. Get our typical facts based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions ...”
Homan has made a string of statements showing contempt for legal norms in immigration enforcement, at one point claiming that a judge’s order to prevent a deportation was invalid because planes were already in the air.
“Agents are trained what they need to detain somebody temporarily and question them is not probable cause, it’s reasonable suspicion,” he said. “We’re trained on that. Every agent gets fourth amendment training over and over again.”
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First responders brief Trump in Kerr county
Donald Trump was greeted in Kerrville, Texas, by Governor Greg Abbott. The president is there to observe recovery efforts after deadly flooding in the area. It has been friendly territory to Republican presidents.
Kerr county is in Texas hill country, about 65 miles – an hour’s drive – north-west of San Antonio, in Republican congressman Chip Roy’s district. About 54,000 people live in the county, with a bit less than half living in the county seat of Kerrville. Republican voters outnumber Democrats about three to one in the county.
About a quarter of Kerr county residents are Latino. The median household income in the county was about $68,000 in 2023, according to US census figures.
The Kerrville Visitor’s Bureau has promoted the Guadalupe River as a tourist destination for hikers, kayakers and canoeists, with gallery space and restaurants along the riverbank. Kerrville has hosted a folk festival for more than 50 years as a major visitor draw.
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Jeffrey Epstein case blowback from the right roils FBI, justice department leadership
A circular firing squad has reportedly formed inside the White House as administration officials react to fallout from rightwing supporters of conspiracy theories about the death of Jeffrey Epstein and officials’ handling of the investigation.
Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer, said on X that FBI deputy director Dan Bongino is clashing with Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel. Loomer is calling for Trump to fire Bondi over her handling of the case.
Follow-up reporting by Axios said Bondi and Patel confronted Bongino with a NewsNation article that said he and Patel would have released information about Epstein earlier, but were held back by the DoJ. Bongino denied leaking that idea and didn’t show up for work on Friday, leading some insiders to believe Bongino had quit. Administration officials say he remains at the FBI.
The dispute is over a surveillance video released in conjunction with a joint FBI-DoJ report that determined Epstein had not been keeping a client list for blackmail and had committed suicide as previous investigations had concluded. The 10-hour video from outside of Epstein’s cell was strongly touted by Bongino as proof no one had entered the room before he killed himself.
But the video was found to have a minute of missing footage. Administration officials attribute the missing minute to the recording system changing over to a new tape at midnight.
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Trump has landed in Texas
Donald Trump and first lady Melania have arrived in Texas. Air Force One landed at Kelly Field air base in San Antonio, Texas, just before noon local time, according to a press pool report. Trump will now head to Kerrville to survey flood damage.
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Zelenskyy hails 'good signals' from US and EU on weapons shipments
Update: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenkiy said on Friday that he had received “good signals” from the US and the European Union on weapons shipments.
In a video on X, he said: “We have received political signals at the highest level – good signals – including from the United States, from our European friends. According to all reports, aid shipments have been restored.”
Reuters earlier reported Zelenskiy had that the US has resumed military supplies. Zelenskiy also said his army leaders would work next week with US special envoy Keith Kellogg. Ukrainian media reported that Kellogg will arrive in Kyiv on Monday for a week-long visit.
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‘A galaxy far, far away’… coming soon to a protest near you
Members and leaders of the progressive activist group Indivisible saw fans of the Disney+ series “Andor” at the massive No Kings protests in June. They carried posters referencing the show, and the group saw discussions about attending the protests on different fan sites.
Now, Indivisible is trying to explicitly reach fans of the show, an origin story of the Rebel Alliance that fights against the Empire, finding analogies between the show and the rising Trump resistance.
The group is running ads on Facebook, targeting Star Wars fans with a graphic of a protester carrying a “We have friends everywhere” sign, a line from the show. They’re also running podcast ads on a fan podcast. The ads invite people in the fandom to training sessions or to their local Indivisible group and are designed to boost name recognition of Indivisible among people who could be politically aligned but in places that aren’t explicitly political.
“Andor might be taking place in a galaxy far far away, but the connections to what’s happening in this country are inescapable,” an ad running on the podcast “Storm of Spoilers” says. “We’re seeing a steady march by a tyrannical regime against our communities and our rights.”
