Trump claims US military carried out 'secret mission' to help move 100m barrels of oil through strait of Hormuz
The US military carried out a “secret mission” last month to “support oil tankers and other commercial ships through the strait of Hormuz”, according to Donald Trump.
In a Truth Social post today, the president said that the effort, which he said he directed, “resulted in more than 100 million barrels of oil” moving through the crucial chokepoint and “into the open market”.
Trump described the effort as “wildly successful,” adding that the “United States of America controls the Strait of Hormuz, not Iran”.
Trump’s latest comments mark a pivot away from his words last month in which he repeatedly said during a cabinet meeting: “Nobody’s going to control” the strait of Hormuz. He added: “It’s international waters.”
In that same meeting, Trump threatened to bomb Oman upon being asked whether he would accept a short-term deal that would allow Iran and Oman to control the strait, saying: “It’s international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up.”
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Democrats rally round Platner in Maine as Trump reaffirms grip on GOP after primaries
Progressives rallied around Graham Platner after his primary victory in Maine yesterday while Donald Trump again exerted his grip on the GOP by helping to defeat a politician who had pushed for the release of the Epstein files.
Primary elections were held in four states – Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina – before November’s midterms to decide control of both chambers of Congress. The results offered mixed signals about the direction of the two parties.
The marquee race was a Senate primary election in Maine, where Platner won 72% of the vote, defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who had suspended her campaign but remained on the ballot, and third-placed David Costello, based on early results reported by Reuters.
The result sets up a bruising general election battle against the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, which is likely to be tight, and could help decide control of the Senate.
Other elections offered fresh evidence of the issues shaping the wider political landscape. South Carolina served up another test of Trump’s enduring influence over the Republican party. The president enjoyed a comfortable victory through his ally Lindsey Graham, who secured renomination to the Senate without being forced into a runoff.
In the primary for governor, the congresswoman Nancy Mace became the latest casualty of Trump’s efforts to topple Republicans, after she demanded the release of the government’s Epstein files.
But Trump’s preferred candidate, the state’s lieutenant governor, Pamela Evette, failed to secure an outright majority and must now face Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general, in a runoff election this month.
The longtime South Carolina congressman James Clyburn easily fended off a little-known primary challenger. Two Republicans are still competing for the chance to face Clyburn but he is expected to be the overwhelming favourite in the general election.
In Nevada, Democrats selected the state’s attorney general, Aaron Ford, as their nominee for governor, setting up what is expected to be one of the country’s most competitive statewide contests. Ford defeated the Washoe county commissioner, Alexis Hill, after largely ignoring his primary opponent and focusing instead on the Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.
Nevada also produced one of the most important congressional contests of the cycle. Republicans nominated Marty O’Donnell, a Trump-endorsed composer best known for creating the soundtrack to the hugely successful Halo video game franchise, to challenge the Democratic congresswoman Susie Lee in the state’s highly competitive third congressional district.
Teresa Benitez-Thompson won the Democratic primary in Nevada’s second district. Benitez-Thompson, a former assembly leader, faces an uphill battle. Republicans outnumber Democrats by 70,000 in the district that covers Reno and rural northern Nevada.
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Trump says he thinks AI companies will agree to 'giving back' to the public
Also in the Oval Office earlier, Donald Trump said he expects top artificial intelligence companies to agree to “giving back” to the public, an apparent reference to a possible government stake in the firms.
“I’m going to have meetings with the top 12 or 15 executives very shortly, and we’re talking about giving back something to the public, and if we do that, the public will become very rich,” Trump told reporters. “I think they’ll do that, and I think it’ll make it very popular.”
An agreement to give the US government equity stakes could have a massive impact on the government’s finances. OpenAI – which is targeting a valuation of up to $1tn – in April publicly proposed creating a “public wealth fund” to invest in AI companies, according to a company statement. Proceeds from the fund would be “distributed directly to citizens”, according to the company.
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a Trump critic who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, has expressed support for the idea of creating a US sovereign wealth fund by taking 50% stock in AI companies. Trump said last week that his team was looking into the idea.
