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      Briefing on Iran strikes leaves senators divided as Trump threatens new row

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      Republican and Democratic senators have offered starkly contrasting interpretations of Donald Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities after a delayed behind-closed-doors intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed amid accusations of leaks.Thursday’s session with senior national security officials came after the White House moved back its briefing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, fueling Democratic complaints that Trump was stonewalling Congress over military action the president authorized without congressional approval.“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said following the initial postponement, which he termed “outrageous”.Even as senators were being briefed, Trump reignited the row with a Truth Social post accusing Democrats of leaking a draft Pentagon report that suggested last weekend’s strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months – contradicting the president’s insistence that it was “obliterated”.“The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!” he wrote.The partisan divisions were on display after the briefing, which was staged in the absence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, who previously told Congress that Iran was not building nuclear weapons, before changing her tune last week after Trump said she was “wrong”.Instead, the briefing was led by CIA director John Ratcliffe, secretary of state Marco Rubio and defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who had publicly assailed journalists over their reporting on the strikes at a Pentagon press conference.With intelligence agencies apparently in open dispute over the strikes’ effectiveness, Thursday’s briefing did little to clear up the clashing interpretations on Capitol Hill.Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina senator and close Trump ally, said “obliteration” was a “good word” to describe the strikes’ impact.“They blew these places up in a major-league way. They set them back years, not months,” he said. “Nobody is going to work in these three sites any time soon. Their operational capability was obliterated.”But he warned that Iran would be likely to try to reconstitute them, adding: “Have we obliterated their desire to have a nuclear weapon? As long as they desire one, as long as they want to kill all the Jews, you still have a problem on your hands. I don’t want the American people to think this is over.”But Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Trump was “misleading the public” in claiming the program was obliterated and questioned why Gabbard had not attended the briefing.His skepticism was echoed by Schumer, who said the briefing gave “no adequate answer” to questions about Trump’s claims.“What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy, no endgame, no plan, no specific[s], no detailed plan on how Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding that Congress needed to assert its authority by enforcing the War Powers Act.Gabbard and Ratcliffe had scrambled on Wednesday to back Trump, with Gabbard posting on X: “New intelligence confirms what POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”The ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Jim Himes, dismissed the destruction claims as meaningless. “The only question that matters is whether the Iranian regime has the stuff necessary to build a bomb, and if so, how fast,” he posted.The destruction response has also rankled Republican senators in the anti-interventionist wing of the party such as Rand Paul, who rejected claims of absolute presidential war powers.“I think the speaker needs to review the constitution,” said Paul. “And I think there’s a lot of evidence that our founding fathers did not want presidents to unilaterally go to war.”The Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution requiring congressional approval for future military action against Iran, though the measure appears unlikely to pass given Republican control of the chamber.The White House also admitted on Thursday to restricting intelligence sharing after news of the draft assessment leaking.Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the administration wants to ensure “classified intelligence is not ending up in irresponsible hands”. Leavitt later said the US assessed that there “was no indication” enriched uranium was moved from the nuclear sites in Iran ahead of the strikes.Trump formally notified Congress of the strikes in a brief letter sent on Monday, two days after the bombing, saying the action was taken “to advance vital United States national interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel, by eliminating Iran’s nuclear program”.The administration says it remains “on a diplomatic path with Iran” through special envoy Steve Witkoff’s communications with Iranian officials. More

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      Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill’ and cranks up pressure on Republicans

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      Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.But it is unclear whether Republicans have the votes to pass it through Congress’s upper chamber, and whether any changes the Senate makes will pass muster in the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority passed the bill last month by a single vote and which may have to vote again on a revised version of the bill.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. But he made no mention of his desire to sign the legislation by next Friday – the US Independence Day holiday – instead encouraging his audience to contact their lawmakers to get the bill over the finish line.“If you can, call your senators, call your congressmen. We have to get the vote,” he said.Democrats have dubbed the bill the “big, ugly betrayal”, and railed against its potential cut to Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for low-income and disabled people. The legislation would impose 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.Republicans intend 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, Democrats on the Senate budget committee announced that the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, had ruled that a change to taxes that states use to pay for Medicaid was not allowed under the rules of reconciliation.That could further raise the cost of the bill, which the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation recently estimated would add a massive $4.2tn to the US budget deficit over 10 years. Such a high cost may be unpalatable to rightwing lawmakers in the House, who are demanding aggressive spending cuts, but the more immediate concern for the GOP lies in the Senate, where several moderate lawmakers still have not said they are a yes vote on the bill.“I don’t think anybody believes the current text is final, so I don’t believe anybody would vote for it in it’s current form. We [have] got a lot of things that we’re working on,” the senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a top target of Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, told CNN on Wednesday.In an interview with the Guardian last week, the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski declined to say how she would vote on the bill, instead describing it as “a work in progress” and arguing that the Senate should “not necessarily tie ourselves to an arbitrary date to just get there as quickly as we can”.Democrats took credit for MacDonough’s ruling on the Medicaid tax, with the 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.” More

