Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are some of the latest developments:
Donald Trump’s $10bn lawsuit over the Wall Street Journal’s report that he sent Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he socialized with for at least 15 years, a birthday letter with a lewd drawing in 2003 focuses relentlessly on one fact: that the Journal did not publish an image of the letter. That’s because, according to the suit, “the letter was fake and nonexistent”.
The extraordinary dollar amount demanded by Trump is identical to what he asked of CBS when he filed suit on the eve of the 2024 election alleging that a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was edited in a misleading way to cast her in a positive light and amounted to “election interference”.
Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat on the senate judiciary committee wrote to attorney general Pam Bondi to ask about the work of the 1,000 FBI personnel who reviewed approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in March. “My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned”, Durbin wrote. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?” he asked.
In a formal request asking a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from the 2019 investigation into Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime associate of Donald Trump, Bondi called the case “a matter of public concern”.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state barred Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes from the United States in retaliation for the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil who has been charged for his role in allegedly leading an attempted coup following his loss in the 2022 election.
Trump's lawsuit against Murdoch claims birthday letter to Epstein is both fake and does not exist
Donald Trump’s $10bn lawsuit over the Wall Street Journal’s report that he sent Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he socialized with for at least 15 years, a birthday letter with a lewd drawing in 2003 focuses relentlessly on one fact: that the Journal did not publish an image of the letter.
The reason, according to the suit filed by Trump in federal court in Miami on Friday, is simple: “no authentic letter or drawing exists”.
While the Journal’s report states that the letter “was reviewed by the Journal” and was “among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein”, Trump and his defenders have seized on the fact that the newspaper did not publish an image of the letter to suggest, in public comments and the lawsuit, that the letter is either a forgery or does not even exist.
The text of the suit returns again and again to the apparent lack of physical evidence for the letter’s existence.
“Tellingly, the Article does not explain whether Defendants have obtained a copy of the letter, have seen it, have had it described to them, or any other circumstances that would otherwise lend credibility to the Article”, the suit claims. “That is because the supposed letter is a fake and the Defendants knew it when they chose to deliberately defame President Trump”.
Later, the suit makes the contradictory claim that Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper’s owner, and Robert Thomson, its parent company’s chief executive, chose to publish the report “after President Trump put them both on notice that the letter was fake and nonexistent”.
The Journal’s report is not clear about where, exactly, the letter its reporters reviewed was at the time, or is now, but if it was among the trove of approximately 100,000 records from the federal investigation of Epstein before he was charged in 2019, that would mean it is, or war, under the physical control of the Trump administration.
In a letter sent to the attorney general on Friday, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin wrote that approximately 1,000 FBI personnel, working on 24-hour shifts, had reviewed approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in March.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned”, Durbin added. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?” he then asked.
As we all parse Donald Trump’s claims in a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, a federal judge in Manhattan just dismissed the president’s nearly $50m lawsuit against Bob Woodward for publishing audio from interviews with Trump in the audiobook version of Woodward’s 2020 book Rage.
The decision by US district judge Paul Gardephe was a victory for Woodward, his publisher Simon & Schuster and its former owner Paramount Global.
Woodward interviewed Trump 19 times between December 2019 and August 2020, and about 20% of the book came from the interviews.
The book was released in September 2020, while an audiobook, called The Trump Tapes, which also included Woodward’s commentary, was released in October 2022.
In a 59-page decision dismissing the suit, Gardephe said Trump did not plausibly allege that he and Woodward intended to be joint authors of The Trump Tapes.
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Rubio bans Brazilian supreme court justice and other officials over 'witch hunt' against Bolsonaro
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced on Friday that he has barred Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes from the United States in retaliation for his role in the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil who has been charged for his role in allegedly leading an attempted coup following his loss in the 2022 election.
Rubio described the investigation of Bolsonaro as a “political witch hunt” and called the judge’s effort to have social media posts supporting Bolsonaro removed, including in the US, as “a persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates basic rights of Brazilians, but also extends beyond Brazil’s shores to target Americans”.
“I have therefore ordered visa revocations for Moraes and his allies on the court, as well as their immediate family members effective immediately”, Rubio wrote.
