Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      US Senate votes down resolution to restrict Trump from escalating Iran war

      by

      Senate Democrats failed on Friday to get a war-powers resolution passed to limit Donald Trump’s ability to single-handedly escalate the war with Iran. The resolution, “to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, was voted down 53-47.The vote on the resolution, introduced by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, split along mainly partisan lines. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted for it; one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it.“Congress declares war,” Kaine said in a speech on the Senate floor. He stressed that the framers of the US constitution in 1787 were so wary of giving the power to start wars to one person that they did not even entrust it to George Washington, the first commander-in-chief.“They decided that war was too big a decision for one person,” Kaine said. “And so they wrote a constitution that said the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.”The measure would have compelled Trump to seek authorization from Congress before taking any further military action.Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on 22 June. This directly followed Israel launching attacks on Iran, and Iran retaliating. Trump said that the US bombardment “totally obliterated” key nuclear enrichment facilities and deemed the mission a success, although some initial reports said the damage was minimal. Iran condemned the attacks.Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had halted its nuclear ambitions after the bombings. But, he said, he would “absolutely” continue to attack the country’s nuclear sites if he believed it was once again enriching uranium.“Time will tell,” Trump said at the White House. “But I don’t believe that they’re going to go back into nuclear anytime soon.”Later on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, rebuked Trump on social media. “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers”, Araghchi wrote on X.“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had NO CHOICE but to RUN to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults”, Iran’s top diplomat added, in something approximating Trump’s own social media style. “If Illusions lead to worse mistakes, Iran will not hesitate to unveil its Real Capabilities, which will certainly END any Delusion about the Power of Iran.” More

    • 225 Shares76 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president boasts of ‘monumental’ win after supreme court curtails power of federal judges

      by

      Donald Trump has hailed a supreme court decision to limit federal judges’ powers to block his orders on a nationwide basis as a “monumental victory” and vowed to “promptly file to proceed” with key policies – including banning birthright citizenship.The supreme court ruling on Friday, written by the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump’s policy seeking a ban on birthright citizenship go into effect immediately and did not address the policy’s legality.Trump celebrated the ruling as vindication of his broader agenda to roll back judicial constraints on executive power. “Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said from the White House press briefing room. “It wasn’t meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation.”US attorney general Pam Bondi said the birthright citizenship question would “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October.Here is more on this and other key US politics stories from today:US supreme court limits federal judges’ power to block Trump ordersThe US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit district judges’ power to block his orders on a nationwide basis, in an emergency appeal related to the birthright citizenship case but with wide implications for the executive branch’s power. The court’s opinion on the constitutionality of whether some American-born children can be deprived of citizenship remains undecided and the fate of the US president’s order to overturn birthright citizenship rights was left unclear.Read the full storyTrump says he is ending Canada trade talks amid tech tax disputeThe president has announced he is ending trade talks with Canada, one of the US’s largest trading partners, accusing it of imposing unfair taxes on US technology companies in a “direct and blatant attack on our country”.The news came hours after the US had announced a breakthrough in talks with China over rare-earth shipments into America, and announcements from top officials that the US would continue trade negotiations beyond a 9 July deadline set by Trump.Read the full storyUS supreme court rules key part of Obamacare constitutionalThe US supreme court has ruled that a key provision of “Obamacare”, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, is constitutional. The case challenged how members of an obscure but vital healthcare committee are appointed.Read the full storyUS says Haitians can be deportedMore than half a million Haitians are facing the prospect of deportation from the US after the Trump administration announced that the Caribbean country’s citizens would no longer be afforded shelter under a government program created to protect the victims of major natural disasters or conflicts.Read the full storyMother arrested at LA court alongside six-year-old son with cancer sues IceA Honduran woman who sought asylum in the US is suing the Trump administration after immigration agents arrested her and her children, including her six-year-old son, who was diagnosed with leukemia, at a Los Angeles immigration court.Read the full storyGavin Newsom sues Fox News for defamation and demands $787mThe governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has sued Fox News for defamation and demanded $787m, almost exactly the same amount Fox paid in a previous defamation case over election misinformation.In the new lawsuit, filed on Friday, Newsom accuses the Fox host Jesse Watters of falsely claiming Newsom lied about a phone call with Donald Trump, who recently ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles.Read the full storyHegseth gives new name to navy ship named after Harvey MilkThe US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has formally announced that the US navy supply vessel named in honor of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk is to be renamed after Oscar V Peterson, a chief petty officer who received the congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the battle of the Coral Sea in the second world war.Read the full storyEx-Doge employee ‘Big Balls’ gets new job with TrumpEdward Coristine – a 19-year-old who quit Elon Musk’s controversial so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) earlier this week, where he gained notoriety in part for having used the online moniker “Big Balls” – has in fact been given a new government job, this time at the Social Security Administration.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US supreme court ruled that a Texas law requiring that pornography websites verify the ages of their visitors was constitutional on Friday, the latest development in a global debate over how to prevent minors from accessing adult material online.

