Summary
Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
Donald Trump delivered a more than 90-minute, rambling, campaign-style address broadly focused on “affordability” to a rally of supporters in Pennsylvania today. The speech marked the first of several the president is expected to deliver in a slate of domestic appearances he said his chief of staff Susie Wiles encouraged him to give ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Two American fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela the same day that Trump administration officials briefed the “gang of eight” on ongoing military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries called the briefing “very unsatisfying” and called for the “full video” of the “double tap” strike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat be released.
Miami elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years. County commissioner Eileen Higgins defeated investment manager Emilio Gonzales, who was endorsed by Donald Trump. Higgins’ victory in the Latino majority city comes as Latino and Hispanic voters increasingly disapprove of Trump.
More than 200 former employees in the justice department’s civil rights division signed a letter released on Tuesday decrying the “near destruction” of the agency that is supposed to enforce America’s civil rights laws. They accused political leadership of waging a campaign to purge career experts from its ranks.
A federal judge in New York has granted the justice department’s request to unseal grand jury documents in the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell – the companion and accomplice of the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. It comes after the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed last month.
Bill Cassidy, the Republican who chairs the Senate health committee, pushed back against the recent decision from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to limit the hepatitis B vaccine. “We should be informed by medical science and empiricism, not by personal prejudice. And right now with ACIP, I see far more being informed by a personal prejudice,” he said.
In an interview with Politico published on Tuesday morning, Trump said defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, should testify under oath before Congress about a “double tap” strike on an alleged drug-ferrying boat “if he wants”. He added: “I don’t care. I would say do it if you want, Pete.”
Updated
California governor Gavin Newsom will publish a memoir in February 2026.
Newsom announced the release of his book, “Young Man in a Hurry”, in a video on social media today.
“Nobody’s story is tidy, and I’m no different,” Newsom said. “A lot of people look at me in the stark white shirt, the blue suit and yeah, the gelled hair, and they think, ‘Oh I know this guy. I know him better than I’d ever want to know him.’ I get it.”
“It’s definitely not the book that you’d expect me to write,” he said.
Miami has elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years.
County commissioner Eileen Higgins defeated investment manager Emilio Gonzales, who was endorsed by Donald Trump.
Higgins’ victory in the Latino majority city comes as Latino and Hispanic voters increasingly disapprove of Trump.
Read the Guardian’s full story:
Updated
Trump has concluded a more than 90-minute speech in Pennsylvania, saying “we’re bringing prosperity and pride surging back to this magnificent commonwealth”.
Updated
Trump says the same missile system pointed at boats in the Caribbean is pointed at Somalia.
“Remember every boat that gets hit, we don’t want to do that, but every boat that gets hit we save 25,000 American lives,” he said. “But we have that same system aimed at Somalia. And if they want to go and raid our ships,” he said, the US would use it.
Updated
Speaking about immigration, Trump has referenced “remigration”, a term coined by European white nationalists who’ve called for “reverse migration” of immigrants.
“For the first time in 50 years, we now have reverse migration,” Trump said.
He’s also returned to a talking point about “shithole countries” that he repeated during his first term.
Updated
As he was wont to do throughout his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump has strayed from the topic of affordability as he wanders through a series of tangents on immigration in Europe, the conflict between Congo and Rwanda, climate change and the number of pencils students need.
“I haven’t read practically anything off the stupid teleprompter,” he said. “And then my speechwriters, they’re getting awards for some of the finest speeches and I haven’t even read them.”
Updated
Trump falsely claims '100% of new jobs' in US went to 'migrants'
Trump has falsely claimed that before he took office, “100% of new jobs” in the US went to “migrants” and “people that came into the country illegally”.
This was an untrue claim he repeated often on the campaign trail last year. The number of foreign-born workers increased at a faster rate than US-born workers under the previous administration, according to a CNN fact check, but the claim that all new jobs went to immigrants, whether documented or not, is baseless.
Updated
Trump appears to be throwing his support behind senator Bill Cassidy’s proposal on healthcare affordability as the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire.
Cassidy has co-authored a bill with Senate finance chair Mike Crapo that will deposit payments into health savings accounts, rather than extending the subsidies, as Democrats have proposed.
“Under Obamacare, trillions of dollars were given directly to insurance companies,” Trump said. “Obamacare’s primary purpose was to pay off insurance companies.”
“I want to give billions of dollars directly to the people,” he added. “I want to give all of the money we give to the big, fat, rich insurance companies” that are “sucking our country dry ... directly to the people”.
Neither the Democratic nor the Cassidy-Crapo bill, which the Senate will vote on Thursday, are expected to meet the 60-vote threshold to advance.