Rubio’s action to punish the judge came hours after Brazil’s supreme court issued new restrictions on Bolsonaro. The Brazilian daily Folha De S Paulo reports that the court order Bolsonaro to wear an electronic ankle monitor while under house arrest and banned him from using social media and from contacting his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a federal congressman who has taken a leave of absence to live in the US and lobby the Trump administration to intervene on his father’s behalf.
Eduardo Bolsonaro has taken credit for convincing Donald Trump to put a 50% tariff on imports from Brazil to the US as punishment for the prosecution of the former Brazilian president who was also banned from running for office after his supporters stormed Brazil’s capital in an attempt to overturn his election loss.
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Trump says 10 hostages will be released from Gaza 'very shortly'
Donald Trump told Republican senators at a White House dinner on Friday night that 10 hostages still being held in Gaza would be released “very shortly”.
“We hope to have that finished pretty quickly” Trump said before praising his envoy, Steve Witkoff as “fantastic”.
Trump’s comments came in a rambling set of remarks that lasted 18 minutes, and included boasting about that his victory in the 2024 presidential election was, in terms of countries won, “a landslide”.
Read the full text of Trump's $10bn lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters
Here is the full text of the lawsuit Donald Trump filed in federal court in Miami on Friday, in which the president calls the Wall Street Journal’s report that he sent Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, a lewd birthday letter in 2002 “false and defamatory” and demands at least $10bn in damages and court costs from Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters, News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson and related corporate entities.
The extraordinary dollar amount demanded by Trump is identical to what he asked of CBS when he filed suit on the eve of the 2024 election alleging that a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was edited in a misleading way to cast her in a positive light and amounted to “election interference”.
Although the raw video of the interview released later by CBS showed that the editing had been routine, although the outlet made the odd decision to use two different parts of one answer from Harris on different programs, the network’s parent company, Paramount, agreed to pay Trump $16m to drop that suit.
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Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.
She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.
The post-election intelligence estimates contrasted with findings reached before the election, which indicated that Russia probably was not trying to interfere.
In extraordinary comments calling for prosecutions, she added: “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.
Epstein case 'a matter of public concern', Pam Bondi says in motion to unseal 2019 grand jury transcripts
In a formal request asking a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from the 2019 investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime associate of Donald Trump, US attorney general Pam Bondi calls the case “a matter of public concern”.
In the motion, filed on Friday in a Manhattan federal court, Bondi, and her deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Trump, write that the request was prompted by the uproar following the justice department’s 6 July memo “describing an exhaustive review undertaken of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein” which was undertaken with the FBI “to determine whether evidence existed that could predicate an investigation into uncharged third parties.” The memo concluded that there was no such evidence existed.
“Since July 6, 2025, there has been extensive public interest in the basis for the Memorandum’s conclusions”, Bondi and Blanche write. “While the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation continue to adhere to the conclusions reached in the Memorandum, transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration. Given the public interest in the investigative work conducted by the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation into Epstein, the Department of Justice moves the Court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts in United States v. Epstein, subject to appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information.”
They add that the justice department will work with prosecutors in Manhattan, where the grand jury testimony was taken, “to make appropriate redactions of victim-related information and other personal identifying information prior to releasing the transcripts. Transparency in this process will not be at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims.”
“Public officials, lawmakers, pundits, and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter” they argue later in the motion. “Indeed, other jurists have released grand jury transcripts after concluding that Epstein’s case qualifies as a matter of public concern.”
“After all, Jeffrey Epstein is ‘the most infamous pedophile in American history’” according to previous filings, and the “facts surrounding Epstein’s case ‘tell a tale of national disgrace.’”
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Trump's justice department asks Manhattan federal court to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts
Acting at Donald Trump’s direction, the justice department filed a motion in a Manhattan federal court on Friday, asking a judge to unseal grand jury testimony transcripts from the federal sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender.
The move to share some but not all of the files related to Epstein come after fevered speculation about Trump’s connections to Epstein, who was arrested and charged in 2019 and then found dead in his Manhattan jail cell.
Releasing the transcripts, however, will not satisfy even some supporters of the president who want to see him release all of the files from the federal investigation into Epstein, including a rumored list of powerful men alleged to have had sex with minors Epstein trafficked, and other documents.