But beyond Washington, concern is growing among Americans about AI negatively affecting their lives, from fears that the rise of AI could put them out of work to the environmental impacts of nationwide datacenter projects.
With Reuters.
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Here’s my colleague Marina Dunbar’s report on Donald Trump signing the nearly $70bn immigration enforcement package into law today, after the House narrowly passed the legislation, ensuring funding for ICE and border patrol activities through the rest of his presidency.
“This morning, I’m thrilled to sign the Secure America Act to immediately and fully fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of my term,” Trump said during the signing in the Oval Office. “We’ll give the heroes of ICE and border patrol – and that’s what they are, they’re heroes – the support and resources they need to defend our borders, protect our homeland and to keep America safe.”
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Trump says 'people have wanted to downsize' intelligence community for a while
When asked about his earlier comment that he had asked Bill Pulte, whom he plans to install as acting director of national intelligence on 19 June, “to execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office, reverting staff to their home agencies”, Donald Trump stood by his social media post.
“People have wanted to downsize for a while,” Trump said. “Many people don’t want it at all. A lot of people thought it was a duplication.”
Trump’s choice of Pulte as the country’s top intelligence official has prompted widespread concern over his complete lack of national security experience. The president defended his choice on Wednesday, telling reporters: “Smart people are smart people. I always say I’d rather have smart than experienced, but experience is good too.”
He said he hoped reporters would give Pulte an “easy run”, as “he’s very busy”.
“He doesn’t need stupid people saying, ‘Why didn’t you get a higher mark at a certain college?’” Trump said. “Because he’s highly educated, he was a great student, he’s great at everything he’s done. How come he got a B-plus? See, they’ll go after him for getting a B-plus instead of an A, but the other guy can be a thug.”
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Trump calls Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner 'an outright pig'
Donald Trump answered a question on Wednesday about Adam Hamawy, the army doctor who has secured the Democratic nomination to represent New Jersey’s 12th congressional district, with a comment about Graham Platner, who has secured the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine.
“I actually think the one in Maine is worse because he’s just an outright pig,” Trump said Wednesday. “I watched him a couple of times. He’s like a pig, that’s what he reminds me of.”
Platner’s campaign overcame a mountain of personal controveries ranging from alleged “toxic” behavior towards women to a tattoo recognised as a Nazi symbol. Read more here:
Trump also claims that the agreement is “fully negotiated” and it’s a “meaningful paper” that Iran just needs to sign.
Asked if he is thinking of attacking Iranian power plants and bridges (see my earlier post here on Fox News’s report), Trump replies: “Well, I’m not going to say that to you, but I can do that.”
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Trump says US is 'going to hit them hard today' as Iran 'keeps tapping us along' on deal
Trump has now gone straight to questions. Right off the bat, he’s asked what he meant when he said Iran “will have to pay the price” for taking too long to reach a deal.
The president responds:
Well, we’re going to be attacking them, attacking them very hard.
Asked if that means resuming bombing, Trump adds: “Yeah, well based on the helicopter, I assume we have the right to do that.”
He says Tehran should sign the deal and says “they keep tapping us along”, before the US army Apache helicopter went down near the strait of Hormuz.
Trump accused Iran of shooting down the aircraft, and the US military subsequently launched several hours of strikes on Iranian targets, including air defences and radar sites, near the Gulf. Iran responded with strikes targeting US bases in the region.
“So, we’ll see what happens. But we hit them hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them hard again today,” Trump added. “And we’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.”
Trump claims that Iran has already agreed to not obtaining a nuclear weapon, but the agreement still needs to be signed. (A reminder that Iran had previously agreed to this under the 2015 deal signed with the Obama administration, which Trump tore up three years later.)
He then attacks the Iranian team and president as “very stupid”.
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Trump went on for some time about his ongoing renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and said it will be completed by 4 July.
We sandblasted the surface, we fumigated it. We took out 11 dumpsters, big dumpsters full of garbage. It was all garbage. Some of the garbage was there for years. It was all disgusting. It smelled … We rinsed it out, and we gave it a beautiful surface and then we put a swimming pool topping, but industrial strength, industrial-strength tanks, lots of other things.