Updated
Donald Trump has brought a chart to this rally, not unlike previous charts he has displayed at campaign rallies, showing alleged price increases and decreases under his and his predecessor’s presidencies.
The first chart showed prices, while a second displayed mortgage rates, and a third showed real wages.
“What the hell is that all about?” Trump said, while reading one of the charts.
Updated
Key event
Trump has once again made false claims about Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota representative, prompting his crowd to chant: “Send her back!”
The president falsely claimed that Omar is in the US “illegally”, launching a racist attack against Somalis. Omar fled civil war as a young child, came to the US as a refugee and became a US citizen in 2000. Trump also repeated the claim that Omar “married her brother” to get into the US. There is no evidence to support the claim, which critics of the Democrat have long cited. She has long called the claim “absolutely false and ridiculous”.
Updated
Trump said that national guard member Andrew Wolfe, who was shot in Washington DC in late November, is recovering.
“Today I got a call that he got up from bed,” Trump said, adding that “he didn’t speak” yet.
Updated
Donald Trump appeared to be about to start denouncing the Democratic Texas representative Jasmine Crockett, who has announced she will run for Senate, when he began a tangent on crime being “way down”.
On his Air Force One flight to Pennsylvania, Trump called Crockett “low IQ” and told White House pool reporters she would be a “gift to Republicans”.
Updated
Trump has wandered through a series of tangents – on Joe Biden’s autopen, immigration, his strategy of polling his audience on nicknames for his political rivals, transgender Americans and Somalia.
Updated
Trump says the Democrats have a “new word” – affordability.
“They have a new word, you know, they always have a hoax, the new word is ‘affordability,’” he said.
He’s wandered onto another tangent, but is likely to return to the theme of his address.
Updated
Fact checking Trump's speech: prices are not way down
The president has, once again, claimed that “prices are way down”.
Prices have increased during Trump’s second term. The consumer price index shows that average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, as CNN outlined in a recent fact check. There was a 0.3% increase in consumer prices in September, largely due to a 4.1% surge in gasoline prices. Overall prices were 3% higher in September of this year compared to September 2024.
Trump said his slate of upcoming domestic travel was recommended by Susie Wiles, whom he called “Susie Trump”, his chief of staff.
“We have to win the midterms and you’re the guy that’s going to take us home to the midterms,” he said Wiles told him.
Updated
Donald Trump has shouted out his energy secretary, Chris Wright, whom he has called “the most talented oil guy”.
“We’re drilling more oil than we’ve ever done ever before,” he said.
Saying gas prices are falling as a result, Trump said: “I have no higher priority than making America affordable again.”
Updated
Fact-checking Trump's affordability speech: 'largest investment ever made'
Trump started his affordability speech by claiming: “We have the largest investment ever made in the history of any country.”
The president has repeatedly exaggerated investments in the US or made false and unsubstantiated claims about the subject. He has repeatedly said in recent days that the US has secured at least $18tn worth of investments this year, but PolitiFact, the fact-checking news site, found this was untrue. The White House’s own webpage on investments lists $9.6tn in “total US and foreign investments”. In speeches, the president has regularly cited significantly higher investment figures than his own White House is reporting.
FactCheck.org, another news site, also found that he has exaggerated claims of investments by misstating commitments from other countries, like Japan.
Updated
Donald Trump says his international travel has been focused on bringing investments back to the US.
Describing criticism that he has not traveled much domestically, Trump said: “‘He shouldn’t be traveling, he should be focused on home.’ What the hell do you think I’m doing?” The president’s appearance in Pennsylvania is his first domestic appearance in an upcoming slate of domestic travel.
Updated
Trump is also celebrating his work to levy sweeping tariffs, an economic policy that’s received criticism from across the political spectrum.
“My favorite word is ‘tariff’,” Trump said. “But then I got a lot of heat about it from the fake news.” He directed the crowd to the reporters in the room, which they booed.
“Tariffs are bringing us hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. Later, he said tariffs were actually bringing the US trillions of dollars.
Updated
Donald Trump has begun his remarks on affordability with Pennsylvania’s economy, particularly investments in the energy industry.
“Since my inauguration, we’ve created nearly 60,000 new Pennsylvania jobs, including 4,000 Pennsylvania manufacturing jobs,” Trump said. He also touted 40,000 Pennsylvanians lifted off of food stamps.
“We’ve secured commitments for nearly $100bn in investments in Pennsylvania,” he said, noting Republican senator David McCormick’s involvement in the plans.
Updated
Donald Trump has arrived in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, for his address on “affordability” an hour after he was scheduled to begin delivering remarks.
We’ll bring you the latest as he addresses a crowd in the conference center ballroom at the Mount Airy Casino Resort.
