Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Republicans scramble to pass ‘one big, beautiful bill’ as deadline looms

      by

      Senate Republicans are racing to meet Donald Trump’s self-imposed 4 July deadline to pass the president’s massive tax-and-spending “one big, beautiful bill”. In a marathon session, senators convened at the Capitol to propose amendments to the legislation over many hours.Democrats, who universally oppose the bill, are expected to use the process to force their opponents into politically tricky votes that they will seek to wield against them in elections to come.Even if it passes the Senate, the bill will still need to go back through the House, which is being called back to session for votes as soon as Wednesday.Here’s the latest:US Senate Republicans make final push to pass Trump’s one big beautiful billAs the marathon session kicked off on Monday morning, Senate majority leader John Thune sounded optimistic that the measure would soon clear his chamber. “Let’s vote. This is good for America, this is good for the American people, it is good for working families,” he said.Chuck Schumer the Senate minority leader said the bill “steals people’s healthcare, jacks up their electricity bill, take away their jobs – all to pay for tax breaks for billionaires”. He said Democrats would offer amendments to “see once and for all if Republicans really meant all those nice things they’ve been saying about ‘strengthening Medicaid’ and ‘protecting middle-class families’, or if they were just lying”.Republican Senator Thom Tillis said “this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made,” a few hours after announcing he would not seek re-election in politically competitive North Carolina.Read the full storyDoJ moves to strip US citizenship from some naturalised AmericansThe Trump administration has codified its efforts to strip some Americans of their US citizenship in a recently published justice department memo that directs attorneys to prioritize denaturalization for naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes.The memo, published on 11 June, calls on attorneys in the department to institute civil proceedings to revoke a person’s United States citizenship if an individual either “illegally procured” naturalization or procured naturalization by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation”.Read the full storyWhite House says Canada ‘caved’ to Trump demand to scrap tech taxThe United States has said that Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney “caved” to demands from the White House after his government abruptly scrapped their digital services tax on US technology companies, which was set to go into effect on Monday.“It’s very simple. Prime minister Carney and Canada caved to president [Donald] Trump and the United States of America,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.Read the full storyTrump administration reportedly concludes Harvard violated students’ civil rightsThe Trump administration has concluded that Harvard University violated federal civil rights law in its handling of Jewish and Israeli students, and it threatened the school with a potential “loss of all federal financial resources” as a result, according to the Wall Street Journal.In a Monday letter addressed to the Harvard president, Alan Garber, administration attorneys stated that the university was aware Jewish and Israeli students felt unsafe on campus but failed to take meaningful action. The letter, obtained by the Journal, accused Harvard of “deliberate indifference” toward those concerns.Read the full storyTrump signs executive order on lifting some Syria sanctions Donald Trump has signed an executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria in a move that the White House says will help stabilise the country after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.Read the full storyUS dollar has worst first half in more than 50 years amid Trump tariffsThe US dollar has had its worst first half-year in more than 50 years, as the financial markets over the last six months were dominated by geopolitical crises and Donald Trump’s trade war.The dollar has fallen by 10.8% against a basket of currencies since the start of 2025. That is its worst performance over the first six months of any year since 1973, and the worst half-year since the second half of 1991.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US Department of Homeland Security has for the first time built a national citizenship database that combines information from immigration agencies and the social security administration.

      The Trump administration is on track to oversee one of the deadliest years for immigrants in detention after the recent deaths of two men – one from Cuba and another from Canada – while in federal custody.