      In a bizarre start to a Rwanda-DRC peace agreement event at the White House, Donald Trump brought on an Angolan correspondent so she would praise him in front of the assembled officials and reporters. Hariana Veras praised Trump for his work on the peace agreement and said African presidents have told her he should be nominated for a Nobel peace prize.

      The president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, has resigned from his position after coming under pressure from the Trump administration over diversity efforts.

      Harvard University and the University of Toronto and have announced a plan that would see some Harvard students complete their studies in Canada if visa restrictions prevent them from entering the US.

      Environmental groups, immigration rights activists and a Native American tribe have decried the construction of a harsh outdoor migrant detention camp in the Florida Everglades billed by state officials as “Alligator Alcatraz”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 26 June 2025. More

    • 238 Shares102 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump brings on Angolan journalist to praise him at White House event to mark Rwanda-DRC peace agreement – live

      by

      Donald Trump hosted top diplomats from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries on Friday. The African nations have been in a conflict since 2021 that has led to the deaths and displacement of thousands.While Trump called the peace agreement “a glorious triumph”, the war reportedly shows little signs of abating on the ground, according to a report by NBC earlier this month.Trump has touted the US’s role as a peacemaker and said the agreement today was ushered through by Massad Boulos, a senior adviser for Africa for the State Department and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany Trump. The president said on Friday that the US stands to get “a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo” for its efforts.The event, which took place at the White House, kicked off with an unusual start. Trump asked Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, to introduce a friend. Leavitt said she knew a reporter from the “continent of Africa”, who had a “story to share”. Trump then invited the reporter to stand next him, saying “Why don’t you come up here and talk, so they can see.”The reporter is Hariana Veras, who works for the national broadcaster of Angola. Veras praised Trump for his work on the peace agreement and said that African presidents have told her he should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.When Veras was done speaking, Trump told her that Leavitt had said she was beautiful. He then added: “You are beautiful … I wish I had more reporters like you”.Immediately after, the White House clipped a video of Veras’s comments and posted it to its social media account on X.Federal agents appear to have blasted their way into a residential home in Huntington Park, California. A video released by the local NBC news station, shows what appear to be border patrol agents setting up an explosive device near the house and then detonating it – causing a window to be shattered. Then around a dozen agents charged toward the home.Jenny Ramirez, who lives in the house with her one-year-old and six-year-old kids, told NBC through tears that it was one of the loudest explosions she heard in her life.“I told them, ‘you guys didn’t have to do this, you scared by son, my baby,’” Ramirez said.Ramirez said she and her children are all US citizens. Apparently, the agents were searching for Ramirez’s boyfriend who was reportedly involved in a car crash with a truck carrying federal agents last week. He also lives in the home and is a US citizen, according to NBC.

      Donald Trump has abruptly cut off trade talks with Canada over its new digital services tax coming into effect on Monday that will impact US technology firms and said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.

      Trump said he had not ruled out attacking Iran again and said he has abandoned plans to drop sanctions on Tehran.

      The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.

      Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “a travesty for the rule of law” and “an open invitation for the government to bypass the Constitution” in a scathing dissent.

      Trump called the ruling “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”. He said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.

      US attorney general Pam Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but said today’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, which the administration is “thrilled” about.

      United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said that the US-backed Israeli aid operation in Gaza is “inherently unsafe”, giving a blunt and grave assessment: “It’s killing people.” Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being “strangled”, aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.

      Guterres’s intervention followed calls earlier today from Médecins Sans Frontières for the scheme to be immediately dismantled and for Israel to end its siege on Gaza, calling the Israeli-US food distribution scheme “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”. Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds heading toward desperately needed food, killing hundreds of starving Palestinian people in recent weeks. The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.

      The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge yesterday. It is not clear when the deportation might occur or whether it would happen before the criminal case accusing him of smuggling migrants into the United States is complete. The justice department said there are no “imminent plans” to remove Ábrego García from the United States.

      The supreme court ruled in favor of Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who sued to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read in a landmark case involving the intersection of religion and LGBT rights. The justices in a 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court’s refusal to require Montgomery County’s public schools to provide an option to opt out of these classes. Our story is here.

      The supreme court also ruled against challengers to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users in an effort to protect minors after the adult entertainment industry argued that the measure violates the free speech rights of adults. Story here.