The move comes after Trump filed a libel suit in Miami on Friday accusing two Wall Street Journal reporters, and Rupert Murdoch and his companies, of defaming him by reporting that one of the documents examined by prosecutors was a “bawdy” letter from Trump to Epstein in 2003, three years before Epstein was first indicted.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in state court in Florida to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, in exchange for a deal in which he avoided federal charges.
Over a decade later, in 2019, the federal investigation into Epstein was revived and he was charged by Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, of having “sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls by enticing them to engage in sex acts with him in exchange for money” between 2002 and 2005 in both New York and Palm Beach.
Trump’s outrage over the report that suggests he sent Epstein a lewd birthday letter in 2003 is likely connected to the fact that this was during the period that Epstein was accused of committing the crimes he was later charged with.
Trump was known to have socialized with Epstein before his arrest and publicly called him a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”, in an interview with New York magazine in 2002.
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Trump files libel suit against Wall Street Journal reporters, Murdoch and companies over report on letter to Epstein
Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday against Dow Jones, News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters, raising claims under federal libel law, court records show.
Reuters reports that a copy of the complaint was not immediately available. The case was filed in Miami federal court.
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The day so far
The White House is attempting to press ahead with other business but US politics remains consumed on Friday with Donald Trump’s desperate effort to deflect attention away from his administration’s decision to not release files from the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who was friends with the future president before he was first indicted. Here are some of the day’s developments in that story, and the US government, so far:
House Republicans passed Trump’s funding cut proposal just after midnight on Friday – clawing back nearly $8bn in federal funding for foreign aid and $1.1bn in support for public broadcasting. The 216-213 vote, with two Republicans, Mike Turner of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, opposing the package alongside all Democrats, could have been a tie but for the fact that three Democrats elected in November have already died.
Trump began his day by arguing on his social media platform that it was impossible that a ‘bawdy letter’ to Epstein from Trump was in the justice department files since Democrats would have revealed it when they were in control of the justice department. “If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump posted. His argument is flawed, however, since: a. Democrats like the former attorney general Merrick Garland are defenders of the norm that the justice department should be apolitical, and investigative files in cases that do not go to trial are supposed to remain secret; and b. James Comey, a Republican, not a Democrat, was fired as FBI director by Trump two years before the justice department arrested and charged Epstein.
Steve Bannon has said that the Wall Street Journal story about the birthday letter bearing Trump’s name has united the president’s supporters behind him.
Democrats are questioning the timing of CBS’s announcement that it was canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, days after Colbert criticized the network’s parent company Paramount for settling a $16m lawsuit with Trump.
The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency visited Washington this week as Israel seeks the Trump administration’s help in ethnically cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian population, Axios reported, citing two unnamed sources.
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'Public deserves to know' if CBS's cancellation of Colbert show was for political reasons, demand Democrats
Democrats are questioning the timing of CBS’s announcement that it was canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, days after Colbert criticized the network’s parent company Paramount for settling a $16m lawsuit with Donald Trump.
Colbert panned Paramount for settling with Trump over the president’s claim that CBS News deceptively edited an interview with the then presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He called the settlement, which coincided with Paramount seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4bn merger with Skydance Media (a company ran by David Ellison, son of close Trump ally Larry Ellison), “a big fat bribe”.
That sentiment was echoed by senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, who wrote on X that the settlement “looks like bribery”. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington said: “People deserve to know if this is a politically motivated attack on free speech.”
Independent senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, also suggested that CBS’s announcement that the show would end in May 2026 was no coincidence. “CBS’s billionaire owners pay Trump $16m to settle a bogus lawsuit while trying to sell the network to Skydance,” he said. “Stephen Colbert, an extraordinary talent and the most popular late night host, slams the deal. Days later, he’s fired. Do I think this is a coincidence? NO.”
And senator Adam Schiff, of California, who was a guest on Colbert’s show last night, demanded more answers as to whether the show was canceled for political reasons. “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know,” he wrote on X.
Celebrities have been expressing similar feelings around the timing of Colbert getting the axe. Actor John Cusack shared a clip of Colbert on social media and wrote: “He’s not groveling enough to American fascism – Larry Ellison needs his tax cuts – doesn’t need comedians reminding people they are not cattle.”