      The US supreme court agreed on Monday to hear a case that could further erode restrictions on money in politics, in a challenge that comes in part from vice-president JD Vance.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 29 June. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump signs executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria

      by

      Donald Trump has signed an executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria in a move that the White House says will help stabilise the country after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.The order was designed to “terminate the United States’ sanctions programme on Syria”, a White House spokesperson said, cancelling a 2004 declaration that froze Syrian government property and limited exports to Syria over Damascus’s chemical weapons programme.Some sanctions will remain on Syria, including those mandated through Congress under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 that targeted funds for reconstruction and natural gas development, as well as the US declaration of Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism.Trump’s order would mainly direct other members of the administration to consider broader sanctions relief for Syria – and could possibly provide leverage with Syria in talks on normalising ties with Israel and foreign investment in the country’s reconstruction.The order included a direction to secretary of state Marco Rubio to evaluate suspending sanctions under the Caesar Act, permit the relaxation of control on the export of “certain goods”, and lift restrictions on some foreign aid. It also directs Rubio to review Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s designation as a terrorist leader and Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and to consider measures for sanctions relief through the United Nations.“We welcome the cancellation of the majority of the sanctions program imposed on the Syrian Arab Republic, pursuant to the historic executive order issued by President Trump,” said Syrian foreign minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani. “By removing this major obstacle to economic recovery, the doors to long-awaited reconstruction and development are opened, along with the rehabilitation of vital infrastructure, providing the necessary conditions for the dignified and safe return of displaced Syrians to their homeland.”The White House sought to portray the decision as one that would protect US interests, noting Trump’s efforts to “address foreign terrorists”, promote the normalisation of ties with Israel, and prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State.“President Trump wants Syria to succeed – but not at the expense of US interests,” the White House said in a statement.White House officials said that the executive order would maintain pressure on the former leader Assad and his entourage.“The order will remove sanctions on Syria while maintaining sanctions on the former president, Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, Islamic State and their affiliates, and Iranian proxies,” said the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, during a briefing on Monday.The move was widely anticipated after Donald Trump briefly met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led forces that overthrew Assad in December. Sharaa has complained that the sanctions against Syria had made it difficult to stabilise his fragile transition government, citing issues with paying civil servant wages and funding reconstruction. Trump pledged in May to lift all sanctions on Syria following Assad’s removal from power.The executive order would “end the country’s isolation from the international financial system, setting the stage for global commerce, and galvanizing investments from its neighbors in the region as well as from the US”, said acting under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brad Smith in a briefing with reporters.Asked about the Abraham accords, the Trump administration’s negotiations for Arab states to normalise diplomatic ties with Israel, a senior administration official suggested that the White House would not push for the recognition of specific territorial claims between Syria and Israel.“We’re going to come to a mutuality of understanding, and you’re going to get there slowly, and there’s going to be metrics and milestones and objectives, and you’re going to start trusting each other,” the official said. “And over this trust, those lines become illusory.” More