“Everybody’s looking at that reflecting pool,” he added. “We use the dark blue, it’s called American flag blue.”
He still hasn’t signed the bill, by the way. Stay with us.
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And Trump has arrived at the signing.
He begins by crediting the House speaker, Mike Johnson, for “doing a fantastic job” for getting the bill through the House with such a slim majority.
He then goes on a very lengthy tangent about all the amazing swimming pools he’s built in his property career and all the fountains they’re restoring in DC. Hopefully we’ll get to the signing and questions soon.
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Trump says Bill Pulte will ‘execute the immediate downsizing’ of intelligence community in temporary role
As Donald Trump presses on with his contentious plan to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence on 19 June, he has reiterated that he has asked Pulte “to execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office, reverting staff to their home agencies”.
In a post on Truth Social moments ago (despite being due at a bill signing), the president added: “At the same time, I am looking for a permanent ODNI Nominee with experience in National Security.”
He went on: “I am asking Congress to send me a short-term extension of FISA to provide time for the selection and confirmation of a permanent Head of the Agency.”
Democratic lawmakers have said Pulte’s appointment would scuttle a bipartisan agreement to renew section 702 of Fisa (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), which is due to expire on Friday.
“The Radical Left Dumocrats are trying to take our National Security hostage because of unrelated issues,” Trump wrote.
Bill Gates tells House ‘I have never victimized anyone’ in Epstein testimony
In his opening statement to the House oversight committee, which was shared on his website, Bill Gates said:
At the outset, I want to state very clearly: I never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct. I never went to his island, his ranch, or his Florida home. I have never victimized anyone. While he may have sought to foster a personal relationship, I was never interested in that and never reciprocated.
Gates said he was introduced to Epstein in 2011 “through people I trusted in my professional and philanthropic work”, and that he “claimed he could raise billions of dollars for global health”. But by 2014, he found this to be “a dead-end” and told Epstein their association would go no further.
Gates goes on to say that Epstein later tried to use knowledge of his extramarital affairs as leverage “to pressure me to re-engage with him”.
It was after this that I learned Epstein had become aware of sensitive information about my personal life, including the fact that I had been unfaithful in my marriage. These affairs had nothing to do with my interactions with Epstein, but they were painful for my family.
As the public can now see, based on what has been released in the files, Epstein was working to use information about my infidelities – in addition to many lies that he layered on top – to pressure me to re-engage with him. He was unsuccessful in this effort, but it shows some of the ways he tried to leverage his interactions with me to further his agenda.
Gates expressed regret at meeting with Epstein, calling it “a grave error of judgment”.
I recall being aware that Epstein had faced prior legal issues, but I did not fully understand the extent of the crimes he committed. I accepted the introduction without applying the scrutiny I should have.
I should never have met with Epstein in the first place. Based on what I know now, I understand that even if he had delivered the new donors he promised, it would not have justified associating with him.
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As Chris notes, the bill’s passage yesterday was a victory for the House speaker, Mike Johnson, who is managing a historically slim Republican majority, and for Donald Trump, whose bid to create a nearly $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund that would pay out his allies almost derailed the legislation as it made its way through Congress.
Shortly before the act’s passage in the House, GOP lawmakers voted down an attempt by Democrats to insert language that would have blocked the government from issuing payouts to anyone convicted of assaulting a police officer during the January 6 insurrection. And as the bill was being considered by the Senate last week, a small group of Republicans also sought to find bipartisan compromise on an amendment that would bar the so-called “anti-weaponization” fund, without success.
The proposal nonetheless remains an issue for some congressional Republicans, even though the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, told a House committee last week that the proposal was dead in the water. In an interview broadcast on Sunday, the president again refused to rule out its creation.
The spending legislation was also delayed by uproar over a similarly politically toxic attempt to include $1bn for security improvements related to the ballroom Trump is building at the White House. Senate Republicans eventually agreed to remove those funds, after the chamber’s parliamentarian ruled it could not be included if the measure was to pass using the budget reconciliation procedure to circumvent the Democratic filibuster.