Updated
Chuck Schumer called the Trump administration’s briefing of the “gang of eight” on military strikes in the Caribbean today “very unsatisfying”.
The Senate minority leader told reporters: “I asked Secretary Hegseth, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, would he let every member of Congress see the unedited videos of the September 2nd strike? His answer: ‘We have to study it.’ Well, in my view, they’ve studied it long enough. Congress ought to be able to see it.”
Earlier today, Reuters reported that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine were expected to brief the “gang of eight” lawmakers, which includes intelligence committee and Senate and House leaders from both parties traditionally briefed on major national security actions.
Updated
American warplanes pass near Venezuela
Two American fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela today, the Associated Press reports.
Two US Navy F/A-18 fighter jets flew over the body of water for more than 30 minutes, according to public flight-tracking websites. An anonymous US defense official confirmed the “routine training flight” to the AP.
The exercise today appears to be the closest warplanes have come to Venezuelan airspace since the Trump administration launched its escalating attacks on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean.
Updated
Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania is off to a late start after the president departed Washington behind schedule after attending the vice-president’s Christmas party.
In Mount Pocono, rally attendees are awaiting the president’s rally as songs typical of the president’s past campaign appearances, including Don’t Stop Believing and Hotel California play over the loudspeaker.
Updated
Donald Trump is expected to deliver remarks on “affordability” at a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, shortly.
The treasury secretary Scott Bessent has begun speaking before the president’s arrival, from a podium flanked by two signs reading “lower prices” and “bigger paychecks”.
Bessent’s remarks have denounced Joe Biden’s policies, which he called the “three I’s: immigration, interest rates and inflation”, echoing Trump’s recent statements that he inherited an economic crisis from his predecessor.
Updated
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the justice department today for the release of a secret memo detailing the Trump administration’s justifications for striking boats in the Caribbean.
The lawsuit, filed under the Freedom of Information Act, calls for the release of “a legal opinion authored by the Office of Legal Counsel”. It notes that the legal organizations filed a Foia with the federal government asking for those documents on 15 October. “
“Because the public deserves to know how the Trump administration has justified the outright murder of civilians as lawful, and the grounds on which it purports to provide immunity from prosecution for personnel who carried out these crimes, Plaintiffs now ask the Court for an injunction requiring Defendants to process their FOIA request and immediately release responsive records,” the filing reads.
Updated
Pope Leo XIV voiced concerns about the future of the United States’s alliance with Europe following a meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The first pope born in the United States, Leo told reporters that the peace plan proposed by the United States marks “a huge change in what was for many, many years a true alliance between Europe and the United States”.
In an interview with Politico earlier today, Donald Trump dismissed EU leaders as “weak” and labelled Europe as a “decaying group of nations”.
Updated
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent spoke with Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko about Russian oil sanctions, Bessent said in a social media post today.
“I highlighted President Trump’s commitment to securing a lasting peace in Ukraine and discussed Treasury’s sanctions on Russia’s top oil giants, Lukoil and Rosneft,” Bessent said.
He added that the pair also discussed “Ukraine’s reform and anti-corruption agenda”, which made headlines in recent weeks after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff resigned following corruption allegations.
Updated
House speaker Mike Johnson announced an effort to rally the leaders of legislatures around the world to nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize in 2026, in collaboration with Amir Ohana, the speaker of the Israeli Knesset.
Johnson and Ohana had previously announced the effort in October, and signed a letter launching it today. Both credited Trump for his work to release the remaining 7 October hostages.
“While the world has aspired to peace in the Middle East for generations, President Trump has now created that path and forced the release of the last of the living hostages who endured two long years in Hamas captivity,” Johnson said in a statement.
Updated
Representative Marc Veasey, a Democrat from Texas, will not seek re-election after the supreme court approved the state’s plan to redraw its congressional map.
Veasey, who has served seven terms in Congress, says he’ll run for a local judgeship in Fort Worth instead.
“Let me be clear: I’m not stepping back from the fight. I’m stepping into a new one,” he said in a statement.
Here’s more of our coverage of Texas’s effort to redraw its congressional map to add five Republican-friendly districts:
Updated
Jeffries also said that representative Jasmine Crockett was going to be a “formidable candidate” for the US Senate, after the Texas Democrat announced her bid on Monday.
Jeffries did not confirm whether he would endorse the representative, who will face off against state legislator James Talarico in a competitive primary.
“We’re still in the process of working through the House battlefield, so I’ve got no visibility into what we might do at any point into the future relative to the Senate at the moment,” Jeffries said today. “We’ll leave that to Chuck Schumer and the crew over there.”