    • 88 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database

      by

      The US Department of Homeland Security has for the first time built a national citizenship database that combines information from immigration agencies and the social security administration.The database was created in collaboration with the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) in an effort to bridge the gaps between disparate information sources to make it easier to determine whether someone is a citizen, according to NPR, which first reported the details of the database.The database is the result of an expansion of the systematic alien verification for entitlements (Save) program, made up of smaller databases within the homeland security department, and an integration with information from the Social Security Administration. The centralized repository is searchable and can be accessed by state and local election officials to look up the names of anyone trying to vote to determine if they are citizens, according to NPR. Until now, election officials had to ask potential voters for documents verifying their citizenship or rely on a hard-to-navigate patchwork of databases.In response to a request for comment, the DHS said: “Integration with the Social Security Administration (SSA) significantly improves the service offered by Save.”Previously, agencies involved in voting were required to use numbers issued by the DHS to look up voter registrations, which they may not have had access to but may have been more likely to possess social security numbers, according to the statement. The citizenship database may also soon integrate state department of motor vehicles (DMV) data, NPR reported.The DHS statement also describes the motivations for the creation of the database: “Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate benefit and voter fraud among the alien population.” Voter fraud is rare in the US, experts say; consequences include fines or jail time.The citizenship database is one of the first results of Doge’s efforts to gain access to and merge information on Americans from agencies across the federal government, including the Internal Revenue Service, in the first few months of the Trump administration.Reports indicate Doge is attempting to create a single data hub that enables access to these vast troves of information on Americans in an effort to eliminate the separation of information in isolated or protected silos. The attempt to connect various sources of personal information, which Doge has said is needed to root out fraud, and allow it to be accessed in one place has sparked several lawsuits.In response, union members in Maryland have sued the office of personnel management, the treasury department and the education department for sharing personal information with Doge officials “who had no need to know the vast amount of sensitive personal information to which they were granted access”, according to their suit.“Defendants admit that the [Social Security Administration] granted Doge personnel broad access to millions of Americans’ sensitive PII [personally identifiable information],” US district judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of Maryland wrote in a decision ordering a temporary block on the Social Security Administration sharing information with Doge.“This intrusion into the personal affairs of millions of Americans – absent an adequate explanation for the need to do so – is not in the public interest.”The database in question was created with little engagement of the public, something that is requisite for building these types of mass surveillance databases. The Privacy Act of 1974 requires federal agencies to notify the public if there are new ways they plan to use or collect Americans’ personal information. Legal experts have also questioned whether this sort of a centralized database sidesteps many of the privacy and security protections implemented within each agency.The consolidation of personal information into a mass database is unprecedented and has sparked concern among immigration and privacy advocates. The creation of a centralized repository brings together pieces of information that were previously within the purview of separate agencies, and potentially makes it easier for government officials to look up individual’s data from across the government. Many worry about how else this database could be used.“The premise of noncitizen voter fraud is one that officials, including President Trump, have used as a pretext to discredit and intimidate entire communities,” said Citlaly Mora, spokesperson for immigration legal project Just Futures Law.