      The supreme court also preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost to patients. Read more here.
      As well as abruptly cutting off trade talks with Canada over its new tax that will impact US technology firms, Trump said that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week.“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,” he wrote on Truth Social.The move plunges US relations with its second-largest trading partner back into chaos after a period of relative calm – only last week Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said he had agreed with Trump that their two nations should try to wrap up a new economic and security deal within 30 days.Canada is the US’s second-largest trading partner after Mexico, buying $349.4bn of US goods last year and exporting $412.7bn to the US, according to US Census Bureau data.In Trump’s surprise announcement that he was terminating trade talks with Canada, he accused Ottawa of “copying the European Union” with an “egregious” digital services tax on US tech firms.He wrote on Truth Social: “They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”We’ve yet to hear Canadian PM Mark Carney’s reaction to Trump’s outburst, which imperils a trading relationship that, according to the office of the US trade representative, totalled about $762bn last year.The tax, which will take effect on 30 June and be applied retroactively from 2022, will impact both domestic and international companies, meaning American giants Amazon, Google, Meta, Airbnb and Uber will have to start payments from Monday.Last week Ottawa refused to delay the tax in the face of mounting pressure and opposition from the Trump administration during trade negotiations.At the press conference earlier, Donald Trump sharply criticized Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, dropped plans to lift sanctions on Iran and said he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran is enriching uranium to worrisome levels.Trump reacted sternly to Khamenei’s first remarks after a 12-day conflict with Israel that ended when the US launched strikes last weekend against Iranian nuclear sites.Khamenei said Iran “slapped America in the face” by launching a – largely symbolic and forewarned – attack against a major US base in Qatar following last weekend’s US bombing raid. He also said Iran would never surrender.Trump said he had spared Khamenei’s life. US officials told Reuters on 15 June that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader. In a Truth Social post, he said:
      His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH.
      Trump also said that in recent days he had been working on the possible removal of sanctions on Iran to give it a chance for a speedy recovery. He told reporters today he has now abandoned that effort.
      I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.
      Trump said he did not rule out attacking Iran again. When asked about the possibility of new bombing of Iranian nuclear sites if deemed necessary at some point, he replied:
      Sure, without question, absolutely.
      Trump’s border czar Tom Homan spoke at the end of the morning session at the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington DC to applause and a standing ovation as he called for the prosecution of anyone who impeded his immigration enforcement, including lawmakers.Homan opened up by describing immigration enforcement as a moral duty – meant to stop the deaths, sexual assault and drug trafficking at the border. “In my 40 years I’ve seen a lot of terrible things,” he said. “Secure the border, save lives.”In a wide ranging, off the cuff speech, Homan touted his deportation figures and the lack of crossings at the border while defending Ice raids against non-criminals. “They’re in the country illegally so they’re on the table too,” he said. He attributed some of those arrests to sanctuary cities, where he said the lack of ability to arrest undocumented people in jail led to the increase of collateral arrests when Ice searched for them on the streets.Homan poked at protests, calling the Los Angeles protests misguided and misinformed and applauding Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard. He also called the protestors in his lake house town “morons” – those protests were followed by Ice releasing a family.Homan spent a good amount of his speech denouncing Biden’s policies and calling for the prosecution of anyone, including lawmakers who attempted to intervene with Ice enforcement. He said Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security under Joe Biden, should “go to jail”.
      You can hate Ice, you can hate me, I don’t give a shit. You can not agree with our priorities, but you better not cross that line.
      At the en,d Homan turned to his personal relationship with Trump, saying he respected the president as much as he does his own father.Lawyers for Kilmar Ábrego García have asked the judge to keep him in jail over deportation concerns. Prosecutors have agreed with a request by Ábrego García’s lawyers to delay his Tennessee jail release.Ábrego García’s lawyers asked a judge for the delay Friday because of “contradictory statements” by the Trump administration over whether he’ll be deported upon release. A judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Ábrego García to await trial on human smuggling charges. The judge has been holding off over concerns immigration officials would try to deport him.The justice department says it intends to try Ábrego García on the smuggling charges. A justice department attorney said earlier there were plans to deport him but didn’t say when. The Maryland construction worker previously was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.US representative Nydia Velázquez from New York called the supreme court ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions “an attack on the very foundation of our nation”. She wrote on X:“The Supreme Court just opened the door for Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship. As Justice Sotomayor warned in her dissent, ‘No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.’ This ruling is an attack on the very foundation of our nation.”Representative Mark Takano of California expressed similar alarm. He wrote on X:“Today’s troubling ruling by the Supreme Court means that Trump’s un-Constitutional executive order denying many Americans their birthright citizenship will go into effect for anyone without the means to file a lawsuit to protect themselves.”Trump has accused Canada of a “direct and blatant attack” on the US after being informed that the country plans to tax US technology companies. Trump says the US will be “terminating all discussions on trade with Canada” as a result.Trump wrote on Truth Social:“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country.They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”Environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit to block the “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades.The lawsuit, filed Friday on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades organization, seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court says there is also supposed to be an opportunity for public comment.Florida governor Ron DeSantis said Friday on Fox and Friends that the detention center is set to begin processing people who entered the US illegally as soon as next week.The Trump administration is moving to terminate Temporary Protected Status for half a million Haitians, claiming that Haiti is a “safe” country to return to, despite the reality that large portions of the country have been overcome by gangs and civil governance has collapsed.The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that conditions in Haiti have improved, and Haitians no longer meet the conditions for Temporary Protected Status, which grants deportation protections and work permits to people from countries experiencing turmoil.“This decision restores integrity in our immigration system and ensures that Temporary Protective Status is actually temporary,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “The environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home.”