Severance actor Adam Scott called it “absolute bullshit” and Jamie Lee Curtis, asked for her thoughts during a red carpet interview, said “it’s bad” and that “they’re trying to silence people”.
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Trump signs stablecoin law as crypto industry aims for mainstream adoption
Donald Trump has signed a law to create a regulatory regime for US-dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies – or stablecoins – a milestone that could pave the way for the digital assets to become an everyday way to make payments and move money.
The bill, dubbed the Genius Act, passed in the House by 308-122, receiving support from nearly half the Democratic members and most Republicans.
It marks a huge win for crypto supporters, who have long lobbied for such a regulatory framework in a bid to gain greater legitimacy for the industry.
“This signing is a massive validation of your hard work and pioneering spirit,” said Trump at the signing event, attended by several crypto executives.
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Trump also said he was committed to preserving the dollar’s global status as a reserve currency and pledged to never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency in the US.
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Trump has reiterated his threat of imposing tariffs on members of the Brics group of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and said the group would end very quickly if they ever form in a meaningful way.
“When I heard about this group from Brics, six countries, basically, I hit them very, very hard. And if they ever really form in a meaningful way, it will end very quickly,” Trump said.
Trump teases 'big' trade deals soon, suggesting when he sends tariff letter that signifies a deal
The government has some “big” trade deals to announce soon, Donald Trump said just now at the bill signing.
“When I send out the paper that you’re paying 35% or 40% tariffs, that’s a deal,” he said. “Then they’ll call and see if they can make a little bit different kind of a deal, like opening up their country to trade.”
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Donald Trump is from the White House speaking now and is expected to sign the bipartisan Genius Act into law shortly.
The cryptocurrency legislation is the first of its kind, aiming to regulate stablecoins. The House overwhelmingly passed the bill in a 308-122 vote yesterday, after a handful of Republicans initially blocked it over a policy dispute.
US rejects WHO global pandemic response accord
The United States has rejected an agreement adopted by members of the World Health Organization to improve preparedness for future pandemics following the disjointed global response to Covid-19, the government said.
The Department of State and Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement they had transmitted on Friday the official US rejection of the legally binding pact, which was adopted in Geneva in May after three years of negotiations.
The pact aims to ensure that drugs, therapeutics and vaccines are globally accessible when the next pandemic hits. It requires participating manufacturers to allocate a target of 20% of their vaccines, medicines and tests to the WHO during a pandemic to ensure poorer countries have access.
US negotiators left discussions about the accord after Donald Trump began a 12-month process of withdrawing the US – by far the WHO’s largest financial backer - from the agency when he took office in January. Its exit means the US would not be bound by the pact.
“Developed without adequate public input, these amendments expand the role of the WHO in public health emergencies, create additional authorities for the WHO for shaping pandemic declarations, and promote WHO’s ability to facilitate ‘equitable access’ of health commodities,” the American statement said.
“Terminology throughout the 2024 amendments is vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions,” the statement, jointly issued by secretary of state Marco Rubio and secretary of health and human services Robert F Kennedy Jr, went on.
Kennedy, who has a long history of sowing doubt about vaccine safety, had slammed WHO in a video address to the Assembly during its vote, saying it had failed to learn from the lessons of the pandemic with the new agreement.
Kennedy and Rubio said on Friday that the rejection protects US sovereignty. In fact, the pact leaves health policy to national governments and contains nothing that overrides national sovereignty.
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Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has weighed in on the latest CBS announcement of its cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show, writing on X:
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.”
She went on to add:
“America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
On Monday, during his monologue, Colbert said: “I don’t know if anything – anything – will repair my trust in this company. But, just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16m would help.” He mockingly added that the technical name in legal circles is “a big fat bribe”.
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart, who works for Comedy Central – which is also owned by Paramount – condemned the deal on air last week, calling it “shameful”.
He added: “I would assume internally, this is devastating to the people who work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism?”
