Republican congressman Tom Kean Jr, who has not been seen in the Capitol for nearly four months without explanation, has reemerged and said that he was absent while dealing with depression.
“Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing. I did not believe that this would result in a long-term stay. I was given the diagnosis of depression,” Kean said in a speech on the floor of the House Tuesday morning.
Kean, who represents a swing district in New Jersey, last voted on 5 March before disappearing, and his office said little about where he had gone or when he would be back. The congressman did not explain why he had kept his mental health struggles to himself, but indicated that treatment for depression took longer than expected.
“The doctors recommended that I remain in the hospital to address my illness. They explained to me that this would be the fastest way to recover, and to be honest, I was hesitant. I didn’t think that I had time for it,” Kean said, adding that he did not believe he would need a “long-term stay” in the hospital.
“When I first informed the public that I was dealing with a medical issue, I was still trying to understand what was happening myself. When I said I hope to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it. Those were the best estimates the doctors could provide, but as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing.”
Kean said that he was “grateful that I accepted help, because today I stand before you healthier, stronger, and excited to return to the work that I love.”
Kean’s mysterious absence fueled media speculation about where he might be, and what might have been keeping him away from the Capitol, where his absence complicated the GOP’s ability to control of the House of Representatives. Last week, a New York Times reporter found Kean at his New Jersey home, but the congressman declined comment.
In 2023, Democratic senator John Fetterman sought inpatient treatment for depression, but in that case, his office promptly announced his hospitalization.
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The day so far
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In a rebuke to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, the supreme court upheld birthright citizenship, which provides nearly all people born in the United States with citizenship. In a 6-3 opinion, the justices ruled that the Trump administration violated a provision of the 14th amendment, which was affirmed by the supreme court 128 years ago. “Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” the ruling reads. The NAACP, a civil rights group dedicated to advancing the rights of Black people, called the decision a “powerful affirmation of the constitution and the enduring promise of equality it represents”. Voto Latino, a non-profit pushing for Latino voting power, said that “the court drew a permanent line in the sand – defeating a radical attempt to divide our families and strip away any doubt that our community belongs here”.
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The president said the decision was “too bad”, but appeared undeterred in his quest to end birthright citizenship, turning his attention to Congress. Instead of trying to pass a constitutional amendment, Trump is pushing for lawmakers to create new legislation that establishes exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to parents who do not have permanent legal status in the US. “Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” he wrote on Truth Social. But that will also be an uphill battle, as any legislation would need to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.
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The supreme court also ruled that schools can determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex, effectively upholding a ban on transgender women and girls from taking part in female sports teams. The ruling centered on the case of Lindsay Hecox, a college student in Idaho, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school student from West Virginia. The court said that West Virginia and Idaho did not violate Title IX – which bars educational programs that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex. But the court’s three liberal justices said in a dissenting opinion that the bans do impede on the constitution’s equal protection clause. The far-reaching ruling is likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US.
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Also today, the supreme court justices struck down limits on campaign spending in federal elections by political parties. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the court held that the law’s “limits on political parties” coordinated expenditures violate the first amendment.
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The supreme court also declined to consider the legality of laws that restrict people aged 18 to 20 from purchasing or using firearms, but said it will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the second amendment.
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Supreme court will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles violate the second amendment
But the supreme court will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the second amendment.
The justices said that they will hear appeals challenging bans on the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic firearms in Connecticut and the Chicago area.
Similar laws are in place in about a dozen states, covering major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, but Democrats have supported renewing it in response to a series of mass shootings. States have also continued to pass their own laws, including recent measures in Virginia and Rhode Island.
It is the latest high-profile dispute over guns to reach the court since its conservative majority handed down a landmark ruling in 2022 that expanded second amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country.
Arguments are expected to be heard in the fall.
The Connecticut law was passed after a mass shooter used an AR-15 to kill 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.
Supreme court turns away cases testing firearm age restrictions
Also today, the supreme court declined to consider the legality of laws that restrict people aged 18 to 20 from purchasing or using firearms, an area of contention following the court’s expansion of gun rights in recent years.
The justices turned away appeals challenging a federal ban on handgun purchases by people ages 18 to 20, as well as a similar state law in Florida imposing the same age requirement on all firearms purchases. Lower courts had rejected the arguments by plaintiffs in those cases that those laws violate the US Constitution’s second amendment right to “keep and bear arms”.
The supreme court’s rejection of Pennsylvania’s appeal in another case, however, left in place a lower court’s ruling that the state’s laws that ban people ages 18 to 20 from carrying firearms in public during a declared state of emergency violate the second amendment.
It comes after a ruling on 26 June in which the court struck down a Hawaii law restricting the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public, like most businesses, without the owner’s permission. And on 18 June it limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, narrowing a measure that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who use marijuana and own firearms.