      The supreme court, in a 6-3 ruling, appears to have delivered Trump a major victory by ruling that individual district court judges lack the power to issue nationwide injunctions, which Trump has complained have blocked federal government policies nationwide including his executive order purporting to end the right to automatic birthright citizenship.

      Speaking from the bench, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the supreme court’s majority decision “a travesty for the rule of law”, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered a scathing dissent.

      Trump called the supreme court’s decision “a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law in striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions interfering with the normal functions of the executive branch”.

      Trump said his administration “can now promptly file to proceed” with policies that had been enjoined nationwide. One of these cases would be ending birthright citizenship, he says, “which now comes to the fore”.

      In a press briefing US attorney general Pam Bondi was asked whether the administration is going to try to implement Trump’s order banning birthright citizenship in states where there isn’t a legal challenge. Bondi said the birthright citizenship question will “most likely” be decided by the supreme court in October but that Friday’s ruling still “indirectly impacts every case in this country”, adding that the administration is “thrilled” about this.

      Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly plans to run as an independent candidate in New York City’s mayoral race, days after finding himself bested in the Democratic primary by progressive insurgent candidate Zohran Mamdani.

      The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Ábrego García for a second time, but reportedly does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March.

      Trump reiterated that Tehran wants to meet following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend, but gave no further details. More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump basks in triumph as supreme court kicks away another guard rail

      by

      He strode into the White House briefing room feeling invincible. In his own telling, he had fixed the Middle East. He had made Nato pay up. He had pacified the heart of Africa. And now Napoleon Trump had once again just been crowned emperor by the US supreme court.“We’ve had a big week,” Donald Trump, orange hair shimmering, blue tie drooping below the waist, mused from a lectern anointed with the presidential seal. “We’ve had a lot of victories this week.”The highest court had just handed the president another win by curbing the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding his policies – though it left unresolved the issue of whether he can limit birthright citizenship.Unable to contain his glee, Trump came to talk to the press – something his predecessor Joe Biden rarely did – to goad the “fake news” while basking in glory from the Maga-friendly media.The president hailed the court’s decision as a “monumental victory for the constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law” and gloated – with some hyperbole – that “there are people elated all over the country”. He looked forward to taking aim at targets such as birthright citizenship, sanctuary city funding and refugee resettlement.In the abstract, there is a reasonable debate to be had over how much power the judiciary should have to curb an elected leader’s agenda. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, has described it as a “bipartisan problem” that has plagued five different presidents. A decade ago Barack Obama expressed frustration when a district court temporarily blocked his executive actions on immigration.In the court’s majority opinion, the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s contention that they were neglecting their duty to protect the people from government overreach. “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett wrote.But context is everything. Trump has marginalised Congress, sued the media in an effort to chill free speech, assailed cultural institutions and universities and deployed the military against peaceful protesters. The courts have been leading the way in safeguarding democracy from his authoritarian impulses. Now they too are on the ropes.Asked by a reporter if the supreme court decision concentrates too much power in the White House, Trump insisted: “The question is fine but it’s the opposite. The constitution has been brought back.”Yet the supreme court that decided to make the strongman even stronger contains three Trump appointees and last year found that former presidents have presumptive immunity from prosecution for “official acts” – in effect putting Trump above the law. The four criminal investigations that once dogged him now feel like ancient history.View image in fullscreenTrump was asked a question by a reporter from LindellTV, a news organisation founded by Mike Lindell, a conspiracy theorist and founder of MyPillow, about whether he would like to see a justice department investigation of the judges whose rulings allowed the cases to proceed against him while he was out of office.“I love you,” Trump said in response to the question, adding: “I hope so.”It has been exactly 12 months since he debated with Biden and discovered an opponent in chronic decline. Democrats panicked and imploded, Trump survived an assassination attempt and rode his good fortune all the way to the White House.It is small wonder that the 79-year-old now considers himself untouchable, acting with impunity at home and abroad, holding freewheeling press conferences like Friday’s without fear of consequences.“Illegal crossings at the border are at zero now,” a reporter said.Trump interjected: “Zero! Does everyone hear that?”A cameraman in the briefing room shouted: “Trump 2028!”Later Trump reiterated his claim that Iran’s nuclear sites had been obliterated and lamented: “We had some fake news for a little while – the same people that covered the Hunter Biden laptop was from Russia … I don’t believe that they’re going to go back into nuclear anytime soon.”He also used the briefing to take a swipe at Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, for not lowering interest rates. “We have a man who’s not a smart man, and he probably has Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Later on Friday the White House would host leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace deal to end years of fighting. Trump cheerfully admitted: “I’m a little bit out of my league in that one because I didn’t know too much about it.” He also noted that the US would gain access to critical minerals in the region.Trump even ruminated on threats to his life, including proxy groups from Iran that may issue threats, and referenced the bullet that struck his ear last summer in an attempted assassination. He gets “that throbbing feeling every once in a while”, he said.“What I do is a dangerous business. You know, I tell the story of the car companies and different people in different professions. You have race car drivers, as an example, one-tenth of 1% die. Bull riders, one-tenth of 1%. That’s not a lot, but people die. When you’re president, it’s about 5%. If somebody would have told me that, maybe I wouldn’t have run. This is a very different profession.”As raised hands in the room clamoured for attention his political lizard brain spotted an opportunity to bash his predecessor. “This is the opposite of Biden. Biden would take a half a question and he’d leave without answering it … You tell me when it gets boring, OK?” More