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The US Department of Veterans Affairs has enthusiastically joined Donald Trump’s war on DEI – demanding that staffers report colleagues who engage in diversity initiatives, banning LGBTQ+ pride flags from VA hospitals and shuttering an office investigating why Black veterans are more likely to have their mental health disability claims rejected.
Last week, VA secretary Doug Collins tweeted: “VA is now squarely focused on Veterans – not out-of-touch, woke causes such as DEI and gender dysphoria treatments.”
Collins’ pronouncement comes as he faces tough questions from US Senate and House members in the wake of a Guardian report that the agency had quietly removed language from its hospital bylaws that explicitly barred discrimination based on patients’ marital status or political views.
Seventy House members wrote to express “profound alarm” that doctors and other VA medical providers “will now be able to refuse treatment” based on veterans’ political views or whether they are unmarried, widowed or part of a same-sex couple.
For the full story, click here:
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Israeli spy chief visits US amid bid to move Palestinians out of Gaza – report
The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency visited Washington this week as Israel seeks the Trump administration’s help in moving Palestinian people out of Gaza, Axios is reporting, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.
Per Axios’s report, the spy chief, David Barnea, told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Israel has been speaking in particular with Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya.
The Israeli government stands accused of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, with its stated goal of capturing the entire strip, deporting Palestinian people from the land, and remaining there indefinitely.
While Benjamin Netanyahu’s government claims such “relocation” would be “voluntary”, legal experts describe it as “a blueprint for crimes against humanity”.
Israel’s scheme to move the entire population of Gaza into a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah before implementing its forced emigration plan breaks international law, Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers, told my colleague Emma Graham-Harrison earlier this month.
[Israeli defense minister Israel Katz] laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity. It is nothing less than that. It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip.
While the government still calls the deportation ‘voluntary’, people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual.
When you drive someone out of their homeland that would be a war crime, in the context of a war. If it’s done on a massive scale like he plans, it becomes a crime against humanity.
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Trump reportedly pushing for 15-20% minimum tariff on all EU goods
Donald Trump is pushing for a minimum tariff of 15% to 20% in any deal with the European Union, the Financial Times is reporting, and the administration is now looking at a reciprocal tariff rate that exceeds 10%, even if a deal is reached.
Trump has also been unmoved by the latest EU offer to reduce car tariffs, and would keep duties on the sector at 25% as planned, the report said, citing sources.
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Here is my colleague Edward Helmore’s story on Trump this morning launching a fresh defense of his conduct in the Jeffrey Epstein case after the scandal deepened last night following a Wall Street Journal report that he’d written the convicted sex offender a bawdy note with a sketch of a naked woman.
According to Trump’s schedule, the “big signing” at 2.30pm will be the Genius Act, the first major legislative overhaul of cryptocurrency regulations which the House passed overwhelmingly yesterday.
Upon receiving his signature, the legislation will create new rules for stablecoins, delivering crypto companies a historic lobbying victory.
Donald Trump has said there will be a “big signing” at the White House at 2.30pm ET.
He wrote on Truth Social:
Big signing at 2:30 in the White House. Congratulations to our GREAT REPUBLICANS for being able to accomplish so much, a record, in so short a period of time. All the Democrats do is complain and criticize, AND GET NOTHING DONE. They are a “Party of the Past!”
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Trump says he looks forward to getting Murdoch to testify in threatened suit against WSJ
Donald Trump has said he would want Rupert Murdoch to testify after vowing to sue the Wall Street Journal and its owner over the outlet’s story detailing a 2003 birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s name.
He wrote on Truth Social this morning:
I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his “pile of garbage” newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!
The WSJ report alleged that Trump had contributed a “bawdy” letter and featuring a drawing of a naked woman’s silhouette around a typewritten personal message to Epstein – to an album compiled by Ghislane Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Trump denied to the Journal that he was the author of the tribute and, hours after the story was published, announced he intended to file a lawsuit against the publication.
“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third-rate newspaper,” Trump wrote last night.
'We are finally on offense': Steve Bannon says WSJ story has united Trump supporters – CNN
Steve Bannon has said that the Wall Street Journal story about a Jeffrey Epstein birthday letter bearing Donald Trump’s name has united the president’s supporters behind him once again on an issue that, up until last night, had put him on a collision course with many members of his base.