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House Republicans’ approval of the bill yesterday, which will fund through the duration of his term the agencies leading Trump’s immigration crackdown, ended a months-long standoff with Democrats that at one point shuttered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Secure America Act passed in a 214-212 vote that was largely along party lines, with Kevin Kiley, an independent who aligns with the Republicans, joining all Democrats in voting no.
The Senate approved the measure last week, which allocates $38bn to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), $26bn to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and $5bn more to the DHS through September 2029. The legislation now awaits Trump’s signature this morning.
The bill ends a blockade of funding for the agencies, which Democrats announced in January after federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis amid an intensive campaign billed as rooting out undocumented immigrants. Their boycott – and fruitless effort to negotiate reforms to federal immigration enforcement operations – halted passage of a measure that authorized spending by the entirety of DHS, forcing it to shut down for 75 days from mid-February.
The department reopened at the end of April after Democrats agreed to support legislation that paid for all of its operations excluding ICE and CBP, while Republicans then moved to approve funding for those agencies through the duration of Trump’s presidency, saying it was necessary to prevent Democrats from shutting down DHS again.
House Democrats unanimously opposed the bill, with Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, saying it would “waste $70 billion in taxpayer money to give a blank check to ICE without any guardrails, any oversight, any accountability”.
Republicans countered by accusing Democrats of trying to “defund the police” and allow undocumented immigrants to enter the country.
Here’s Chris’s report from yesterday:
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Trump to sign $70bn immigration enforcement funding package into law
Donald Trump is due this morning to sign the Secure America Act – the GOP’s $70bn bill that will fund ICE and Border Patrol through 2029 – into law, after the House narrowly passed the bill yesterday.
There is a livestream here if you’d like to follow the signing. Trump often makes remarks and/or takes questions at these events, and I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
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Trump targeting immigrants from countries hit most by climate shocks
Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows.
As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels, millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis.
Of the 39 countries from which the Trump administration has fully or partly restricted entry to the US, 22 are ranked within the most vulnerable quarter of nations in the world to climate impacts, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, which assesses how prone jurisdictions are to the climate crisis.
“Nearly all of the most vulnerable countries are on a ban or visa pause,” said Danielle Wood, an associate professor at Notre Dame. Immigrants from Chad and Niger, the two most climate-vulnerable countries in the world according to the index, are now fully barred from the US, as are people from Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone, also among the 10 countries most exposed to climate impacts.
Here is Oliver’s report:
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has arrived on Capitol Hill for questioning by the House oversight committee over his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I hope my testimony is helpful to the work – important work – of the committee to find justice for the victims,” Gates told reporters as he walked into a hearing room, while avoiding further questions.
Gates, who has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, will sit for a closed-door interview. A transcript will be released in the coming days.
The panel asked Gates to appear after documents released by the justice department included numerous mentions of Gates, as well as several photographs of him, and records showing that he met with Epstein on several occasions after the financier’s conviction in 2008 for sex crimes that involved minors, renewing scrutiny of his past ties to Epstein.
Gates has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and simply appearing in the files does not indicate evidence of wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for Gates told AFP in a statement that the billionaire welcomed the chance to appear before the committee and emphasized he had “never witnessed or participated in Epstein’s illegal conduct”.
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US inflation jumped to 4.2% in May, the third consecutive increase since start of Trump's war against Iran
US inflation jumped to an annual rate of 4.2% in May, the third consecutive monthly increase since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran and a three-year high, as Americans continue to face steep oil prices.
Prices have increased sharply over the past several months, rising at an annual rate of 3.3% in March before going up to 3.8% in April. In February, before the conflict began, inflation was at 2.4%.
Energy prices were once again responsible for the increase in the consumer price index, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accounting for 60% of the overall monthly increases. The national average price for a gallon of gas is $4.15, according to AAA, which is slightly lower than where the price was a month ago but still $1 per gallon more than a year ago. Airline fares also increased 26.7% annually, a squeeze travelers may have already noticed ahead of the busy summer season.