    • 163 Shares124 Views

      in US Politics

      University of Virginia president resigns under pressure from White House over DEI programs

      by

      The president of the University of Virginia (UVA) has resigned from his position after coming under pressure from the Trump administration over diversity efforts.James Ryan was facing political pressure from Washington to step aside in order to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing three people briefed on the matter.Ryan had a reputation for trying to make the UVA campus more diverse and encouraging students to perform community service.“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” Ryan said in a message to the university reviewed by the Guardian.He added: “To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.“This was an excruciatingly difficult decision, and I am heartbroken to be leaving this way.”The apparent campaign against a prominent public sector university in the US follows Donald Trump’s agenda since returning to the White House to cancel programs and policies aimed at greater diversity, equity and inclusion in government, workplaces, and various establishments and organizations across American society.In parallel, the US president set about attacking and taking funds from elite private sector universities, with Harvard at the forefront, in an assault on the academic and research independence of higher education more broadly.The New York Times first reported late on Thursday that the justice department had demanded that Ryan step down as part of an agreement to settle a civil rights investigation into the school’s diversity practices, as Trump further erodes the government agency’s distance from the White House by enlisting its investigative powers as part of his political agenda.Ryan said in a letter, briefed to the Times by a source, that he was going to step down next year but “given the circumstances and today’s conversations” he had decided “with deep sadness” to resign now.The justice department had reportedly told UVA that the government thought it was prioritizing race-based factors during its admissions process and other aspects of student life in a way that constitutes “widespread practices throughout every component and facet of the institution”.Ryan’s removal is another example of the Trump administration using “thuggery instead of rational discourse,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents university presidents, told the Associated Press.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is a dark day for the University of Virginia, a dark day for higher education, and it promises more of the same,” Mitchell said. “It’s clear the administration is not done and will use every tool that it can make or invent to exert its will over higher education.”In a joint statement, Virginia’s Democratic senators said it was outrageous that the Trump administration would demand Ryan’s resignation over “‘culture war’ traps.” “This is a mistake that hurts Virginia’s future,” Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said.UVA is located in Charlottesville, and found itself in the global headlines early on in the first Trump administration when, in August 2017, hundreds of far-right demonstrators wielding torches and shouting racist slogans marched on to the historic campus ahead of a so-called Unite the Right rally in the small city, crowding towards a smaller group of counterprotesters.The subsequent rally, to try to prevent the removal of Confederate statues from a park, was massive and became very violent as neo-Nazi groups gathered and attacked counterprotesters, then later a white supremacist drove a car into such a group and killed a woman.Trump sparked uproar by blaming both sides for the violence, on the one hand and, on the other, saying: “You had people that were very fine people on both sides.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court limits federal judges’ power to block Trump orders