“We are finally on offense,” Bannon, Trump’s former aide and a leader of the Maga movement, told CNN. “President Trump has had enough and is fighting back – against his real enemies.”
Bannon was one of several of Trump’s high-profile supporters who had blasted his administration’s handling of the Epstein case and helped keep the story going all week despite Trump’s repeated – and increasingly frustrated – attempts to dismiss the furore.
Bannon also praised Trump’s move asking attorney general Pam Bondi to unseal pertinent grand jury testimony related to Epstein, calling it a “good start”.
“Good start but stay on offense—it’s when Trump is @ his best –attack, attack, attack,” Bannon texted CNN when asked whether such a move will be enough to quell the pressure for more documents related to Epstein to be released.
Bannon is a longtime critic of Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch, who Trump has vowed to sue – along with the newspaper – over the story about the birthday letter, which he says is fake.
“Murdoch showed how much he loathes Trump,” Bannon said, arguing that Murdoch will further serve as a uniting force for the president’s base. “Murdoch tried to destroy the President and failed – now Trump strikes back.”
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Trump celebrates axing of Colbert show
Donald Trump has also been posting about CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which will end in May after a 33-year run, saying he “loves that Colbert got fired”.
I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.
The show’s cancellation comes just a few days after Colbert criticised the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a lawsuit with Trump for $16m (£12m) over the US president’s claim that CBS News deceptively edited an interview with then presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The settlement coincided with Paramount seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4bn merger with Skydance Media. Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe”.
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Trump again tries to brush off Epstein crisis as 'nothing' concocted by Democrats
Donald Trump has been posting on Truth Social early this morning, repeating his accusations about the Democrats regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case.
If there was a “smoking gun” on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the “files” for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!
Trump’s frustration that the story hasn’t gone away has been apparent all week, as he and others in his administration have tried to dismiss the whole affair by framing it as a Democratic-led conspiracy – as opposed to one that Trump and his allies have long fuelled.
Indeed much of the fury and calls for release of the documents has come from his own increasingly fractured Maga base – who Trump attacked as “weaklings” and “stupid people” – and even key allies in Congress such as House speaker Mike Johnson.
Finally last night, in a bid to tamp down further controversy over a story that he allegedly contributed a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album, Trump – who was close friends with Epstein for 15 years – last night directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking case.
The president has said the letter is a fake, and that he will sue the Wall Street Journal over the story.
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Men deported by US to Eswatini will be held in solitary confinement for undetermined time
Five immigrants deported by the United States to Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are being held in solitary confinement in various prisons for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.
Thabile Mdluli, the Eswatini government spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said they were being held in solitary confinement away from other inmates.
She added that Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency. Mdluli told The Associated Press it wasn’t clear how long that would take.
The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the country illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos.
Their deportations were announced by US homeland security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the US.
The Eswatini government said the men are considered to be “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.
The UN agency – the International Organization for Migration or IOM – said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate”.
Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent there because their home countries refused to take them back.
It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.
“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.
There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified”.
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House passes Trump plan to cut $9bn from foreign aid, public broadcasting
The US’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed president Donald Trump’s $9bn funding cut to public media and foreign aid early this morning, sending it to the White House to be signed into law.
The chamber voted 216 to 213 in favor of the funding cut package, altered by the Senate this week to exclude cuts of about $400m in funds for the global PEPFAR HIV/Aids prevention program.
Only two House Republicans voted against the cut – representatives Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania and Mike Turner from Ohio – along with Democrats.
“We are taking one small step to cut wasteful spending, but one giant leap towards fiscal sanity,” said Aaron Bean, a Florida Republican representative.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries countered that the funding cut “undermines our ability to keep our people safe here and to project America’s soft power all over the globe”, and argued rural Americans’ access to emergency information on public radio will be diminished.
The funding vote was delayed for hours amid Republican disagreements about other legislation, and calls from some members of the party for more government transparency about the deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Related: Tensions over Epstein files complicate Republican plan to vote on cuts bill
To satisfy the Epstein-related concerns without holding up the funding cut bill any longer, Republicans on the House rules committee introduced a resolution that calls for the release of Epstein documents by the US attorney general within 30 days.