Updated
Jeffries calls for the release of video of 'double tap' strike on suspected drug vessel
Speaking to reporters today, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said that the “full video” of the “double tap” strike on a suspected drug-trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela should be released.
The top Democrat said that the American people should “have an opportunity to determine for themselves whether that strike killing people who were shipwrecked and, by all accounts, were not presenting any threat to American military personnel, whether that kind of seemingly extrajudicial killing is consistent with American values”.
The 2 September strike has left defense secretary Pete Hegseth embattled, with several congressional lawmakers calling for further investigation into the series of events that killed the remaining survivors on the vessel.
Jeffries added that if the administration thinks that their “actions are justifiable, what are they hiding from the American people?”
Updated
Here's a recap of the day so far
More than 200 former employees in the justice department’s civil rights division signed a letter released on Tuesday decrying the “near destruction” of the agency that is supposed to enforce America’s civil rights laws. They accused political leadership of waging a campaign to purge career experts from its ranks. There was a mass exodus of lawyers earlier this year after political appointees removed career managers, detailed employees to menial work, unilaterally dropped cases and made it clear the division’s focus would be enforcing Donald Trump’s priorities. The letter goes on to detail how the division has abandoned civil rights enforcement, including dismissing key cases involving voting rights, sexual abuse of unaccompanied immigrant children and multiple consent decrees involving police departments across the country.
A federal judge in New York has granted the justice department’s request to unseal grand jury documents in the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell – the companion and accomplice of the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. It comes after the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Donald Trump signed last month. In his order today, judge Paul A Engelmayer cited the recent legislation and also granted the DoJ’s request to release discovery material – which could comprise thousands of documents and exhibits.
Bill Cassidy, the Republican who chairs the Senate health committee, pushed back against the recent decision from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to limit the hepatitis B vaccine. The Louisiana lawmaker and former hepatologist also criticized some of the panel’s logic in citing European countries that also don’t recommend a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. “When those who oppose this recommendation say: ‘Well, the Europeans don’t do it,’ that is how that is such a selective bias presentation information,” Cassidy said today at a Politico event on healthcare affordability. “We should be informed by medical science and empiricism, not by personal prejudice. And right now with ACIP, I see far more being informed by a personal prejudice.”
In his interview with Politico published on Tuesday morning, Trump said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, should testify under oath before Congress about a “double tap” strike on an alleged drug-ferrying boat “if he wants”. He added: “I don’t care. I would say do it if you want, Pete.” Trump also said he had seen the video of the strikes. Asked whether he thought the second strike was necessary, he said “it looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat, but I don’t get involved in that”.
Updated
Garcia says judge's decision to release Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury records is a 'victory for transparency'
The top Democrat on the House oversight committee, Robert Garcia, said that a federal judge’s decision to allow the justice department to unseal the grand jury documents in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking case is a “victory for transparency” in the Epstein investigation.
“We must continue fighting to deliver justice for survivors. Release the files, NOW,” Garcia added in a statement, referring to the deadline the Department of Justice has to release all documents related to Epstein in a searchable format.
A reminder that the committee is conducting a concurrent investigation into the Epstein case. Oversight Democrats have released several bundles of documents, including emails from Jeffrey Epstein in which he wrote that Donald Trump “knew about the girls”.
Updated
Organizers challenging Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map say they turned in enough signatures on tuesday to block the map from going into effect and to force a referendum on the map next year.
People not Politicians, the main organization behind the effort, said they submitted more than 300,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office, nearly triple the number required to block the map from going into effect. Missouri’s Republican secretary of state now needs to review the signatures.
Missouri Republicans approved a new map in September that eliminates the Kansas City-based district of Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat, and replaces it with a Republican one. It’s part of a nationwide push by Donald Trump to redraw congressional districts across the country to redraw Republican-friendly districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when Republicans are expected to lose their razor-thin majority in Congress.
Texas and North Carolina have also redrawn districts to be more GOP-friendly, while California has countered with a new map that adds as many as five Democratic districts.
Top Republican on Senate health committee slams decision from advisory panel on hepatitis B vaccine
Bill Cassidy, the Republican who chairs the Senate health committee, pushed back against the recent decision from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to limit the hepatitis B vaccine.
On Friday, the panel voted to recommend that parents of infants whose mothers test negative for hepatitis should decide when – or if – their child should receive the vaccine series, in consultation with a healthcare professional. A reminder that health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr replaced the panel with a hand-picked roster of new advisors, several of whom have expressed vaccine skepticism.
“If you’re infected at birth, you have a 95% chance of becoming a chronic carrier,” said Cassidy, a former hepatologist. “If you’re vaccinated at birth, then you’ve got a little bit more than 0% chance of becoming a chronic carrier – an incredibly effective intervention.”