The overall money spent is not big – but it’s an experiment in reaching out to new demographics, a common theme on the left after the 2024 losses. In the past, the group has targeted Taylor Swift fans and people who read romance novels.
Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible and an Andor fan, said fans of the show are finding inspiration from it in this “moment of creeping authoritarianism”.
“Just like on the show, we want to help people move from personal frustration and occasional protest, to more sustained and inter-connected defiance – though unlike the show, obviously, our ‘rebellion’ isn’t one that involves violence,” Levin said. “At Indivisible, we’re experts on helping new people get involved in activism – and we literally have ‘friends everywhere,’ since there are 2,600+ local Indivisible groups around the country. So this feels like a natural fit.”
Missouri’s governor Mike Kehoe has signed the repeal of a law that guaranteed paid sick leave – just eight months after voters approved it.
Kehoe signed the repeal of a law on Thursday that had guaranteed paid sick leave to workers and inflationary adjustments to the minimum wage.
The move marked a major victory for the state’s largest business group and a frustrating defeat for workers’ rights advocates, who had spent years – and millions of dollars – building support for the successful ballot measure, which also granted inflationary adjustments to the minimum wage. The repeal will take effect on 28 August.
Kehoe, who also signed a package of tax breaks on Thursday, described the paid sick leave law as an onerous mandate that imposed burdensome record-keeping.
“Today, we are protecting the people who make Missouri work – families, job creators, and small business owners – by cutting taxes, rolling back overreach, and eliminating costly mandates,” Kehoe, a Republican, said in a statement carried by AP.
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United Airlines tie-up with JetBlue raises anti-competition concerns
Senator Richard Blumenthal described a proposed partnership between United Airlines and JetBlue Airways as anti-competitive, questioning the CEOs of both companies about their records and plans in a letter seen on Friday by Reuters.
United is the second-largest airline by revenue and the fourth by passengers carried in 2024 in the United States. JetBlue is a low-cost competitor with about a quarter of United’s capacity. Shares of both firms were lower on the news of Blumenthal’s concerns.
JetBlue has been seeking partnerships for years and has been thwarted twice by competition rulings. JetBlue’s partnership with American Airlines ended in 2023 after a federal judge blocked it. JetBlue and Spirit broke off a planned $3.8bn merger last year after a US judge blocked the deal on anti-competition grounds.
In the letter to United CEO Scott Kirby and JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty, the Democratic senator asked about their “Blue Sky” agreement to share bookings across websites and points in each airline’s frequent flyer programs. Blumenthal expressed concern about any deal “that may harm full and fair airline competition and lead to fewer and more expensive options for travelers, particularly in the New York City area”.
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Blanche: 'No daylight' between DoJ and FBI on Epstein conclusions
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche says there is “no daylight” between the FBI and the Department of Justice leadership on the assertions made in a joint memo about the death of Jeffrey Epstein in custody.
“I worked closely with [FBI director Kash Patel] and [FBI deputy director Dan Bongino] on the joint FBI and DOJ memo regarding the Epstein Files,” Blanche wrote on X. “All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.”
The memo released earlier this week by administration officials reaffirmed earlier findings that Epstein committed suicide in his cell on 10 August 2019. “This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’” it states. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Donald Trump – an acquaintance of the disgraced financier, who was facing charges of sex trafficking of minors at the time of his death – has come under withering criticism from the right, which had been expecting Trump to make good on campaign pledges to release more information about the case.
Trump erupted at a question asked at a press conference on Tuesday about a one-minute gap in a 10-hour video recorded outside of Epstein’s cell. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he said. “This guy’s been talked about for years … Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.”
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The Senate armed services committee has approved $500m in security assistance for Ukraine, according to Reuters.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual policy bill that authorizes funding levels and provides authorities for the U.S. military, includes a provision to extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and to increase funding from $300m to $500m this year.
The initiative will help Ukraine’s defense capabilities in its ongoing war against Russia, which invaded in 2022.