“It’s a sound, good-faith resolution that ensures protections for victims and innocent witnesses,” said representative Virginia Foxx from North Carolina, the Republican leader of the rules committee.
But the top Democrat on the rules panel, representative Jim McGovern from Massachusetts, blasted the resolution as a “glorified press release” because it lacks an enforcement mechanism to make the justice department comply.
When the chamber finally voted on the funding cut, it was the second close House vote on Trump’s request to claw back the funds previously approved by Democrats and his fellow Republicans in Congress.
In June, four Republicans joined Democrats to vote against an earlier version of the rescissions package, which passed 214-212.
House Republicans felt extra pressure to pass the Senate version as the administration would have been forced to spend the money if Congress didn’t approve it by Friday.
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‘Devastating’: US public broadcasters condemn Trump cuts to key programs
Public broadcast station leaders are condemning Donald Trump’s latest victory after the Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that will cancel all federal funding for public broadcasting programs including PBS and NPR.
Following the Senate’s decision to pass $9bn in spending cuts to public broadcasting as well as foreign aid, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger saying that the Senate’s approval of the package “goes against the will of the American people”.
“These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas. Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” Kerger said.
“Despite today’s setback, we are determined to keep fighting to preserve the essential services we provide to the American public.”
Similarly, NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, said: “Nearly three in four Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety.
“We call on the House of Representatives to reject this elimination of public media funding, which directly harms their communities and constituents, and could very well place lives at risk.”
Since that statement, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed Trump’s $9bn funding cut to public media and foreign aid early this morning, sending it to the White House to be signed into law.
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‘He’s a lot of fun to be with’: Trump and Epstein were close friends for 15 years
It was a friendship that spanned three different decades. To Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy”. Epstein believed himself to be Trump’s “closest friend”, and praised the future president as “charming”.
The relationship would eventually break down, the men falling out over a bidding war on a property in Florida. And after Epstein was convicted of child sex offences in 2008, Trump distanced himself from the financier, claiming he was “not a fan” and wondering, in recent days, why his supporters would “waste time and energy” on demanding that FBI and Department of Justice files on Epstein be released.
But photos, videos and anecdotes paint a picture of a close friendship, of two middle-aged men who repeatedly partied together both alone and with their partners, including with Melania Knauss, who would go on to become Trump’s third wife.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Read the full report here:
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Donald Trump will visit Scotland next week, the White House has confirmed.
Speculation mounted about a potential visit of the president this month when Police Scotland confirmed it was in the early stages of planning for such an event, PA Media reports.
Speaking at a briefing in Washington DC on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump will visit both of his golf courses in Scotland: Turnberry in Ayrshire and Menie in Aberdeenshire, between July 25 and 29.
It has already been confirmed Trump will meet with prime minister Keir Starmer while in Aberdeen, while plans are being put in place for the president to meet First Minister John Swinney, according to the Scottish Government.
Here is a report from my colleague Sian Cain on the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled and will end in May, with network CBS announcing it will retire the Late Show entirely after a 33-year run.
The news comes just a few days after Colbert criticised the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump for $16m (£12m) over the US president’s claim that CBS News deceptively edited an interview with the then presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The settlement comes as Paramount is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4bn merger with Skydance Media. Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe”.
Colbert, who has hosted the talkshow since 2015, announced the news during Thursday night’s recording, telling the audience he had been told of the decision the previous night.
As the audience booed, he said, “Yeah, I share your feelings.
“It’s not just the end of the show, it is the end of the Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced, this is all just going away,” Colbert said.
Read the full report here:
Tim Walz says Trump ‘brings out the worst in people – and the worst in me’
Donald Trump “brings out the worst in people, and he brings out the worst in me”, Tim Walz has said in a new interview in which Minnesota’s governor struck an apologetic tone over a recent plea for his fellow Democrats to “bully the shit out of” the Republican president.
Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate as she unsuccessfully ran for the White House against Trump in November, made those comments in a conversation with the Minnesota news station KMSP that was published Thursday.
They came after Walz in late May urged his fellow Democrats “to be a little meaner … a little more fierce” to Trump – and “bully the shit out of him back” – as the party tried to regroup from its defeat to him in the fall.