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This database is the latest iteration of Doge’s attempt to weaponize the data of the millions of people that live in the US They are building this database without transparency and without consulting the public about how their data will be used, a brazen violation of our privacy rights. Given this administration’s track record of failing to follow proper processes, we should all be concerned.”The rollout of the citizenship database, which is an upgraded version of an existing network of data sources, comes after the New York Times reported that software firm Palantir was selected to help develop a “mega-database” for the Trump administration.In a letter to the company, 10 Democratic lawmakers said the database, which would collect the tax and other personal information on all Americans in a single repository, would potentially be a violation of federal law.“The unprecedented possibility of a searchable ‘mega-database’ of tax returns and other data that will potentially be shared with or accessed by other federal agencies is a surveillance nightmare that raises a host of legal concerns, not least that it will make it significantly easier for Donald Trump’s administration to spy on and target his growing list of enemies and other Americans,” the letter reads.Palantir has repeatedly denied that it was building a master database.It said: “Palantir is neither conducting nor enabling mass surveillance of American citizens. We do not operate the systems, access the data, or make decisions about its use.” More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican senator denounces Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ in fiery speech

      by

      “It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made,” Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican senator, said on Sunday night, sandblasting the Senate version of the “big, beautiful bill” that is meant to codify the president’s agenda.Tillis made his speech on the Senate floor on Sunday night, a few hours after announcing he would not seek re-election in politically competitive North Carolina. Observers described it as “fiery” and “savage”. But Tillis carefully avoided direct criticism of the president as he denounced proposed cuts to Medicaid, a lack of rigor in the legislative process and the Senate’s headlong drive to an artificial deadline.Instead, in one of the most forceful Republican denunciations of the bill, Tillis attacked “amateurs” advising the president who have “no insight into how these provider tax cuts are going to be absorbed without harming people on Medicare”.Tillis’s office published an analysis concluding that the Senate budget would have a $32bn impact on the North Carolina healthcare system and threaten insurance coverage for 663,000 Medicaid expansion beneficiaries in the state – about one in 16 North Carolinians.“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there any more, guys?” Tillis said in his floor speech.It has become increasingly difficult for lawmakers in the Republican party to break ranks with the president without facing withering blowback from conservative media, “Maga” diehards and Trump himself on social media.“Tillis is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER! He’s even worse than Rand ‘Fauci’ Paul!” Trump posted on Truth Social after announcing his opposition to the bill. Trump pledged to back a primary challenger to Tillis. When Tillis subsequently announced he would not seek re-election, Trump called it “good news”, and threatened primary challenges against other Republican fiscal conservatives standing in the way of the bill’s passage.Arguments critical of conservative doctrine on healthcare would fall on deaf ears. Instead, Tillis’s rhetoric emphasized the political threat to Republican lawmakers and the president himself if the bill passed in its current form.“I’m telling the president that you have been misinformed,” he said. “You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.”Tillis referred back to Trump’s promise not to cut Medicaid while campaigning for president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The last time I saw a promise broken around healthcare, with respect to my friends on the other side of the aisle, is when somebody said “If you like your healthcare, you could keep it. If you like your doctor, you could keep it,” Tillis said. “We found out that wasn’t true. That made me the second Republican speaker of the House since the civil war.”Tillis signaled he would be willing to support the House version of the reconciliation bill.The procedural vote passed 51-49 Sunday. Budget reconciliation bills are not subject to cloture and the 60-vote threshold limiting debate. Trump has repeatedly pushed a 4 July deadline for passage. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      As Trump targets birthright citizenship, the terrain is once again ‘women’s bodies and sexuality’