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Gallup: Americans are becoming less opposed to immigration
Americans are becoming less opposed to immigration, a Gallup poll suggests:
30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago
Record-high 79% consider immigration good for the country
Support down for border wall, mass deportation
A new Gallup poll released today suggests that the political potency of illegal immigration may be abating as Americans see what draconian immigration enforcement actually looks like.
The portion of Americans who want immigration to be reduced has returned to the level measured by polls in 2021, Gallup reported. 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased. The collapse in opposition to immigration is largest among Republicans, down 40% over the past year to 48%. Republicans remain the only group with a plurality seeking immigration reductions. Among independents, opposition to rising immigration is down 21 points to 30%, and among Democrats, down 12 points to 16%.
When asked if immigration is generally a good thing or bad thing for the country, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults call it a good thing; a record-low 17% see it as a bad thing.
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Dimon blasts Democrats for DEI, calls Mamdami a Marxist
JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon blasted Democrats at an event hosted by the Irish foreign ministry in Dublin yesterday, calling them “idiots” for focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“I always say they have big hearts and little brains,” Bloomberg news reported. “They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed.” Dimon restated his company’s devotion to “reaching out to the Black community, Hispanic, the LGBT community, the disabled – we do all of that. But the extent, they gotta stop it. And they gotta go back to being more practical. They’re very ideological.”
Dimon also described Zohran Mamdami, the New York state representative and Democratic nominee in the New York City mayoral race, as “more a Marxist than a socialist”.
Tariffs were very much on Dimon’s mind, after Donald Trump announced a new round proposing a 50% levy on Brazil and on the copper trade. Trump reversed course on tariffs earlier this year after wild swings in the stock market. The banking leader warned Wall Street that the so-called Taco Trade – investments that speculate on Trump’s propensity to back down from tariff threats – are preventing a reaction to risk that creates the very market conditions that would see the tariffs take effect this time.
“I think he did the right thing to chicken out,” he said, per the Financial Times. “Unfortunately, I think there is complacency in the market.”
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Trump budget chief Russ Vought says Fema should be ‘reformed’
In comments to reporters in the White House driveway this morning, Russ Vought responded to questions about Fema and it’s ability to respond to future disasters.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration is backing away from plans to shutter Fema entirely.
“Fema has $13b in its reserves right now to continue to pay for the necessary expenses,” the Office of Management and Budget director said of that agency, according to a pool report. He added that “the president has said to Texas, anything it needs it will get.” He continued that, at the same time, “we also want Fema to be reformed. We want Fema to work well … the president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of his agencies.”
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Former Ice attorney speaks out about employee morale in the agency
A piece from The Atlantic yesterday described the moral conundrum of Ice agents, highlighting Adam Boyd, a 33-year-old attorney who ultimately quit Ice’s legal department last month.
Deportations are now a numbers game, with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller setting a daily arrest quota of 3,000 that is getting little push back inside an agency that has had its senior leadership replaced, even though rank-and-file Ice agents perceive that target as impossible to meet.
Standards for due process for immigration detainees has deteriorated, Boyd said. He couldn’t remain at the agency in good conscience.
“I had to make a moral decision,” Boyd told The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff. “We still need good attorneys at Ice. There are drug traffickers and national-security threats and human-rights violators in our country who need to be dealt with. But we are now focusing on numbers over all else.” Some Ice attorneys “are only waiting until their student loans are forgiven, and then they’re leaving”, he said.
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Netanyahu leaves Washington without breakthrough on Gaza deal
Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week did not result in a ceasefire deal for the Gaza war, despite Donald Trump’s efforts, the Associated Press reports.
Despite Trump throwing his weight behind a push for a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas, no breakthrough was announced during Netanyahu’s visit, a disappointment for a president who wants to be known as a peacemaker and has hinged his reputation on being a dealmaker. His aim of making a peace deal has been challenged by the Israeli prime minster’s desire to continuing the war until Hamas is destroyed.
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Yesterday, my colleague José Olivares reported that the death toll in Texas was plateaued at 120, signaling that rescuers have made little progress to find victims amid wreckage in the past 24 hours. From José’s report:
On Thursday morning, local officials in Kerr county, which was hit the hardest by the 4 July flash flood, announced that 96 people had died, the same number reported on Wednesday evening.