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In today’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “the Court exhaustively canvassed the text and history of the Citizenship Clause and at no point identified any evidence that the ratifiers thought themselves to be imposing a domicile limitation”.
Roberts repeatedly bats down the idea that “domicile” was much more expansive an idea, and that primary allegiance to the US was commonly seen as part of that definition, both arguments the government tried to make in its case. He writes that “there is scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view”.
The quest to overturn birthright citizenship has gained steam among some conservatives in recent years, though most legal scholars still believe the amendment has been interpreted correctly. The administration is relying in part on the legal arguments of a white supremacists from the late 1800s, the Washington Post reported. John Eastman, a lawyer who worked with Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results who has since been disbarred in California, is also a key proponent of the effort to overturn birthright citizenship, Politico reported.
Trump says he will try to end birthright citizenship through Congress after supreme court strikes down executive order
Donald Trump said that the decision by the supreme court to uphold birthright citizenship is “too bad”. But he appeared undeterred in his quest to abolish the right for people born in the US to undocumented people or temporary visitors to become citizens.
“We can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation,” Trump insisted. Instead of trying to pass a consitutional amendment – which is a steep and unlikely hill for the president to climb – Trump is pushing for lawmakers to create new legislation that establish exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to parents who do not have permanent legal status in the US.
“Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Any legislation would need to overcome the 60-vote filibuster, which has proven to be frequently insurmountable on extremely divisive bills during Trump’s second term.
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Donald Trump has yet to weigh in on the supreme court decision overturning his executive order gutting birthright citizenship. However, he has now declared on Truth Social that court’s opinion to end limits on campaign spending by political parties in federal elections a “big win” for “FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!”
Top Trump adviser brands birthright citizenship ruling 'one of the most destructive' supreme court decisions in history
Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s top advisers and the architect of his immigration agenda, branded the opinion to uphold birthright citizenship as “one of the most destructive and outrageous decisions” in the history of the supreme court.
“American citizenship is not the birthright of the world,” Miller added in a statement on X. “No provision of the Constitution can be read to require our national self-obliteration.”
Meanwhile, Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, called today’s ruling “a tremendous betrayal of the republic”.
Roberts, who masterminded the conservative playbook Project 2025, accused the justices in the majority of launching an “all-out assault” on US sovereignty. He also said they have “cheapened the sacred value of American citizenship”.
He then called for a constitutional amendment “to correct this gross injustice”. However, it’s worth noting that this requires the support of two-thirds of Congress, and for at least three-quarters of all 50 states to ratify a hypothetical amendment.
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Johnson calls supreme court ruling upholding birthright citizenship 'disappointing'
Speaking to reporters as the news of the supreme court’s final decisions of this term were announced, House speaker Mike Johnson said he was “disappointed” in the court’s opinion to uphold birthright citizenship.
“I do think that this has been grossly abused in recent years,” the top Republican said at a press conference earlier. “You just come onto the soil and have your child, and then they’re they’re able to avail themselves of the welfare state and everything else.”
However, during the oral arguments in the Trump v Barbara case in April, the government’s lawyer conceded that “no one knows for sure” how significant a problem so-called birth tourism actually is. The Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration thinktank, said that there are between 20,000 to 26,000 births by women on tourist visas annually. This is less than one percent of all babies born in the US each year.
Civil rights groups and Democrats welcome supreme court decision upholding birthright citizenship
Following the court’s opinion to strike down Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, swathes of civil rights groups have welcomed the highly anticipated ruling.
“Even a far-right supreme court realized overturning the constitutional mandate that people born here are citizens-a mandate that is more than 100 years old and has granted citizenship to millions of people-is not just a betrayal of the constitution itself but also deeply un-American,” said Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, in a statement.
The NAACP said the president’s “assault on the 14th amendement was dealt a major blow” following the court’s ruling.
“Today, the Court rightly rejected efforts to undermine that core protection and instead upheld a principle that is essential to our democracy,” Derrick Johnson, the organization’s president and CEO said.
Democratic members of Congress also applauded the news.
“There is, and shall be, no question. Donald Trump’s disgraceful actions as it relates to the Birthright Citizenship Clause are clearly unlawful and an assault on our way of life,” said top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.
Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat representing California, said that today’s opinion was “personal”. The lawmaker’s parents were initially undocumented when they arrived in the US, before becoming citizens.
“While we celebrate this ruling today, we cannot rest. Because this is certainly not the end of Trump’s attacks on our constitution, our democracy, and the notion of what it means to be American,” Padilla added.
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While we wait for the president’s reaction to today’s decision from the court that rules against his birthright citizenship executive order, he has weighed in on the justices’ decision to uphold the ban on trans athletes competing in female sports teams.
“BIG WIN: The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Supreme court rules against Trump's efforts to end birthright citizenship
In a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, the US supreme court ruled against the president’s attempt to gut the ability for anyone born on American soil to obtain citizenship.