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      RFK Jr grilled on vaccine policies and healthcare fraud in bruising House hearing

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced a bruising day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, including being forced to retract accusations against a Democratic congressman after claiming the lawmaker’s vaccine stance was bought by $2m in pharmaceutical contributions.In a hearing held by the House health subcommittee, Kennedy was met with hours of contentious questioning over budget cuts, massive healthcare fraud and accusations he lied to senators to secure his confirmation.Kennedy launched his attack on representative Frank Pallone after the New Jersey Democrat hammered him over vaccine policy reversals. “You’ve accepted $2m from pharmaceutical companies,” Kennedy said. “Your enthusiasm for supporting the old [vaccine advisory committee] seems to be an outcome of those contributions.”The accusation appeared to reference Pallone’s shift from raising concerns about mercury in FDA-approved products in the 1990s to later supporting mainstream vaccine policy – a change Kennedy suggested was motivated by industry money rather than science.After a point of order, the Republican chair ordered Kennedy to retract the remarks after lawmakers accused him of impugning Pallone’s character. But the pharma attack was overshadowed by accusations that Kennedy lied his way into office. Representative Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, asked Kennedy: “Did you lie to senator [Bill] Cassidy when you told him you would not fire this panel of experts?”Two weeks ago, Kennedy axed all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, despite assurances to Cassidy during confirmation hearings.“You lied to senator Cassidy. You have lied to the American people,” Schrier said. “I lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet.”Kennedy denied making promises to Cassidy.The hearing exposed the deepening fractures in Kennedy’s relationship with Congress, even among Republicans who initially supported his confirmation. What began as a routine budget hearing devolved into accusations of dishonesty, conflicts of interest and fundamental questions about whether Kennedy can be trusted to protect public health.In one moment, representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pressed Kennedy about his ignorance to the Trump administration’s reported investigation of UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, for criminal fraud in Medicare Advantage plans.“You are not aware that the Trump Department of Justice is investigating the largest insurance company in America?” Ocasio-Cortez asked again after suggesting he couldn’t confirm that it was happening.When she said that for-profit insurers such as UnitedHealthcare defraud public programs of $80bn annually, Kennedy appeared confused about the scale: “Did you say 80 million or billion?”“80 with a ‘B’,” Ocasio-Cortez said.For Democrats, Tuesday’s performance confirmed their worst fears about a vaccine-skeptical activist now controlling the nation’s health agencies. For Kennedy, it marked an escalation in his battle against what he calls a corrupt public health establishment pushing back on his radical vision.But behind the political theater lay a fundamental reshaping of America’s public health architecture. Kennedy’s cuts have eliminated entire offices and centers, leaving them unstaffed and non-functional. While he defended the reductions as targeting “duplicative procurement, human resources and administrative offices”, he hinted that some fired workers might be rehired once court injunctions on the layoffs are resolved.Kennedy recently replaced the fired vaccine advisers with eight new appointees, including known spreaders of vaccine misinformation. The move alarmed even supportive Republicans such as Cassidy, who called Monday for delaying this week’s advisory meeting, warning the new panel lacks experience and harbors “preconceived bias” against mRNA vaccines.Kennedy has long promoted debunked links between vaccines and autism, raising fears his appointees will legitimize dangerous anti-vaccine theories.He also explained why he was pulling Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women, claiming “there was no science supporting that recommendation” despite extensive research showing the vaccines’ safety during pregnancy.“We’re not depriving anybody of choice,” Kennedy insisted. “If a pregnant woman wants the Covid-19 vaccine, she can get it. No longer recommending it because there was no science supporting that recommendation.”In another sidebar, Kennedy unveiled his vision for America’s health future: every citizen wearing a smartwatch or fitness tracker within four years. The ambitious scheme, backed by what he promised would be “one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history”, would see the government promoting wearables as a possible alternative to expensive medications.“If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people,” Kennedy said. More

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      WhatsApp messaging app banned on all US House of Representatives devices

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      The WhatsApp messaging service has been banned on all US House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to House staff on Monday.The notice to all House staff said that the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”The memo, from the chief administrative officer, recommended use of other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon.com’s Wickr, Signal, Apple’s iMessage, and Facetime.Meta, which owns WhatsApp, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.The Signal app – which like WhatsApp uses end-to-end encrypted messaging – was at the center of a recent controversy in which Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about planned attacks on Yemen to at least two private Signal group chats.One of the chats was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, and included top US security officials as well as, inadvertently, the Atlantic magazine journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. The other Hegseth created himself, including his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.The Pentagon had previously warned its employees against using Signal due to a technical vulnerability, according NPR, which reported that an “OPSEC special bulletin” seen by its reporters and sent on 18 March said that Russian hacking groups could exploit the vulnerability in Signal to spy on encrypted organizations, potentially targeting “persons of interest”.The Pentagon-wide memo said “third party messaging apps” like Signal are permitted to be used to share unclassified information, but they are not allowed to be used to send “non-public” unclassified information.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Trade and Tax Policies Start to Stall U.S. Battery Boom