Thursday’s update comes a day after Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, discussed plans to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Weeks ago, Trump had promised to begin “phasing out” Fema in order to “bring it down to the state level”.
You can read the full story here:
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Trump to survey damage from deadly floods during Texas visit
In about an hour, we expect Donald Trump and Melania Trump, the first lady, to depart the White House for Kerrville, Texas, where scores of people have been killed and remain missing after catastrophic flooding hit the region last week.
While the Trump administration isn’t backing away from its pledges to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), it has lessened its focus on the topic since the 4 July disaster.
The president is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas, according to the Associated Press. The White House also said he will visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims.
Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and Senator Ted Cruz are expected to the visit.
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A recent ruling by the US supreme court cleared the way for the state department layoffs to start while lawsuits challenging cuts continue to play out.
The department formally advised staffers on Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon.
Marco Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganize the state department to be more efficient and more focused”, the Associated Press reported.
“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” the US secretary of state told reporters. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”
Rubio said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.
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State department firing more than 1,300 employees
The US state department is firing more than 1,300 employees in line with the Trump administration’s reorganization plan initiated earlier this year.
The department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the US, a senior state department official told the Associated Press.
Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by the AP. For most affected civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.
“In connection with the departmental reorganization … the department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” the notice says. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”
The cuts have been criticized by current and former diplomats who say it will weaken US influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.
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The Trump administration has killed nearly $15m in research into Pfas contamination of US farmland, bringing to a close studies that public health advocates say are essential for understanding a worrying source of widespread food contamination.
Researchers in recent years have begun to understand that Pfas-laden pesticides and sewage sludge spread on cropland as a fertilizer contaminate the soil with the chemicals, which then move into crops and nearby water sources.
Sludge is behind a still unfolding crisis in Maine, where 84 farms have been found to be significantly contaminated with Pfas, and some were forced to close. Advocates say farms across the nation are almost certainly contaminated at similar levels, but Maine is the only state with a robust testing program. The impacts on members of the public who eat from the farms in Maine and beyond is unclear.
“We have to do this research and take steps to not just make sure that our food supply is safe, but also ensure our farms and farmers are safe,” said Bill Pluecker, a Maine state representative and public policy organizer at Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, which has advocated for stricter sludge regulations.
“As we’ve seen here in Maine, farmers are the most affected by the Pfas because they’re working the soil, eating the food and drinking from wells.”
Pfas are a class of around 15,000 compounds that are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in the human body and environment. The chemicals are linked to a range of serious health problems like cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, high cholesterol, birth defects and decreased immunity.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not respond to a request for comment.
The fossil fuel industry poured more than $19m into Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accounting for nearly 8% of all donations it raised, a new analysis shows, raising concerns about White House’s relationship with big oil.
The president raised a stunning $239m for his inauguration – more than the previous three inaugural committees took in combined and more than double the previous record – according to data published by the US Federal Election Commission (FEC). The oil and gas sector made a significant contribution to that overall number, found the international environmental and human rights organization Global Witness.
The group pulled itemized inaugural fund contribution data released by the FEC in April, and researched each contributor with the help of an in-house artificial intelligence tool. It located 47 contributions to the fund made by companies and individuals linked to the fossil fuel sector, to which Trump has voiced his fealty.
On the campaign trail and in his inauguration speech, the president pledged to “drill, baby, drill”.
“We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” Trump said in his inaugural address, just hours before he signed a spate of executive orders to “unleash American energy” and roll back environmental protections. His administration has since worked to boost the oil industry, including by taking aim at city- and state-led fossil fuel accountability efforts, opening up swaths of land to extraction, and cracking down on renewable energy expansion.
Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, settled a lawsuit filed against it by Donald Trump for $16m last week.
It came after Disney and Meta settled lawsuits with the president in similar ways.
Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian US columnist Margaret Sullivan about why these companies are caving to Trump’s demands, and whether critics are right to be worried about what this means for the future of a free press…
At least eight core members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have left their positions in the last six months, Politico reported on Friday, citing internal records and sources familiar with the matter.
A senior White House official explained the departures by pointing to the fact that many DOGE staffers were special government employees, a designation that has a required end date, the report said.