      by

      One day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, five pregnant immigrant women – led by an asylum seeker from Venezuela – sued over the president’s executive order limiting automatic birthright citizenship, out of fear that their unborn children would be left stateless.The case went before the supreme court, which sided with the Trump administration Friday by restricting the ability of federal judges to block the order.The legal drama recalls a scene a century and a half earlier, when a different cohort of immigrant women went to the country’s highest court to challenge a restrictive California law. In 1874, San Francisco officials detained 22 Chinese women at the port after declaring them “lewd and debauched” – a condition that allowed for denial of entry.The supreme court sided with the women and struck down the law, delivering the first victory to a Chinese litigant in the US. But its ruling also established the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration, paving the way for the passage of the Page Act of 1875, the first piece of federal legislation restricting immigration.Trump’s hardline immigration-enforcement strategy, which has focused on birthright citizenship and sparked a family-separation crisis, bears resemblance to the restrictive laws against Chinese women in the late 19th century, which historians say led to lasting demographic changes in Chinese American communities. Political campaigns of both eras, experts say, sought to stem the growth of immigrant populations by targeting women’s bodies.“What the Page Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act and birthright citizenship all have in common is the battle over who we deem admissible, as having a right to be here,” said Catherine Lee, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University whose research focuses on family reunification in American immigration. “And the terrain on which we’re having these discussions is women’s bodies and women’s sexuality.”The Page Act denied entry of “lewd” and “immoral” women, ostensibly to curb prostitution. While sex workers of many nationalities immigrated to the US, experts say local authorities almost exclusively enforced the law against women of Chinese descent. More than curbing immigration, Lee said, the legislation set a standard for determining who was eligible for citizenship and for birthing future generations of Americans.The law placed the burden of proof on Chinese women themselves, research shows. Before boarding a ship to the US, the women had to produce evidence of “respectable” character by submitting a declaration of morality and undergoing extensive interrogations, character assessments and family background checks.At the same time, doctors and health professionals smeared Chinese women as carriers of venereal diseases, Lee said. J Marion Sims, a prominent gynecologist who led the American Medical Association at the time, falsely declared that the arrival of Chinese women had caused a “Chinese syphilis” epidemic.Bill Hing, a law and migration studies professor at the University of San Francisco and author of Making and Remaking Asian America, said the Page Act was “an evil way at controlling the population” to ensure that the Chinese American community wouldn’t grow.The law did drastically alter the demographics of the Chinese population. In 1870, Chinese men in the US outnumbered Chinese women by a ratio of 13 to 1. By 1880, just a half decade after the law’s passage, that gap had nearly doubled, to 21 to 1.One legacy of the Page Act, Hing said, was the formation of “bachelor societies”. The de facto immigration ban against Chinese women made it virtually impossible for Chinese men to form families in the US, as anti-miscegenation laws forbade them from marrying women outside their race.Today, Hing said, attempts to repeal birthright citizenship is another way of suppressing the development of immigrant populations. “It falls right into the same intent of eliminating the ability of communities of color to expand,” he said.View image in fullscreenTrump’s January executive order, which would deny citizenship to US-born babies whose parents aren’t citizens or green-card holders, employs a gendered line of argument similar to that of the Page Act, Lee said. (The government has lost every case so far about the executive order, as it directly contradicts the 14th amendment.)In a 6-3 vote Friday, the supreme court ruled that lower courts could not impose nationwide bans against Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship. The ruling, which immigrant rights advocates say opens the door for a partial enforcement of the order, doesn’t address the constitutionality of the order itself.“Birthright citizenship assumes that women are having sex,” Lee said, “and whether she’s having sex with a lawful permanent resident or a citizen determines the status of her child.”Congressional Republicans continue to employ gendered and racialized rhetoric in their attacks on birthright citizenship and so-called “birth tourism”, the practice of pregnant women traveling to the US specifically to give birth and secure citizenship for their children. Political and media attention on the latter issue has been disproportionately focused on Chinese nationals.Last month, the Republican senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced a bill that bans foreign nationals from “buying” American citizenship. She called “birth tourism” a “multimillion-dollar industry” exploited by pregnant women from “adversaries like communist China and Russia”.Although the extent of “birth tourism” is unknown, studies have shown that it comprises just a small portion of US-born Chinese infants. Many are born to US citizens or permanent residents, who form more than a majority of the foreign-born Chinese population. (A decade ago, Chinese “birth tourists” accounted for just 1% of all Chinese tourists visiting the US.)Virginia Loh-Hagan, co-executive director of the Asian American Education Project, said a long-lasting ramification of the Page Act is the “exploitation, fetishization and dehumanization” of Asian women that has led to deadly hate crimes, such as the spree of shootings at three Asian-owned Atlanta spas in 2021.“If immigrants in this country were denied the opportunity to build families and communities,” Loh-Hagan said, “then they have less community strength, less voice and power in politics and governance of this country.” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat to Americans | Robert Reich