The Louisiana lawmaker also criticized some of the panel’s logic in citing European countries who also don’t recommend a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. “When those who oppose this recommendation say, ‘well, the Europeans don’t do it’, that is how that is such a selective bias presentation information,” Cassidy said today at a Politico event on health care affordability. “We should be informed by medical science and empiricism, not by personal prejudice. And right now with a ACIP, I see far more being informed by a personal prejudice.”
Updated
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to extol the national security benefits of his sweeping tariffs. “We have become the financially strongest Country, by far, anywhere in the World,” he wrote. “Only dark and sinister forces would want to see that end!!!”
A federal judge has allowed a Tufts University student from Turkey to resume research and teaching while she deals with the consequences of having her visa revoked by the Trump administration, leading to six weeks of detention.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student studying children’s relationship to social media, was among the first people arrested as the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Immigration enforcement officers took her away in an unmarked vehicle, in an encounter caught on video in March outside her Somerville residence.
Öztürk has been out of a Louisiana immigrant detention center since May and back on the Tufts campus. But she has been unable to teach or participate in research as part of her studies because of the termination of her record in the government’s database of foreign students studying temporarily in the US.
In her ruling on Monday, chief US district judge Denise J Casper wrote that Öztürk was likely to succeed on claims that the termination was “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law and in violation of the First Amendment”.
Updated
A police investigation has found that Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican congresswoman, turned a “minor miscommunication” by police into a “spectacle” when she involved herself in a heated confrontation with staff at Charleston’s airport in late October.
According to an internal investigation by the Charleston airport police department and obtained by the Washington Post, Mace berated officers and Transportation Security Administration ( TSA) personnel on 30 October with profanity and insults, leaving facility employees “visibly upset”.
The investigative report, dated 12 November, said there had been some confusion over whether the congresswoman would arrive at the airport in a white BMW when she in fact arrived in a silver model. That led to a delay in meeting up with an escort to take her through the security line at the airport.
The airport police chief, James Woods, wrote in the report that the Charleston airport holds “a certain level of responsibility” for a “minor miscommunication” about the color of the vehicle that Mace came in, as the Post noted. But the congresswoman’s “continued failure to follow established procedures at the checkpoint” escalated the situation into “a spectacle”.
The investigation found Mace told officers “I’m sick of your shit.” She also reportedly said that officers were “fucking idiots” and “fucking incompetent” – and yelled that she was a “fucking representative” in the US House.
An airport employee described Mace’s tone as “very nasty, very rude” and “very unbecoming if she’s representing us” as a member of Congress. One described feeling “downtrodden”.
However, Mace’s office told the Post that the report was “a full exoneration” of the congresswoman – who is running for governor of South Carolina in 2026.
Here’s the full story:
Updated
Trump had two mortgages he claimed were primary dwellings, records show
Donald Trump signed mortgage documents in the 1990s claiming two separate Florida properties would each serve as his principal residence – the same thing his administration is calling “mortgage fraud” when done by political rivals, records show.
ProPublica unearthed documents demonstrating that within seven weeks of each other in late 1993 and early 1994, the president obtained loans for neighboring Palm Beach homes, pledging each would be his primary dwelling. Instead of living in them, though, he rented both out as investment properties.
There is no suggestion that the activity is or was illegal, and proving intent is key in fraud cases. Yet Trump has called the same behavior – having two primary dwelling mortgages – “deceitful and potentially criminal” in relation to mortgage fraud charges against the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. The Trump administration is bringing several similar cases against the New York attorney general, Letitia James, the senator Adam Schiff and the congressman Eric Swalwell.
James was charged in October over a Virginia property she designated as a second home before renting out. Cook was fired after signing two primary residence mortgages weeks apart – just as Trump did.
The Trump loans in question in 1993 and 1994 financed two Woodbridge Road properties adjacent to Mar-a-Lago, for $525,000 and $1.2m. Each mortgage contained standard occupancy requirements mandating Trump make the property his principal residence within 60 days and live there at least one year.
Records place Trump at his Manhattan residence, Trump Tower, throughout the period. He would not officially change his permanent residence to Florida until 2019. Newspaper advertisements from the mid-1990s seen by ProPublica confirm both homes were marketed as rentals, with the larger seven-bedroom property listed at $3,000 a day in 1997.
Both mortgages have since been paid off, the outlet said, and any potential violations fall well outside the statute of limitations for mortgage fraud.
ProPublica said Trump hung up when a reporter asked whether his Florida mortgages resembled those he has accused others of fraud over.
Democrats introduce bill to prevent Trump from appearing on ceremonial one-dollar coin
Two Senate Democrats – Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto – introduced new legislation today that would to prevent any living or sitting US president from being featured on any currency.