Kremlin says it awaits 'major statement' from Trump
Russia is awaiting the “major statement” that president Donald Trump announced he would deliver on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he will make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, without elaborating what it will be about.
In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Russian president Vladimir Putin over Russia-Ukraine conflict, Reuters reported.
When asked about the new Nato weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Peskov called it “just business” as Kyiv had already been receiving weapons prior to this development.
Rubio says 'high probability' that Trump and Xi will meet
Secretary of state Marco Rubio on Friday said there was “high probability” of a meeting between president Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, but no date has been discussed.
Rubio was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Malaysia.
Brazil threatened to hit back against Donald Trump’s plan to introduce 50% tariffs on its exports with its own 50% tariff on US goods, setting the stage for a precipitous trade war.
“If he charges us 50%, we’ll charge him 50%,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, told local news outlet Record, a day after Trump threatened to impose steep duties on Brazilian goods and accused the country of conducting a “witch-hunt” against its former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing a trial over his attempt to overturn his 2022 election defeat.
Brazil could appeal to the World Trade Organization, propose international investigations and “demand explanations”, Lula suggested. “But the main thing is the Reciprocity Law, passed by Congress,” he told Record, referring to recent legislation designed to defend Latin America’s largest economy from tariff attacks.
Trump’s claim that Brazil’s economic relationship with the US was “far from Reciprocal” was also “inaccurate”, Lula had said in a statement on Wednesday. US tariff hikes “will be addressed” by Brazil, he said.
Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship suffered a courtroom defeat on Thursday as a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the controversial executive order nationwide and certified a sweeping class-action lawsuit that could protect tens of thousands of children.
Ruling from the bench on Thursday, Judge Joseph LaPlante announced his decision after an hour-long hearing and said a written order would follow. The judge, an appointee of George W Bush, said a written order would follow later in the day, with a seven-day stay to allow for appeal.
The decision is a test case following a recent supreme court ruling that restricted nationwide injunctions, in effect making class-action lawsuits the primary remaining method for district court judges to halt policy implementation across large areas of the country. It delivers a legal blow to the administration’s hardline immigration agenda and ramps up a constitutional dispute that has continued through the first six months of Trump’s second term.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a pregnant woman, two parents and their infants. It is among numerous cases challenging Trump’s January order denying citizenship to those born to undocumented parents living in the US or temporarily. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and others.
“Tens of thousands of babies and their parents may be exposed to the order’s myriad harms in just weeks and need an injunction now,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in court documents filed on Tuesday.
Trump reportedly backs away from abolishing Fema ahead of trip to Texas
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next couple of hours.
We start with news that president Donald Trump has backed away from abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the Washington Post reported on Friday.
No official action is being taken to wind down Fema, and changes in the agency will probably amount to a “rebranding” that will emphasize state leaders’ roles in disaster response, the newspaper said, citing a senior White House official.
It comes as Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding.
Since the 4 July disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that’s been popular with Trump’s core supporters.
“Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday, adding, “This is a once-in-every-200-year deal.” He’s also suggested he’d have been ready to visit Texas within hours but didn’t want to burden authorities still searching for the more than 170 people who are still missing.
The president is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas. The White House also says he will visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims.
Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican governor Greg Abbott, senator John Cornyn and senator Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the GOP senators expected to fly to their state with Trump aboard Air Force One.
In other developments:
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking $20m in damages, alleging he was falsely imprisoned
A US district judge issued an injunction blocking Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, certifying a nationwide class of plaintiffs
Police in Scotland are bracing for protests against Trump before an expected visit later this month to his immigrant mother’s homeland, where he is spectacularly unpopular.
The US state department has announced that it plans to move forward with mass layoffs as part of the most significant restructuring of the country’s diplomatic corps in decades.
Senator Ruben Gallego introduced a one-page bill to codify into law the Federal Trade Commission’s “click to cancel” rule, one day after a federal appeals court blocked the rule.
Federal immigration officers, supported by national guard troops, used force against protesters, firing chemical munitions, during raids on two cannabis farms in California’s central coast area.
Trump nominated a far-right influencer to serve as US ambassador to Malaysia.
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