      by

      The US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit lower-court orders that have so far blocked his administration’s ban on birthright citizenship, in a ruling that could strip federal judges of a power they’ve used to obstruct many of Trump’s orders nationwide.The decision represents a fundamental shift in how US federal courts can constrain presidential power. Previously, any of the country’s more than 1,000 judges in its 94 district courts – the lowest level of federal court, which handles trials and initial rulings – could issue nationwide injunctions that immediately halt government policies across all 50 states.Under the supreme court ruling, however, those court orders only apply to the specific plaintiffs – for example, groups of states or non-profit organizations – that brought the case.The court’s opinion on the constitutionality of whether some American-born children can be deprived of citizenship remains undecided and the fate of the US president’s order to overturn birthright citizenship rights was left unclear, despite Trump claiming a “giant win”.To stymie the impact of the ruling, immigration aid groups have rushed to recalibrate their legal strategy to block Trump’s policy ending birthright citizenship.Immigrant advocacy groups including Casa and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (Asap) – who filed one of several original lawsuits challenging the president’s executive order – are asking a federal judge in Maryland for an emergency block on Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. They have also refiled their broader lawsuit challenging the policy as a class-action case, seeking protections for every pregnant person or child born to families without permanent legal status, no matter where they live.“We’re confident this will prevent this administration from attempting to selectively enforce their heinous executive order,” said George Escobar, chief of programs and services at Casa. “These are scary times, but we are not powerless, and we have shown in the past, and we continue to show that when we fight, we win.”The decision on Friday morning decided by six votes to three by the nine-member bench of the highest court in the land, sided with the Trump administration in a historic case that tested presidential power and judicial oversight.The conservative majority wrote that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts”, granting “the government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue”.The ruling, written by the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, did not let Trump’s policy seeking a ban on birthright citizenship go into effect immediately and did not address the policy’s legality. The fate of the policy remains imprecise.With the court’s conservatives in the majority and its liberals dissenting, the ruling specified that Trump’s executive order cannot take effect until 30 days after Friday’s ruling.Trump celebrated the ruling as vindication of his broader agenda to roll back judicial constraints on executive power. “Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said from the White House press briefing room on Friday. “It wasn’t meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation.”Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered a scathing dissent. She argued that the majority’s decision, restricting federal court powers to grant national legal relief in cases, allows Trump to enforce unconstitutional policies against people who haven’t filed lawsuits, meaning only those with the resources and legal standing to challenge the order in court would be protected.“The court’s decision to permit the executive to violate the constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law,” Jackson wrote. “Given the critical role of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law … it is odd, to say the least, that the court would grant the executive’s wish to be freed from the constraints of law by prohibiting district courts from ordering complete compliance with the constitution.”Speaking from the bench, the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor called the court’s majority decision “a travesty for the rule of law”.Birthright citizenship was enshrined in the 14th amendment following the US civil war in 1868, specifically to overturn the supreme court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship to Black Americans.The principle has stood since 1898, when the supreme court granted citizenship to Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents who could not naturalize.The ruling will undoubtedly exacerbate the fear and uncertainty many expecting mothers and immigrant families across the US have felt since the administration first attempt to end birthright citizenship.Liza, one of several expecting mothers who was named as plaintiff in the case challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship policy, said she had since given birth to a “happy and healthy” baby, who was born a US citizen thanks to the previous, nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s order. But she and her husband, both Russian nationals who fear persecution in their home country, still feel unsettled.“We remain worried, even now that one day the government could still try to take away our child’s US citizenship,” she said at a press conference on Friday. “I have worried a lot about whether the government could try to detain or deport our baby. At some point, the executive order made us feel as though our baby was considered a nobody.”The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemned the ruling as opening the door to partial enforcement of a ban on automatic birthright citizenship for almost everyone born in the US, in what it called an illegal policy.“The executive order is blatantly illegal and cruel. It should never be applied to anyone,” Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.Democratic attorneys general who brought the original challenge said in a press conference that while the ruling had been disappointing, the silver lining was that the supreme court left open pathways for continued protection and that “birthright citizenship remains the law of the land”.“We fought a civil war to address whether babies born on United States soil are, in fact, citizens of this country,” New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew Platkin, said, speaking alongside colleagues from Washington state, California, Massachusetts and Connecticut. “For a century and a half, this has not been in dispute.”Trump’s January executive order sought to deny birthright citizenship to babies born on US soil if their parents lack legal immigration status – defying the 14th amendment’s guarantee that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens – and made justices wary during the hearing.The real fight in Trump v Casa Inc, wasn’t about immigration but judicial power. Trump’s lawyers demanded that nationwide injunctions blocking presidential orders be scrapped, arguing judges should only protect specific plaintiffs who sue – not the entire country.Three judges blocked Trump’s order nationwide after he signed it on inauguration day, which would enforce citizenship restrictions in states where courts had not specifically blocked them. The policy targeted children of both undocumented immigrants and legal visa holders, demanding that at least one parent be a lawful permanent resident or US citizen.Reuters contributed reporting More

    • 175 Shares102 Views

      in US Politics

      Some immigrants chose to leave the US. But is ‘self-deportation’ really becoming a thing?