They’re announcing the bill after the US mint released draft designs for a commemorative coin ahead of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. The drawings featured three coins with Donald Trump’s face on the obverse.
“President Trump’s self-celebrating maneuvers are authoritarian actions worthy of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, not the United States of America,” Merkley said.
The Change Corruption Act is also co-sponsored by Democratic senators Ron Wyden and Richard Blumenthal. In a statement, the latter said that the “rejection of monarchy” means that the US has “never allowed the image of a living or sitting president to be used on circulating currency”.
Updated
As Senate prepares to vote on Obamacare subsidies, Republicans are divided on path forward
On Thursday, the Senate will hold their much-anticipated vote on whether to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits, which are set to lapse at the end of this year. It’s part of the guarantee that congressional Republicans gave when a small group of Democrats agreed to end the record-breaking government shutdown, and pass a stopgap spending bill.
Now, Democrats are putting forward a plan that extends the subsidies for three years. It’s destined to fail in the GOP-controlled Senate. But what’s unclear is what alternative the majority are willing to back.
Leading the pack seems to be the legislation put forward by Republican senators Bill Cassidy, the former physician who chairs the health committee, and Mike Crapo – the Idaho lawmaker who serves as the chair of the Senate budget committee. Their offering is, in many ways, in line with what Donald Trump has pushed for. It would deposit funds into health savings accounts (HSAs) for those enrolled in bronze or catastrophic plans on the Obamacare exchanges.
“Democrats’ temporary Covid credits do not lower costs or premiums. They direct billions of dollars to insurance companies,” the GOP lawmakers argue. “Republicans are proposing to empower patients to control their own health care.”
Meanwhile, Ohio senator Bernie Moreno and Maine’s five-term senior senator Susan Collins have unveiled their own proposal to extend ACA subsidies for two years, while implementing an income cap for households whose income exceeds $200,000, and eliminating zero-premium plans.
Updated
Supreme court hears arguments in case challenging campaign finance limitations from political parties
Happening now at the supreme court, arguments in a case that challenges the limits on campaign finance contributions from party committees.
In National Republican Senatorial Committee v Federal Election Commission, the challengers (in this case the Senate committee focused on electing GOP members to Congress) argue that the cap on coordinated spending –violates the first amendment, and a party’s ability to sufficiently support a candidate. Depending on the scope of the decision, if the challengers are successful, a party group could spend an unlimited amount of money taking out ads during an election.
Defending the FEC today in court is the high-profile Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, with support from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Former justice department employees sound alarm over 'near destruction' of civil rights division
More than 200 former employees in the justice department’s civil rights division signed a letter released on Tuesday decrying the “near destruction” of the agency that is supposed to enforce America’s civil rights laws and accused political leadership of waging a campaign to purge career experts from its ranks.
There was a mass exodus of lawyers earlier this year after political appointees removed career managers, detailed employees to menial work unilaterally dropped cases, and made it clear the division’s focus would be enforcing Donald Trump’s priorities. By 1 May of this year, the department had lost about 70% of its attorneys – a staggering number. The letter was released on Tuesday to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the founding of the civil rights division.
Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who leads the civil rights division, has cheered the departures of career employees, describing them as activists who did not want to do the work that was asked of them. “That could not be further from the truth. We left because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” the letter says. “Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out.”
The letter goes on to detail how the division has abandoned civil rights enforcement, including dismissing key cases involving voting rights, sexual abuse of unaccompanied migrant children, and multiple consent decrees involving police departments across the country. Dhillon also encouraged lawyers to leave and accept a paid leave offer and threatened to lay employees off if they did not, the letter says. Justice department officials appeared caught off guard by how many people were leaving earlier this year and quietly asked employees to reconsider leaving.
“America deserves better,” the letter says. “The future of the Civil Rights Division is in jeopardy, and with it, the rights it protects. We hope that one day we can return the Division to its righteous work. Until then, we will continue to defend those rights and the Constitution wherever we find ourselves. We call on all Americans to join us. Demand that the Division enforce our civil rights laws and defend the Constitution’s promise of equal justice for all.”
Updated
Federal judge grants DoJ request to unseal Ghislaine Maxwell grand jury documents
A federal judge in New York has granted the justice department’s request to unseal grand jury documents in the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell – the companion and accomplice of the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. It comes after the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Donald Trump signed last month.
The legislation requires the Department of Justice to release the full tranche of records related to disgraced financier, in a searchable format by 19 December.