The president issued an executive order on the first day of his second term in office that sought to undo birthright citizenship. It swiftly drew lawsuits, including from the Democratic state attorneys general and the American Civil Liberties Union, and the court heard oral arguments in the case – Trump v Barbara – back in April.
In a 6-3 opinion, the justices ruled that the Trump administration violated a provision of the 14th amendment, which was affirmed by the supreme court 128 years ago. While conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the judgment, he dissented in parts.
The Trump administration said that children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign visitors were ineligible for citizenship, arguing that the landmark decision on birthright citizenship – United States v Wong Kim Ark – relied on parents having permanent “domicile” in the US. However, the term is not included in the 14th amendment.
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Supreme court ends limits on campaign spending by political parties in federal elections
Also at the court today, the justices struck down limits on campaign spending in federal elections by political parties. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the court held that the law’s “limits on political parties” coordinated expenditures violate the first amendment.
Supreme court allows states to ban transgender athletes in female sports teams
The supreme court has ruled that schools can determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex. As a result the justices effectively upheld a ban on transgender women and girls from taking part in female sports teams.
The ruling centered on the case of Lindsay Hecox, a college student in Idaho, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school student from West Virginia.
The court said that West Virginia and Idaho did not violate Title IX – which bars educational programs that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex. But the three liberal justices on the bench – Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said in a dissenting opinion that the bans do impede on the constitution’s equal protection clause.
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On Monday, the supreme court sided against national Republicans and Donald Trump’s administration to allow mail-in ballots that arrive after election day to be counted, upholding the law in more than a dozen states. In response, the president used the 5-4 opinion to insist that lawmakers in Congress pass the sweeping voter ID bill, known as the SAVE America act. One of Trump’s legislative priorities.
One of the bill’s requirements would mean that voters have to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and would scrap mail-in voting. This, despite Trump having voted by mail in the past.
The president lambasted Republican senators who have stalled the legislation in recent months.
“There is only one reason to oppose – CHEATING! The House of Representatives has approved this vital Act, THREE TIMES. The United States Senate seems unable to do so. In a time when there is a powerful Communist Movement taking place in our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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The supreme court’s decision to reject Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook yesterday is part of a long-running battle over the independence of the central bank.
Trump repeatedly attacked former chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates fast enough, calling him a “moron” on social media. Powell’s term ended in May this year, and he was succeeded by Trump nominee Kevin Warsh.
Powell said last month that political interference in the central bank would destroy the Fed’s credibility. “The public would lose faith that the central bank will make decisions based only on what’s best for all Americans,” he said.
On Monday, Trump insisted that the case was “sent back” by the supreme court on a “strictly procedural basis”. The president said that the administration would tak “appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”
However, the court said in a 5-4 opinion that Cook can stay on as a governor while she fights unproved allegations of mortgage fraud made by the Trump officials. This was a move that ultimately protects the central bank, compared to its opinion that expands presidential power and allows the president to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.
Supreme court to issue opinions in final cases of term
As we noted earlier, all eyes will be back on the supreme court today, when justices will issue their latest and final decisions of this term at 10am ET.
One of the most pivotal cases we’ll be watching is Trump v Barbara – a challenge to the president’s attempt to gut birthright citizenship. But there are two other decisions we’re waiting for. These include bans in two states prohibiting trans girls and women from taking part in female sports.
We’ll also be looking out for the justices’ opinion on whether to uphold a lower court ruling that limits spending by political parties in support of their candidates.
Donald Trump doesn’t have any public events today. He’ll spend the morning in executive time and policy meetings. The president will later speak at a Rose Club garden dinner at 7pm ET, but right now that is not open to the press.
We’ll keep you updated if anything changes.
FBI director Kash Patel has attracted criticism for sharing the details on social media of five arrests in an investigation carried out in conjunction with the Secret Service.
Patel may have flouted legal constraints and the FBI’s disciplinary code in prematurely divulging the arrests in an alleged plot to attack this month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, bureau veterans have alleged.
It subsequently emerged the inquiry was sealed by a court order, theoretically constraining Patel from publicly disclosing it.
For a primer on birthright citizenship and why the stakes of the supreme court’s decision today on the issue are so high, here’s my colleague Maanvi Singhi’s reporting:
A ruling in favor of the Trump administration would cataclysmically redefine what it means to be an American.
In practical terms, it would mean that an estimated 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would be stripped of their citizenship. Some would be stateless. Legal experts warn that this outcome could pave the way for casting off citizenship from millions of people who already have it.
After a series of blockbuster rulings, the supreme court is set to make a decision today on another major legal battle which could have national ramifications, this time on LGBTQ+ rights.