      by

      Their stories have emerged in new reports and on social media feeds: individuals and families, sometimes of mixed immigration status, who have lived in the United States for years and are now choosing to leave. Or, as it’s sometimes called, “self-deport”.There was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former deputy communications director Diego de la Vega, who lived as an undocumented New Yorker for 23 years before he and his wife left for Colombia in December, shortly after Donald Trump’s election. Or the decorated army veteran, a permanent resident in the US for nearly 50 years, who left for South Korea this week after being targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Or newlyweds Alfredo Linares, an undocumented chef, and his wife, Raegan Klein, a US citizen, who recently moved their lives from Los Angeles to Mexico.But experts warn that just because we see stories of so-called “self-deportation”, we should be careful about believing there’s any real trend. Not only does taking this route create potentially serious legal and financial issues for those leaving, convincing the public that a lot of people are self-deporting is also part of Trump’s larger strategy to create an illusion of higher deportation numbers than he can truly deliver.The emphasis on self-deportation is clearly a recognition by the administration that they can’t really accomplish what they’ve promised, says Alexandra Filindra, professor of political science and psychology at the University of Illinois in Chicago. “It’s way too costly to identify, arrest, process and deport large numbers of immigrants, especially when there are so many court fights and so many organizations that are willing to support the rights of immigrants.”Filindra says Trump is trying to take the cheap route, hoping his performative politics – everything from the widespread Ice raids across the US to sending the national guard to Los Angeles – will get people to pack up their own accord.Leaving everything behindIt’s impossible to put a precise number on how many immigrants have decided to leave the country since Trump took power. But for those who have, the decision is deeply personal.Linares, who was born in Mexico, still thinks of California as home because it was where he came as a teen and lived undocumented for decades. Klein was born in Canada and became a naturalized US citizen nearly two decades ago. They married last year in Los Angeles.“We received a small amount of money for our wedding,” Klein said. “We planned to use it to start Alfredo’s immigration process.” After Trump won, though, Klein was the first to have second thoughts.View image in fullscreen“I didn’t like Trump in his first term, and then when he got away with 34 felonies and was elected again as the president, I just was like, well, come on! I mean, he’s going to do any and everything he wants to do. No one’s holding him accountable for anything, so I’m not sitting around.”Linares – as well as most of their family and friends – thought Klein was overreacting. The couple met with three immigration attorneys. Though he married a legal US citizen, Linares crossed the border as a teen illegally. Attempting to rectify his status would be expensive and take untold years of waiting – with no guarantee of a path to legal residency or citizenship. Furthermore, beginning the legal process to adjust his status would put him on the government’s radar and may have even increased his risk of deportation.In fact, immigration court has become a dragnet of sorts. People lawfully going through the process of becoming a citizen have been showing up for mandatory court dates and getting arrested by Ice officers outside the courtrooms.Klein was eventually able to persuade Linares that they should take their small nest egg and leave while they still could.They created a video about their departure to Mexico that was equal parts love story and epic adventure. “Apparently our video went really, really viral,” said Klein, who kept busy as a freelance television producer until a big industry slowdown a couple of years ago. Friends started contacting them and saying influencers were reposting their video. Major media outlets soon amplified the newlyweds’ saga.Klein and Linares now dream of opening a restaurant together in Mexico. They say they don’t think of their situation as self-deportation but rather “voluntary departure” – the government didn’t force them out or pay them to leave, they made the decision themselves.Self-deportation: a catchy term, or a real trend?Filindra also takes issue with the phrase “self-deportation”, and warns against the rebranding of an old phenomenon known as return migration.“Return migration has always been a phenomenon,” she says. Filindra points out that migration levels between the US and Mexico are “practically zero” because so many people eventually go back home to Mexico, so the numbers of those arriving and those going back all but even out. According to the Pew Research Center, an estimated 870,000 Mexican migrants came to the US between 2013 and 2018, while an estimated 710,000 left the US for Mexico during that period. During the decade prior, however, more migrants left the US for Mexico than came here.“The same was true in the 20th century with European migrants who often spent 20 or 30 years here, made enough money to retire and then went back home,” says Filindra.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut this isn’t exactly self-deportation, and the phrase itself has a problematic history. Though now being used in serious policy discussions, it was created as a joke by comedians Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul in the early 90s. The duo posed as conservative Latinos supporting Hispanics Against a Liberal Takeover (Halto). They even invented a militant self-deportationist and sent fake press releases to media outlets promoting satirical self-deportation centers. In 2012 Mitt Romney, seemingly unaware of – or perhaps unbothered by – the comedic roots of the term, started using “self-deportation” during his unsuccessful bid for the presidency.Now the US Department of Homeland Security has latched on to the term. In May, the DHS claimed that 64 people took a government-funded flight to Colombia and Honduras as part of its new program encouraging undocumented immigrants to “self-deport”.View image in fullscreenThe International Organization for Migration (IOM) is one agency supporting the effort, which it calls “assisted voluntary return” (AVR). Undocumented people can apply for AVR using the CBPHome app. Though the details remain murky, applicants supposedly receive a $1,000 stipend and travel assistance home.However, according to a source familiar with the program who requested anonymity, approximately 1,000 individuals have been referred by the US government to the IOM through the AVR program, but to date the agency has facilitated the departure of “only a few” people.Immigration experts say this also squares with what they are seeing.“A thousand dollars is chump change when it comes to giving up a life in the United States,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at American Immigration Council. “The majority of undocumented immigrants have been here for more than 15 years. They have a job. Many have family here, some own property. Some run their own businesses.”Furthermore, many immigrants are here because of dire situations and life-threatening conditions in their home countries. They have nowhere to return to. Immigration attorneys also warn that because the Trump administration hasn’t been transparent, too little is known about the program to trust it. In fact, an additional directive from the administration on 9 June announced that the DHS would “forgive failure to depart fines for illegal aliens who self-deport through the CBP Home app” – though most people would have no idea that fines are levied or how much those fines are.Even with the administration’s recent Ice raids and the supposed sweetening of the self-deportation deal, Filindra says most migrants will still not just leave. “What is more likely is that people who have a non-permanent status and need to visit immigration offices to extend their status, or those who have hearings, will not go out of fear of being arrested and deported.”And she says we should all hope that the administration’s obsession with all types of deportation is a flop. If too many immigrants are forced, threatened or incentivized to leave, industries from agriculture to healthcare will take a huge hit.“Economically, this could be devastating for the US,” said Filindra.Linares and Klein also warn that while they believe they made the right decision, leaving home is rough.Linares describes it as a rollercoaster. “The people have embraced us in Mexico, but it’s also been a challenge to figure out how things work here.” He’s still trying to get his Mexican driver’s license and passport. And he misses his LA friends, co-workers and even Griffith Park, his favorite place to hike with his dog. “It was 20 years of my life there that I dedicated to building something. It’s gone.”After going public with her story, Klein expected to hear from many undocumented people or mixed-status families choosing, or at least considering, leaving the US on their own terms – but so far, she hasn’t.“I don’t think a lot of undocumented people are leaving right now,” she says. “But if something doesn’t change – like if Trump isn’t put into check very soon – I think you will see a lot more people abandoning the US in 2026.” More