      by

      Draw a circle around all the assets in the US now devoted to artificial intelligence.Draw a second circle around all the assets devoted to the US military.A third around all assets being devoted to helping the Trump regime collect and compile personal information on millions of Americans.And a fourth circle around the parts of Silicon Valley dedicated to turning the US away from a democracy into a dictatorship led by tech bros.Where do the four circles intersect?At a corporation called Palantir Technologies and a man named Peter Thiel.In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a “palantír” is a seeing stone that can be used to distort truth and present selective visions of reality. During the War of the Ring, a palantír falls under the control of Sauron, who uses it to manipulate and deceive.Palantir Technologies bears a striking similarity. It sells an AI-based platform that allows its users – among them, military and law enforcement agencies – to analyze personal data, including social media profiles, personal information and physical characteristics. These are used to identify and surveil individuals.In March, Trump signed an executive order requiring all agencies and departments of the federal government to share data on Americans. To get the job done, Trump chose Palantir Technologies.Palantir is now poised to combine data gleaned from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, the administration wants access to citizens’ and others’ bank account numbers and medical claims.Will the Trump regime use an emerging super-database to advance Trump’s political agenda, find and detain immigrants, and punish critics? Will it make it easier for Trump to spy on and target his ever-growing list of enemies and other Americans? We’ll soon find out.Thirteen former Palantir employees signed a letter this month urging the corporation to stop its work with Trump.Linda Xia, who was a Palantir engineer until last year, said the problem was not with the company’s technology but with how the Trump administration intended to use it. “Combining all that data, even with the noblest of intentions, significantly increases the risk of misuse,” she told the New York Times.Even some Republicans are concerned. Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican of Ohio, told Semafor such work could be “dangerous”: “When you start combining all those data points on an individual into one database, it really essentially creates a digital ID. And it’s a power that history says will eventually be abused.”Last week, a group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Palantir, asking for answers about huge government contracts the company got. The lawmakers are worried that Palantir is helping make a super-database of Americans’ private information.Behind their worry lie several people who are behind Palantir’s selection for the project, starting with Elon Musk.Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) was behind Palantir’s selection. At least three Doge members had worked at Palantir, the Times reported, while others had worked at companies funded by Peter Thiel, an investor and a founder of Palantir, who still holds a major stake in it.Thiel has worked closely with Musk, who devoted a quarter of a billion dollars to getting Trump re-elected and then, as head of Doge, helped eviscerate swaths of the government without congressional authority.Thiel also mentored JD Vance, who worked for Thiel at one of his venture funds. Thiel subsequently bankrolled Vance’s 2022 senatorial campaign. Thiel introduced Vance to Trump and later helped Vance become his vice-presidential pick.Thiel also mentored the billionaire David Sacks, who also worked with Thiel at PayPal. As a student at Stanford University, Sacks wrote for the Stanford Review, the rightwing student newspaper Thiel founded as an undergraduate there in 1987. Sacks is now Trump’s “AI and crypto czar”.The CEO of Palantir is Alex Karp, who said on an earnings call earlier this year that the company wants “to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPalantir recently disclosed that Karp received $6.8bn in “compensation actually paid” in 2024 (you read that right) – making him the highest-paid chief executive of a publicly traded company in the United States.A former generation of wealthy US conservatives backed candidates like Barry Goldwater because they wanted to conserve American institutions.But this group – Thiel, Musk, Sacks, Karp and Vance, among others – doesn’t seem to want to conserve much of anything, at least not anything that occurred after the 1920s, including social security, civil rights and even women’s right to vote.As Thiel has written:
      The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.
      Hello?If “capitalist democracy” is becoming an oxymoron, it’s not because of public assistance or because women got the right to vote. It’s because billionaire capitalists like Musk and Thiel are intent on killing democracy.Not incidentally, the 1920s marked the last gasp of the Gilded Age, when America’s robber barons ripped off so much of the nation’s wealth that the rest of the US had to go deep into debt both to maintain their standard of living and to maintain overall demand for the goods and services the nation produced.When that debt bubble burst in 1929, we got the Great Depression. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler then emerged to create the worst threats to freedom and democracy the modern world had ever witnessed.If the US learned anything from the first Gilded Age and the fascism that grew like a cancer in the 1930s, it should have been that gross inequalities of income and wealth fuel abuses of political power – as Trump, Musk, Thiel, Karp and other oligarchs have put on full display – which in turn generate strongmen who destroy both democracy and freedom.The danger inherent in Palantir’s AI-powered super-database on all Americans is connected to the vast wealth and power of those associated with the corporation, and their apparent disdain for democratic institutions.Had you walked to the end of Trump’s military-birthday parade and gazed above the president’s reviewing stand, you’d have seen on a giant video board an advertisement for Palantir – one of the chief sponsors of the event.Tolkien’s palantír fell under the control of Sauron. Thiel’s Palantir is falling under the control of Trump. How this story ends is up to all of us.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate wrangles over Trump’s ‘one big beautiful bill’ to continue – US politics live