Other essential everyday expenses, such as food, energy services and clothing, also increased. Stripping out volatile energy and food prices, core CPI increased 2.9%.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
More from this report here:
Trump says Iran 'will pay the price' for taking 'too long' to agree peace deal
Donald Trump said Iran has taken “too long” to agree to a deal “that would have been great for them” and will now “have to pay the price”.
In a post on Truth Social early this morning, which came after the US and Iran exchanged fire on Tuesday, Trump wrote:
Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore - They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!
He did not clarify on Truth Social what action he intended to take, but Fox News, citing a phone interview yesterday with the president, reports that Trump said Iran was “dragging its feet” at the negotiating table – and suggested he may be close to ordering the US military to begin targeting Iranian power plants and bridge.
As you will remember, this is not the first time Trump has threatened to bomb Iran’s civilian infrastructure – which could constitute a war crime under international law.
The future of peace talks have been thrown into question after the two sides traded fire overnight. The US launched strikes against Iran in the early hours of Wednesday morning in retaliation for what it said was Iran’s downing of a US army helicopter near the strait of Hormuz. Iran then launched a wave of retaliatory airstrikes claiming hits on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.
Trump has previously insisted that a deal could be reached.
My colleague Tom Ambrose is covering all the latest developments here:
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Exclusive: Anti-Trump Republicans back Democrat in hopes of ousting Maga congressman in Pennsylvania
A key group of anti-Trump Republicans has endorsed the Democratic nominee in a pivotal House race in Pennsylvania, according to details first provided to the Guardian.
Republicans Against Perry (Rap) revived their effort to oust hardline congressman Scott Perry last year. Now, the group is formally supporting Democrat Janelle Stelson in Pennsylvania’s 10th District, which includes Harrisburg.
Rap is backed by WelcomePac, which focuses its support for Democratic candidates across the country. The group is also launching a new ad which focuses on Perry’s support for restarting the infamous nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island.
Craig Snyder, Rap’s executive director, said the new campaign aims to show Perry “kowtowing to Washington and the handful of the super rich by supporting a billion taxpayer dollars to restart the reactor … known the world over as the site of the first major nuclear accident ever in the free world”.
Stelson’s race to unseat Perry is a rematch. The former local news anchor previously challenged the incumbent in 2024 and lost by just one percentage point.
Perry, the four-term representative, is a member, and former chair, of the House’s ultra-conservative Freedom caucus. Following Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020, he maintained that the election was stolen, and in the lead-up to the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, Perry introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, a fellow election denier who was then a justice department official.
Snyder is hoping the small margin Stelson fell short by in the last cycle will be easy to overcome in the November midterms. “This year, with Governor Josh Shapiro at the top of the ticket, and many more Republicans having second thoughts about the real impacts of Maga policies in our lives, Perry is going to be retired by the people of Central Pennsylvania,” he told the Guardian.
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European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked.
The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said.
It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves office, they were increasingly ready in the meantime to protect themselves against US unreliability by bolstering Europe’s defence.
The US president’s Middle East aggression, threats against Greenland, vows to withdraw troops from European bases and scepticism on the future of Nato had also prompted a growing European pragmatism, the report said.
“Across the continent, there’s clear support for reducing dependence on Washington,” said Jana Kobzová, a co-author and ECFR senior policy fellow. “Europeans are increasingly open to higher defence spending and, crucially, show a striking degree of confidence that neighbouring countries would come to their aid in a crisis.”
Trump presses on with plan to install Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief
Donald Trump is pushing ahead with his controversial plan to install political loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, a move that has sparked bipartisan congressional backlash and imperiled the reauthorization of a powerful surveillance law set to expire at the end of this week.
Trump’s Tuesday evening announcement came after he met earlier in the day with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to discuss Pulte’s elevation to the role, which has prompted widespread concern over his complete lack of national security experience and the prospect that he could use the office’s spying powers to continue his campaign of targeting Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Writing on social media, Trump said Pulte was already working with the outgoing director, Tulsi Gabbard, and will take her place on 19 June, while remaining head of the federal mortgage agency.