In his order today, judge Paul A Engelmayer cited the recently passed bill, and granted the DoJ’s request to release discovery material – which could comprise thousands of documents and exhibits. However, Engelmayer stipulated that the justice department would still be required to abide by a protective order to “withhold or redact segregable portions that contain personally identifiable and other victim-related information”.
A reminder that Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s sex-trafficking crimes in a minimum security facility in Texas. In October, the supreme court rejected her petition to overturn her conviction.
Updated
Europe a 'decaying' group of nations led by 'weak' people, Trump says
My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is covering the latest out of Europe on our dedicated live blog today. In his interview with Politico, Donald Trump dismissed EU leaders as “weak” and labelled Europe as a “decaying group of nations”.
Trump also said he didn’t have much hopes about European involvement in Ukraine peace talks, as “they talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.”
Jakub notes that “these comments will do nothing to reassure European leaders concerned about the anti-EU outbursts over the weekend coming from the American right.”
While these comments are, in many ways, more of the same from the president, the timing is certainly significant.
“For him [Trump] to repeat all these lines with some pride as he gets named by Politico as ‘the most powerful person shaping Europe’ at the same time as European leaders want – or, more accurately, really need – to stay close to him on Ukraine … it makes it all very complicated for everyone involved,” Jakub writes.
Updated
Donald Trump will travel to Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, today for a rally-style event to push out his administration’s affordability messaging.
As we reported earlier, the president touted the state of the US economy under his leadership in an interview with Politico. We can expect more of the same lines at his event today, in a county that swung for Trump in 2024, after voting for the Democratic candidate in several prior presidential elections.
Before Trump heads to Pennsylvania, he’ll attend vice-president JD Vance’s Christmas reception.
Updated
Trump concluded his interview with Politico with some musings on the future leadership of the Republican party. Asked if anyone in the party could energise such a wide coalition as he had, Trump said:
I hope so. I don’t know. You never know until they’re tested. You know, it’s like, uh, you jump in the water; you can swim or you can’t.
Hegseth can testify before Congress over 2 September boat strike 'if he wants', Trump says
In his interview with Politico published on Tuesday morning, Trump was asked if the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, should testify under oath before Congress about a second US military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug ferrying boat on 2 September.
“He can if he wants,” Trump said, adding: “I don’t care. I would say do it if you want, Pete.”
Trump said he had seen the video of the strikes. Asked if he thought the second strike was necessary, he said:
Uh, well, it looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat, but I don’t get involved in that. That’s up to them.
Trump claimed that each strike on an alleged drug boat saved the lives of 25,000 Americans, a figure that has been strongly questioned by public health experts.
He added:
And we’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon, too.
Trump grades US economy as ‘A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus’
Asked by Politico to grade the US economy, Trump first rated it as “A-plus”, before upgrading it to “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus”. Questioned over the cost of living for voters, Trump said he “inherited a total mess”, and added: “Prices were at an all-time high when I came in. Prices are coming down substantially … It’s been 10 months. It’s amazing what we’ve done.”
Asked if he would rule out reducing tariffs on any more goods, Trump said:
“On some. And on some I’ll increase tariffs. Because you know what happens is because of tariffs, all of the car companies are coming back.”
You know, we lost 58% of the automobile business. We a monopoly in the world. We had everything. And because we had presidents that either weren’t smart or didn’t have business sense or their people didn’t do a good job ... they could’ve kept that.
Trump also spoke about the computer chip industry, after yesterday’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell some of its chips to China.
“We could’ve kept the chip market. We had 100% of the chip market, Intel, all of these guys. You know, there’s the thing. They came in to see me, Intel. They needed something to be done by the government. I said, I’m gonna do it, but I think you have to give us 10% of your company. You know what happened? We made $40bn on that deal. The price went through the roof. The United States ... in about 10 minutes, I made $40bn. Nobody talks about that.”
Updated
Nvidia shares boosted by Trump’s announcement of chip sales to China
Nvidia shares rose 1.7% in US pre-market trading on Tuesday after Trump said he would allow the sale of its H200 chips to approved Chinese customers. The US president announced on Monday that he had granted Nvidia permission to ship H200 chips to China in exchange for a 25% surcharge for the US, a move that could allow the world’s most valuable company to win back billions of dollars in lost business.
China’s tech stocks slipped slightly after Trump’s announcement. China’s SSE Star Chip index dropped by 1% at the start of trading, before recovering slightly to a 0.43% fall. China’s CSI semiconductor industry index had a similar drop, before recovering to a 0.36% fall.
Last night, Trump insisted that Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips wouldn’t be sold to China, posting on Truth Social:
Nvidia’s US Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal.
My Administration will always put America FIRST. The Department of Commerce is finalizing the details, and the same approach will apply to AMD, Intel, and other GREAT American Companies. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump’s move was criticized by some senior Democratic senators, including Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons — the top two Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee — Jack Reed, the Democratic head of the Senate armed services committee, and Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member of the Senate banking committee.