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      Battery companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in the United States because of tariffs on China and the proposed rollback of tax credits.Battery manufacturing began to take off in the United States in recent years after Congress and the Biden administration offered the industry generous incentives.But that boom now appears to be stalling as the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers try to restrict China’s access to the American market.From South Carolina to Washington State, companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in factories for producing rechargeable batteries and the ingredients needed to make them.A big reason for that is higher trade barriers between the United States and China are fracturing relationships between suppliers and customers in the two countries. At the same time, Republicans are seeking to block battery makers with ties to China, as well as those that rely on any Chinese technology or materials, from taking advantage of federal tax credits. The industry is also dealing with a softening market for electric vehicles, which Republicans and Mr. Trump have targeted. The China-related restrictions — included in the version of Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill passed by the House — would be very difficult for many companies to operate under. China is the world’s top battery manufacturer and makes nearly all of certain components.The Trump policy bill highlights a difficult dilemma. The United States wants to create a homegrown battery industry and greatly reduce its dependence on China — and many Republican lawmakers want to end it altogether. But China is already so dominant in this industry that it will be incredibly hard for the United States to become a meaningful player without working with Chinese companies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump is steamrolling congressional Republicans. What’s in it for them? | David Kirp

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      Like soldiers in a well-disciplined army, Republican members of US Congress do whatever Commander Donald Trump demands. While the foot soldiers may occasionally grumble, they quickly fall in line when Trump intervenes.Republican representatives go through contortions to satisfy the bully in the White House: we hated deficits, goes the party orthodoxy, but now we vote for adding trillions to the deficit; we supported Ukraine, but now we cozy up to the Russians; we scrutinized cabinet nominees, but now we give our “advice and consent” to a cabinet of knaves and charlatans.In being supremely supine, these legislators are behaving as if they were members of parliament, taking their cues from the prime minister. Yet as every schoolchild knows, “balance of powers” was the framers’ watchword, with the three branches of government each held in check by the others.Apologies for this civics lesson, but it’s a reminder that this is not the world we now live in. The constitution is merely an inconvenience for Trump, who says that he “doesn’t know” whether he must abide by its provisions.“I run the country and the world,” the president said, in an Atlantic interview. He regards Congress’s role as merely rubber-stamping his decisions – its members have no business thinking for themselves. Case in point: Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”The final version of that 1,037-page measure was pushed through the House of Representatives in less than a day. Legislators had precious little time to understand, let alone debate, its provisions because Trump and his sock-puppet, Mike Johnson, the House speaker, don’t give a fig about their opinions. To adapt a line from the comedian Rodney Dangerfield: “They don’t get no respect.”Under these circumstances, even the brightest bulb would have missed a provision here or there. It’s no wonder that some Republicans were embarrassed by their ignorance of the specifics of the legislation.Consider the case of Mike Flood, a Republican backbencher from Nebraska. “I am not going to hide the truth – this provision was unknown to me when I voted for that,” Flood said during a town meeting, responding to questions about a provision that makes it easier for the federal government to defy court orders. He would not have voted for the bill, Flood said, if he had realized what was in it.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the walking conspiracist from Georgia, was also flummoxed. “Full transparency, I did not know about this section, blocking states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”Why do the Republican members of Congress stand for such treatment? Why don’t they speak up or quit?Imagine how Republican lawmakers would respond under the influence of truth serum. “Should Congress have a say in setting tariffs?” they might be asked. “Is it OK to lift immigrants off the streets and ship them to a hellhole in El Salvador?” “Should Elon Musk & Co have been allowed to rampage through the federal government?” “How about Trump intimidating federal judges who dare to challenge his actions?”Some true believers in the Republican party would doubtlessly follow their Pied Piper, even if it meant leaping over a cliff, but many lawmakers would be aghast. How do they reconcile their beliefs and their behavior?Ethicists argue that government officials have a duty to speak out against moral rot, even if there’s a price to pay. Consider the fate of the former congressman Adam Kinzinger, who voted to impeach Trump and, facing likely defeat, opted not to run again, or Liz Cheney, who lost her House seat because she spoke truth to power. Those principled decisions are as rare as hens’ teeth.My colleagues are too scared to express their opinions, said the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, who is often the lone Republican voice of dissent in the upper chamber. “You’ve got everyone zip-lipped. Not saying a word, because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down, they’re going to be primaried, they’re going to be given names in the media. You know what, we cannot be cowed into not speaking up.”Resigning on the grounds of principle is almost unheard of, and it’s easy enough to understand why. If you’re a Republican legislator, you have a nice life, with a decent salary, a generous healthcare plan and a solid pension. Constituents fawn over you. Little League all-stars and scout troops pay you a visit, hanging on to your every word. You get VIP treatment at Butterworth’s, the “in” restaurant for the Trump crowd.Maybe you justify your decision to stay on the job by imagining that you’re doing something of value. Perhaps you contend that there’s no point in your resigning because whoever replaced you would behave in the same way. But those rationales cannot stand the light of day.The lawmakers who privately blanch at Trump’s authoritarian impulses presumably entered politics with the idea of doing good. They might ask themselves whether – by following the herd and being dissed by the White House – they are still doing good. If their honest answer is “no,” the only justification for their remaining in office are the creature comforts and the intangible perk of obeisance. Should that suffice?Such arguments would have carried weight during the Watergate era, when ethics in public life were taken seriously. In the present political climate, on the other hand, even to remind lawmakers that speaking out or resigning may be the morally right course of action risks being dismissed as terminally naive. But history will surely be unkind to the politicians who put ambition over principle and paved the way to autocracy. How will they justify their actions – or inaction – in this crucible year?