Gabbard, a former congresswoman who served in the military and then on a House subcommittee with oversight of military intelligence, had announced in her resignation letter that she would step down on 30 June.
Trump offered no explanation for Pulte taking over before that date, but the president has suggested in public comments that he expects his political ally to investigate elections that he has falsely claimed were “rigged” once he is installed as the country’s top intelligence officer.
Bill Gates to face questions from House committee over links to Jeffrey Epstein
Bill Gates is set to testify in front of the House committee on oversight and reform on Wednesday as part of the panel’s investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Microsoft co-founder will appear in a closed-door session, where lawmakers are expected to question him about his past relationship with Epstein. A transcript of the interview is expected to be released at a later date.
In a statement to the Guardian before his appearance, a spokesperson for Gates said that Gates “welcomes the opportunity to appear before the committee” and said that “while he never witnessed or participated in any of Epstein’s illegal conduct, he is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work”.
The committee, chaired by James Comer, requested Gates’s appearance in March, following the justice department’s release of millions of documents related to Epstein earlier this year. The files included numerous mentions of Gates, as well as several photographs of him, and records showing that he met with Epstein on several occasions, renewing scrutiny of Gates’s past ties to the disgraced financier.
Progressives rallied round the controversial Graham Platner after his primary victory in Maine on Tuesday, while Donald Trump again exerted his grip on the Republican party, helping to defeat a politician who had pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Primary elections were held in four states – Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina – ahead of November’s midterms to decide control of both houses of Congress. The results offered mixed signals about the direction of the two major parties.
The marquee race was a Senate primary election in Maine, where Platner won 72% of the vote, defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who had suspended her campaign but remained on the ballot, and third-placed David Costello, based on early results reported by Reuters.
The result sets up a bruising general election battle against the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins. Maine is among a handful of states where Democratic strategists believe a Republican-held seat is genuinely vulnerable.
Platner, 41, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer from the small coastal town of Sullivan, had in effect wrapped up the nomination weeks ago when Mills suspended her campaign after concluding there was little prospect of catching him.
Controversial Platner overcomes allegations to seal Democratic nomination for Senate race
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Graham Platner won the Maine Democratic primary for Senate and called for supporters to “believe people can change” amid his controversial candidacy.
The Marine veteran won 72% of the vote, defeating the state governor, Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April but remained on the ballot, and third-placed David Costello, based on early results reported by Reuters.
Reports emerged that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women while married. Former partners described him as volatile and unfaithful.
One ex-girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, a Republican operative, alleged in the New York Times that more than a decade ago he had twisted her arm behind her back during an argument and held her in a room against her will – claims that Platner categorically denied.
“If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and our country then you must also believe that people can change,” Platner, 41, told supporters in Blue Hill. “And the reason I believe is that is because I have lived it. And the reason I have lived it is because of my wife.”
In a nod to his troubled past, Platner said:
Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination; it’s a journey. I’ve made mistakes in my life, mistakes I regret, that I live with, that I continue to learn from. I’m still far from perfect. But every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little kinder than I was the day before. And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator.
Platner also earned supportive hollers and whoops from the crowd when he took a swipe at his critics outside Maine.
“Now, the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by. But in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all. This is a movement about us.”
Platner will face the senator Susan Collins, a Republican running for a sixth six-year term, in November. The race is seen as a must-win for Democrats to take control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority.
Read the full story:
In other developments:
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House Republicans narrowly passed a reconciliation bill on Tuesday, by two votes, to provide another $70bn in funding over the next three years to the Department of Homeland Security, ensuring that agencies carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda remain funded until the end of his presidency.
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At nearly the same moment, the US struck Iran again, in retaliation for the downing of a US helicopter near the strait of Hormuz.
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JD Vance, the US vice-president, said that a deal with Iran to end the war launched by the US and Israel 102 days ago, “could happen in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from now.”
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Lesley Groff, longtime executive assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, the late child sex offender Trump socialized with for nearly two decades, testified before the House oversight and reform committee.