Guardian reporter Sam Levin did a deep-dive back in January on the cases the supreme court is considering on the participation of trans girls in school sports, and the potential consequences of the court’s decision. Here’s what he’s had to say:
The court is hearing oral arguments in two cases brought by trans students who challenged Republican-backed laws in West Virginia and Idaho prohibiting trans girls from participating in girls’ athletic programs.
Those bans were both previously blocked by federal courts, but the states appealed to the supreme court, which is hearing a case on trans people’s access to sports for the first time. If the court’s conservative supermajority sides with the states and upholds the bans, the rulings could have significant ripple effects, paving the way for the enforcement of a range of anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
If the rulings are broad, civil rights advocates warn, the supreme court could make it easier for lawmakers and school officials to ban trans students’ access to appropriate bathrooms and facilities, restrict LGBTQ+ youth’s ability to use chosen names and pronouns, enforce strict dress codes, limit protections against anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, and further deny access to accurate identification documents.
“It’s really scary. The supreme court is poised to tell us whether dislike and moral disapproval of a specific group can be a real basis to make law,” said Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group.
A top United States government official has been celebrating Iran’s departure from the World Cup.
Iran came close to making the final 32 teams, but were narrowly eliminated after drawing all three games in the group stages.
The US department of homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, said during a World Cup security briefing: “I’m just glad they’re done, and they’re not coming back. I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave the US soil.”
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A woman known as Jane Doe 4 in the Jeffrey Epstein files is “staying off the grid” and lives in fear of retaliation from the Trump administration amid an escalating controversy over its handling of her case, according to a family member.
“Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys,” said the relative, who described the woman’s life as layers of abuse dating back to early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”
The woman had four interviews with FBI agents in 2019 that keep resurfacing in the Epstein sex-trafficking scandal.
Supreme court due to rule on birthright citizenship, one of Trump's core policies
Today, the US supreme court is due to rule on one of Trump’s core policies: the right of almost anyone born on US soil to have citizenship. The right is enshrined in the 14th amendment to the US constitution. The amendment was passed after the US civil war to determine the citizenship of American-born people who had been enslaved.
Signing a presidential executive order on the first day of his second term in office, Trump is attempting to withhold citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary US visitors. His administration has argued that birthright citizenship stems from a misunderstanding of the 14th amendment.
But Trump’s executive order was immediately met with legal challenges, with several federal judges ruling that the order violated the constitution, and federal circuit courts of appeals upholding injunctions to block the order from going into effect.
Trump has been vocal in his disdain for the policy of birthright citizenship. On social media earlier this year, he incorrectly said, “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!”
There are around 30 countries that grant citizenship to those born within their borders, according to the Pew Research Center.
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'Disastrous': anger at supreme court ruling expanding presidential powers
Hello, and welcome to the US politics live blog.
In a significant victory for the president on Monday, the court granted him the ability to fire leaders of some independent US agencies at will, in a move one advocacy group called “disastrous.”
The decision to expand presidential powers overturns a precedent set in 1935, rowing back a guardrail put in place to protect agencies against corruption and political interference.
“Our authoritarian president was just handed the keys to be even more authoritarian, and the long-term consequences will no doubt be disastrous,” said Rachel Rossi, the president of Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy group.
Supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor has blasted the decision, calling the ruling “egregiously wrong,” and “the one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow.”
During his second presidential term, Trump has successfully fired the leaders of several agencies, including Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the National Labour Relations Board.
Trump failed in his bid however to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, with the court ruling in a 5-4 opinion that Trump’s attempt to fire her from the Fed was unconstitutional. Trump has targeted Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board, over unproved allegations of mortgage fraud.
The court also rejected Trump’s attempt to change rules for late-arriving mail-in ballots. Trump has claimed that such ballots are vulnerable to fraud. The states that currently count postal ballots which arrive late mostly lean towards the Democrats.
On Tuesday, the supreme court is poised to make a decision on another of Trump’s key policies: his push to remove birthright citizenship, which grants US citizenship to almost anyone born in the country, regardless of their parents’ status. On the first day of his second term in office, Trump issued a presidential order overturning the practice set out in the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.
The court is also set to publish rulings on a Republican challenge to campaign finance limits and state restrictions on transgender athletes competing in school and college sports.
In other developments:
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The supreme court rejected Trump’s request to review a 2023 verdict from a New York jury that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E Jean Carroll.
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Trump announced that he is nominating Keith Sonderling to serve as US secretary of labor, a role he is now filling as acting secretary after Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s announced her departure in April. As acting secretary, Sonderling threatened to withhold administrative funds from states for the first time in history, warning that there will be no tolerance for “blatant waste, fraud, and abuse”.
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The US military is racing to vaccinate new recruits after a two-month halt on mandatory flu shots – but it’s a temporary reprieve, as the shots will soon expire and new doses will not be available for months.