    • 225 Shares80 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: No mention of ‘big beautiful bill’ July 4 deadline in president’s final pitch

      by

      Just two days ago, Donald Trump told Republican members of Congress to cancel their vacation plans until his “big beautiful bill” is sewn up and ready for his signature on 4 July.But in his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, he made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.Trump stood before an assembly composed of police and fire officers, working parents and the mother and father of a woman he said died at the hands of an undocumented immigrant to argue that Americans like them would benefit from the bill, which includes new tax cuts and the extension of lower rates enacted during his first term, as well as an infusion of funds for immigration enforcement.“There are hundreds of things here. It’s so good,” he said.The bill is highly divisive and deeply unpopular with segments of the country. Democrats have dubbed the bill the “big, ugly betrayal”, and railed against what would be the biggest funding cut to Medicaid since it was created in 1965, and cost an estimated 16 million people their insurance. It would also slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps Americans afford food.A win for Democrats opposing Trump’s billRepublicans intended to circumvent the filibuster in the Senate by using the budget reconciliation procedure, under which they can pass legislation with just a majority vote, provided it only affects spending, revenue and the debt limit. But on Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that a change to taxes that states use to pay for Medicaid was not allowed under the rules.Democrats took credit for MacDonough’s ruling, with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer saying the party “successfully fought a noxious provision that would’ve decimated America’s healthcare system and hurt millions of Americans. This win saves hundreds of billions of dollars for Americans to get healthcare, rather than funding tax cuts to billionaires.”Read the full storySupreme court paves way for states to defund Planned ParenthoodThe US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.Read the full storyHegseth defends Iran strike amid doubts The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Trump had “decimated … obliterated” the country’s nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week’s strikes had failed to destroy key enrichment facilities and they could resume operations within just months.But he and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the bunker buster bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.Read the full storyExclusive: State department told to end most overseas pro-democracy programsThe US state department has been advised to terminate grants to nearly all remaining programs awarded under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which would effectively end the department’s role in funding pro-democracy programming in some of the world’s most hostile totalitarian nations.Read the full storyRFK Jr’s vaccine panel votes against preservative in flu shots in shock moveA critical federal vaccine panel has recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability.Read the full storyVaccine panel also suggests new RSV treatment for infantsHealth secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants. The treatment, a new monoclonal antibody called clesrovimab, was recommended by the powerful committee after being approved by the Food and Drug Administration roughly two weeks ago.The tortured vote took place a day late and after rounds of questions from the panel’s seven new members – all ideological allies of Kennedy, who views “overmedicalization” as one of the greatest threats to American children.Read the full storyPurple heart army veteran self-deports after 50 years from ‘country I fought for’A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. “That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The dollar has fallen to a three-year low following a report that Trump is considering soon announcing his choice to succeed the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.

      The US justice department sued the Maryland federal judiciary over an order that bars deporting undocumented immigrants for at least one day after filing a challenge.

      Clothing prices are starting to rise in the US as Trump’s tariffs on imported goods start to have an effect, according to the CEO of H&M.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 25 June 2025. More