      David Kirp is professor emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley More

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      House votes to claw back $9.4bn in spending including from NPR and PBS

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      The House narrowly voted on Thursday to cut about $9.4bn in spending already approved by Congress as Donald Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work by the so-called “department of government efficiency” when it was overseen by Elon Musk.The package targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country. The vote was 214-212.Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world and will lead to needless deaths.“Cruelty is the point,” the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said of the proposed spending cuts.The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.“This rescissions package sends $9.4bn back to the US Treasury,” said Representative Lisa McClain, House Republican conference chair. “That’s $9.4bn of savings that taxpayers won’t see wasted. It’s their money.”The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So, if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.The Senate majority leader, John Thune, said the Senate would probably not take the bill up until July and after it has dealt with Trump’s big tax and immigration bill. He also said it was possible the Senate could tweak the bill.The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s “America first” ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900m from $10bn that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500m for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400m to address the global HIV epidemic.The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800m, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it is slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. More

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      Trump announces $1,000 government-funded accounts for American babies

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      Donald Trump unveiled a federal program Monday providing $1,000 government-funded investment accounts for American babies, getting big time backing from top business leaders who plan to contribute billions more to an initiative tied to “the big beautiful bill”.At a White House roundtable with over a dozen CEOs, including from Uber, Goldman Sachs and Dell Technologies, Trump relayed the details of “Trump accounts” – tax-deferred investment accounts tracking stock market performance for children born between 2025 and 2029.“For every US citizen born after December 31, 2024, before January 1, 2029, the federal government will make a one-time contribution of $1,000 into a tax-deferred account that will track the overall stock market,” Trump said.The accounts will be controlled by guardians and allow additional private contributions up to $5,000 annually. Trump called it “a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation”.CEOs from major companies including Michael Dell, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, and Vladimir Tenev of Robinhood committed billions for employees’ children’s accounts. Trump praised the executives as “really the greatest business minds we have today” who are “committed to contributing millions of dollars to the Trump account”.Mike Johnson, the House speaker, also at the roundtable, championed the program, saying: “It’s a bold, transformative policy that gives every eligible American child a financial head start from day one. Republicans are proud to be the party we always have been. It supports life and families, prosperity and opportunity.”The program passed the House as part of a massive budget bill but faces stiffer Senate Republican resistance over the broader package. The accounts cannot be implemented as a standalone program and depend entirely on passage of what Trump calls the “one big, beautiful bill” that is “among the most important pieces of legislation in our country’s history”, claiming it’s “fully funded through targeted reforms” including welfare changes and a proposed remittance tax.However, the congressional budget office last week found the bill would also add $2.4tn to the national debt over the next decade while cutting Medicaid and food assistance programs. The CBO analysis showed the bill, which passed the House by a single vote and no Democratic support, would leave 10.9 million more Americans without healthcare by 2034.The treasury-funded accounts, previously called “Maga ccounts” resemble existing 529 college plans but with lower contribution limits – leading some financial advisers to say the Trump accounts may not offer the best investment incentives.The move is also not without precedent the United Kingdom operated a similar Child Trust Fund with government seed funding from 2002-2011 before discontinuing the program, while Singapore runs the Baby Bonus Scheme that includes government-matched savings accounts for children.Trump was optimistic about returns, saying beneficiaries would “really be getting a big jump on life, especially if we get a little bit lucky with some of the numbers and the economies into the future”.Johnson warned that failure to pass the legislation would result in “the largest tax increase in American history” and pushed for swift congressional action on what he called “pro-growth legislation” that would “help every single American”. More