They, and other Democratic senators, urged Trump to reverse the decision, saying:
“The Trump administration’s announcement that it will allow the export of advanced H200 AI chips to China is a colossal economic and national security failure. The H200s are vastly more capable than anything China can make and gifting them to Beijing would squander America’s primary advantage in the AI race.”
More from that Politico interview with Donald Trump published this morning: Trump told the politics site that he would expect his pick for chair of the Federal Reserve to support an immediate cut to interest rates.
Trump has not yet chosen a new Fed chair, but has been putting pressure on the current chief, Jerome Powell, to cut rates.
Asked if the new chair should lower rates immediately, Trump said:
This guy [Powell] should too. But I think he’s a combination of not a smart person and doesn’t like Trump. But the reason he doesn’t like Trump ... is because I hit him hard because he’s doing a bad job.”
Trump says only ‘dark and sinister forces’ would want his tariffs to end
Donald Trump has defended his tariff regime as he prepares to give a speech on the US economy and cost of living at a rally in Pennsylvania this evening.
Posting on his social media platform Truth Social in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Trump wrote:
Because of Tariffs, easily and quickly applied, our National Security has been greatly enhanced, and we have become the financially strongest Country, by far, anywhere in the World. Only dark and sinister forces would want to see that end!!!
Supreme court justices are due to make a ruling on Trump’s tariffs soon, having heard oral arguments on their legal validity last month. The ruling is expected by the end of this year or early 2026.
In a second post, Trump wrote:
The biggest threat in history to United States National Security would be a negative decision on Tariffs by the U.S. Supreme Court. We would be financially defenseless. Now Europe is going to Tariffs against China, as they already do against others. We would not be allowed to do what others already do!
On Monday, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said that he had told Beijing that if China did not reduce its “unsustainable” trade deficit with EU, then Europeans would be forced to take measures such as imposing tariffs on Chinese products.
On Tuesday, the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, said that “mutually destructive consequences of tariffs have become increasingly evident” over the course of this year, though he did not mention Donald Trump by name.
Hegseth and Rubio expected to brief 'Gang of Eight'
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, are expected to brief the “Gang of Eight” lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon, Reuters reports, citing two sources familiar with the plan and a Trump administration official.
The “Gang of Eight” – which includes intelligence committee and Senate and House of Representatives leaders from both parties – is traditionally briefed on major national security actions.
The sources did not discuss the nature of the briefing, expected to take place at 3:30pm ET.
Tensions have been mounting between the US and Venezuela, as Donald Trump threatens land strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers, after more than three months of a military campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. On Tuesday, Politico published an interview with the president in which he refused to rule out putting US troops into Venezuela. “I don’t comment on that. I wouldn’t say that one way or the other,” he said.
Asked if he would consider adopting a similar strategy to that taken with Venezuela against Mexico and Colombia, Trump replied: “Yeah, I would. Sure. I would.”
The US military has also built up the presence of warships in the Caribbean, including an aircraft carrier strike group and a nuclear submarine.
Adm Alvin Holsey, the outgoing commander of the US military’s southern command, which oversees American troops in Latin America, is also expected to brief a separate group of House and Senate lawmakers on Tuesday, two people familiar with the matter said.
Holsey will step down on Friday, less than two months after the surprise announcement of his early retirement, which came just over a month into the Pentagon’s accelerating campaign against suspected drug boats. The strikes have resulted in the deaths of nearly 90 people and raised concerns among Democrats and legal experts.
Trump’s military operations have been under increased scrutiny since a 2 September decision to launch a second strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean.
The video of the attack, viewed by lawmakers last week, showed two men clinging to wreckage after their vessel was destroyed in the first strike, according to sources familiar with the imagery. They were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible communications equipment.
The defense department’s Law of War Manual forbids attacks on combatants who are incapacitated, unconscious or shipwrecked, as long as they abstain from hostilities and do not attempt to escape. The manual cites firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example of a “clearly illegal” order that should be refused.
On Monday, Trump said he would let Hegseth decide whether to release the full video of the strike, in a shift from comments last week when he said the government would “certainly release” any footage, “no problem”.
“Whatever Hegseth wants to do is OK with me,” Trump said on Monday.
The annual defense policy bill currently passing through Congress includes provisions that would compel the Pentagon to provide Congressional committees with unedited video of the strikes. Lawmakers in Congress have tried in recent months to compel Hegseth’s department to share more information about the attacks. The bill would withhold a quarter of the Pentagon’s travel funds if the footage is not shared.
Updated
