Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the coming hours.
We start with news that Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, opened a new rift with Donald Trump by denouncing the US president’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
Musk’s online outburst could embolden fiscally conservative Republican senators – some of whom have already spoken out – to defy Trump as they continue crucial negotiations on Capitol Hill over the so-called “one big, beautiful bill”.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on his X social media platform on Tuesday. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
Musk, who had previously voiced criticism of the proposed legislation, quipping that it could be big or beautiful but not both, added on X: “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
He continued: “Congress is making America bankrupt.”
A top donor to Trump during last year’s election campaign, Musk departed the White House last week after steering its so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) with the stated mission of slashing fraud and abuse within federal departments. He has argued that the Republican bill will undermine Doge’s work and drive the US further into debt.
For the full report, see here:
In other developments:
Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn widespread criticism from Democratic colleagues for admitting that not only did she not read Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill before voting for it, but she would have voted against it had she read thoroughly.The White House gloated on social media about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, and joked about providing them with “six one-way tickets”.
In the 48 hours since the firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, on a demonstration in support of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, Republicans politicized the attack, attempting to blame Democrats, including the state’s multiple Jewish leaders.
Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s “cruel” decision to rescind health department guidance issued in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision, striking down the right to an abortion, that required hospitals to provide abortions to women in medical emergencies even in state’s with local bans on the procedure.
Millions of legal immigrants may be left unable to work after the US Social Security Administration quietly instituted a rule change to stop automatically issuing them social security numbers.
A US judge on Tuesday ruled the US Bureau of Prisons must keep providing transgender inmates gender-affirming care, despite an executive order Donald Trump signed on his first day back in office to halt funding for such care.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