      by

      Iran criticised US president Donald Trump’s shifting stance on whether to lift economic sanctions against Tehran as “games” that were not aimed at solving the problems between the two countries.“These [statements by Trump] should be viewed more in the context of psychological and media games than as a serious expression in favour of dialogue or problem-solving,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference on Monday.Trump had said he is not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything”, as he claimed that America “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities when it struck them earlier this month.Trump’s comments, posted to Truth Social this morning, followed reports that his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30bn to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program.The reported proposal would mark a major reversal in policy for Trump, who exited Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, claiming the sanction relief and unfreezing of assets provided Tehran with “a lifeline of cash”.Trump wrote:
      Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid “road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.
      Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics with senators scheduled to start voting on a potentially long list of amendments to Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” beginning at 9 am EDT.Yesterday, Republicans in the Senate Republicans pushed Trump‘s sweeping tax cut and spending bill forward in a marathon weekend session even as a nonpartisan forecaster said it would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over a decade.The estimate by the Congressional Budget Office of the bill’s hit to the $36.2 trillion federal debt is about $800 billion more than the version passed last month in the House of Representatives.“Republicans are doing something the Senate has never, never done before, deploying fake math and accounting gimmicks to hide the true cost of the bill,” Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said as debate opened on Sunday.The Senate only narrowly advanced the tax-cut, immigration, border and military spending bill in a procedural vote late on Saturday, voting 51-49 to open debate on the 940-page megabill.Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of two Republicans who voted to block the bill, explained his position in a speech to the Senate, saying White House aides had failed to give Trump proper advice about the legislation’s Medicaid cuts.“What do I tell 663,00 people in two years, three years, when president Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore,” Tillis said, referring to his constituents.Tillis said he would not seek re-election next year, after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger in retribution for Tillis’ Saturday night vote against the bill.On Sunday, Trump celebrated Tillis’ announcement as “Great News!” on Truth Social and issued a warning to fellow Republicans who have concerns over the bill. “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy!” Trump wrote in a post.Tillis’ North Carolina seat is one of the few Republican Senate seats seen as vulnerable in next year’s midterm elections.Read the full story here:In other news:

      Donald Trump has said he is not speaking to Iran and was not offering the country “anything”, as he claimed that America “totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities when it struck them earlier this month. Trump’s comments, posted to Truth Social this morning, followed reports that his administration had discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30bn to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program.

      The University of Virginia received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator. In an interview with CBS, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner defended Ryan – who has championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted Trump would similarly target other universities.

      Donald Trump said he was weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources. The president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.

      The president threatened to block New York City from receiving federal funds if favoured mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected. Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president claimed – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”

      Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts warn.

      Iran’s ambassador to the UN said the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. “The enrichment is our right,” Iravani told CBS News. More

    • 213 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president pushes Republicans to back big bill amid forecast losses to healthcare

      by

      The US Senate has opened debate on what Donald Trump calls his “big beautiful bill” as new analysis says changes made to it in the chamber will add nearly $3.3tn to the nation’s debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage.The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis adds to the challenges for Republicans as they push to get the bill over the line by the US president’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July. After release of the bill’s new costs, Trump cajoled and threatened lawmakers from his own party, posting on his Truth Social platform: “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected.”Senator Thom Tillis announced he would not run for re-election next year, a day after the North Carolina Republican voted against Trump’s legislation, prompting insults from the president.Trump meanwhile said he was considering forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report on the American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources, also saying his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.Here are the key Trump administration stories at a glance:Senate opens debate on Trump’s bill estimated to add $3.3tn to US debtThe US Senate opened debate on Donald Trump’s sprawling domestic policy legislation on Sunday, the package of tax cuts, increased spending on immigration enforcement and drastic reductions in funding for healthcare and nutrition assistance that the president calls his “big beautiful bill”. Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package contains and to delay a final vote until Monday.Read the full storyThom Tillis won’t seek re-election after clash with Trump over billRepublican Thom Tillis said he would not run for re-election to the US Senate next year, a day after the North Carolina senator’s vote against Trump’s signature piece of domestic legislation prompted the president to launch a barrage of threats and insults – as well as promise to support a primary challenger to defeat him in their party’s 2026 primary. Tillis said: “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.”Read the full storyTrump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator saysThe University of Virginia received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator. In an interview with CBS, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner defended Ryan – who has championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted Trump would similarly target other universities.Read the full storyTrump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran reportDonald Trump said he was weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources. The president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply. In a Fox News interview Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes crippled Iran’s nuclear program and dismissed the leaked intelligence assessment in question – which suggested the strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development – as incomplete and biased.Read the full storyTrump threatens to cut off New York City funds if Mamdani ‘doesn’t behave’The president threatened to block New York City from receiving federal funds if favoured mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected. Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president claimed – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts warn.

      Iran’s ambassador to the UN said the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. “The enrichment is our right,” Iravani told CBS News.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 28 June 2025. More