Read the full report here:
Dozens of Malaysians protested near the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, calling for Donald Trump’s nomination as envoy to Malaysia to be rejected, AFP reports.
Trump nominated right-wing commentator Nick Adams, known for his outspoken views and strong pro-Israel stance, as ambassador to multicultural, Muslim-majority Malaysia a week ago.
Protesters chanted “Reject Nick Adams” and “Destroy America” and held up posters depicting Adams with a red cross over his face.
Other placards read: “No space for racists and Islamophobes in Malaysia.”
The marchers, organised by the youth wings of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition, submitted a memorandum to the embassy near the centre of Kuala Lumpur.
They urged the US government to withdraw Adams’s nomination and “consider a candidate who is more professional, moderate, and attuned to the importance of Southeast Asia’s regional stability”.
Trump blames Fed board as he labels Powell a 'numbskull'
Donald Trump on Friday blamed US Federal Reserve officials as he reiterated his criticisms of Fed chair Jerome Powell and again called for lower interest rates, Reuters reports.
Trump wrote on his social media platform:
And the Fed Board has done nothing to stop this ‘numbskull’ from hurting so many people. In many ways the Board is equally to blame!
Fed officials meet later this month.
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Trump gives New York attorney new title after judges reject his appointment
by Joseph Gedeon in Washington
Donald Trump has given a New York prosecutor a new job title to keep him in power after federal judges rejected his appointment.
John Sarcone III was supposed to be removed as interim US attorney for New York’s northern district after a judicial panel refused to make his appointment permanent. Instead, the justice department has made him “special attorney to the attorney general” with the same powers and no time limit.
The appointment represents Trump’s curious pattern of working around traditional oversight mechanisms. Unlike his first term, when all 85 US attorney nominees were confirmed by the Senate, his second administration has formally nominated only about a quarter of that number, relying instead on interim appointments that bypass Senate confirmation.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, trying to make sense of the appointment, said the justice department is using a federal law called 28 US Code Section 515 to justify the move, but he says that’s a stretch. That law allows for “special attorneys” to handle specific cases, but this sort of application may not be intended to let someone serve as both acting US attorney and first assistant at the same time.
Read the full report here:
A federal judge on Friday could deal another blow to Donald Trump’s attempts to limit birthright citizenship, even though a US Supreme Court decision last month made it more difficult for lower courts to block White House directives, Reuters reports.
A group of Democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia will urge US District Judge Leo Sorokin at a hearing in Boston at 10am ET Friday to maintain an injunction he imposed in February that blocked Trump’s executive order nationwide.
The order directs US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States after February 19 if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Donald Trump’s plan to convert Alcatraz back into a maximum-security prison could cost roughly $2bn (£1.5bn), Axios reported on Friday, citing administration sources.
Alcatraz was closed as a maximum-security prison in 1963 after 29 years of operation, because it was too expensive to continue operating.
Trump previously said he would order the long-shuttered facility, now operated as a historical site in San Francisco Bay, to once again house violent criminals, reports Reuters.
Trump threatens to sue WSJ
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics where, after days of resistance and trying to play down the story, Donald Trump has directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case.
The president said on Truth Social he had authorised the justice department to seek the public release of the materials, citing “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein”.
It comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump allegedly contributed a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album.
Trump denied to the Journal that he was the author of the birthday message and, hours after the story was published, announced he intended to file a lawsuit in a post on Truth Social, decrying the reporting as fake and condemning it as what he called “the Epstein Hoax”.
In other developments:
The US’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed president Donald Trump’s $9bn funding cut to public media and foreign aid early on Friday, sending it to the White House to be signed into law. The chamber voted 216 to 213 in favour of the funding cut package.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled and will end in May 2026 after a 33-year run, the network CBS announced. The news comes days after Colbert criticised the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a lawsuit with Trump for $16m (£12m) over the US president’s claim that CBS News deceptively edited an interview with the then presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Five migrants deported by the US to the small southern African country of Eswatini, under the Trump administration’s third-country programme, will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, an Eswatini government spokesperson has said. The spokesperson said a UN agency will repatriate five men to their home countries, but the agency said on Thursday that it had not been contacted. The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos.
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