Closing summary
That wraps up another day of covering the second Trump administration. We’ll be back on Wednesday. Here is a summary of today’s developments:
Violence has continued across much of the Middle East a day after Donald Trump said the US was in “very good” talks with Iran to end the war in the region soon. Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic. More here.
Democrats managed to flip a seat in the Florida state house in the district that is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Emily Gregory, a Democrat, defeated Republican Jon Maples, who had an endorsement from the US president, in the special election in Florida’s 87th state house district. The Associated Press called the race on Tuesday evening, with Gregory, a public health expert and small business owner, leading by more than 2 percentage points. More here.
Donald Trump on Tuesday swore in Markwayne Mullin as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while Senate Republicans unveiled a compromise that would restart funding to most of the agency but appears to exclude reforms to immigration enforcement Democrats have demanded. More here.
Donald Trump has described voting by mail as “cheating” at an event in Memphis, Tennessee, just days after casting a mail‑in ballot himself. “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all,” the US president said on Monday, in remarks to a roundtable on his administration’s crime taskforce. More here.
Workers with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are reeling from the White House’s deployment of immigration law enforcement into airports as TSA workers enter their sixth week without pay as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown continues. More than 400 TSA workers have quit since the shutdown began in February, with major US airports reporting high call-out rates among workers, leading to longer security wait times. More here.
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, backtracked on earlier remarks likening Israel to an “apartheid state” in a new interview with Politico published on Tuesday. In the interview, the Democrat, who is widely expected to launch a presidential bid in 2028, said that when he used the term three weeks ago, he meant it to apply to Israel’s future should it continue on its present trajectory. More here.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has faced criticism after walking back earlier remarks in which he likened Israel to an “apartheid state”.
In an interview with Politico published on Tuesday, the Democrat (who is seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender) said he had meant the term to refer to Israel’s future if current conditions persist.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian non-profit that focuses on political advocacy, responded to the news by saying “Israel is an apartheid state which has committed genocide against Palestinians with US weapons.”
“Every single major human rights organization agrees with this,” the group said in a post on X. “If Newsom can’t tell the truth about this issue, what else is he too afraid to stand up for?”
Actor Mark Ruffalo urged Newsom to “know where you stand and stand there.”
“You said… what you meant,” Ruffalo said in a post on X. “I don’t know what billionaire got in your ear but it’s not working for you. This is not how you are going to win. It’s Apartheid and it’s a Genocide.”
Similarly, Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, reposted a video of Newsom’s interview with Politico and said “apartheid is not a direction, it’s a reality.”
Updated
The LA Times is reporting that a three-judge panel on Tuesday denied a petition from California attorney general Rob Bonta seeking to halt Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation into alleged election fraud.
Bonta had asked the court to stop the probe, which stems from claims by a local citizens group that conducted its own “audit” and alleged the county’s vote tally was inflated by more than 45,000 votes in November’s election for Proposition 50. Local election officials have rejected this claim.
Bianco has since seized more than 650,000 ballots cast in Riverside County, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.
The New York Times on Tuesday accused the Pentagon of disobeying a judge’s ruling that undid much of the restrictive agreement journalists were forced to sign or lose access to the building.
The judge, Paul Friedman, granted an injunction on Friday that overturned much of the language in the “media in-brief” document that had so concerned many news organizations that cover the Pentagon that almost all journalists chose instead to give back their press badges. He also ordered that seven journalists from the Times be returned their badges.
Instead of complying with the judge’s order, the Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on Monday night that the department would permanently close a designated work space for journalists known as “correspondents’ corridor” and create a “new and improved press workspace” in an annexed facility outside the building. The Pentagon also issued a revised policy that now requires journalists to be escorted into the building.
“Rather than comply with the court’s order and accompanying opinion, defendants are contemptuously defying it – both in letter and spirit in a newly released ‘interim’ policy,” lawyers for the Times wrote. “Among other things, for the first time in history, the interim policy bars reporters with press passes from entering the building without an escort, sets up unprecedented rules governing when a reporter can offer anonymity to a source, and leaves in place provisions that this court’s order struck.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
Democrat flips Florida district home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
Democrat and first-time candidate, Emily Gregory, flipped a Florida state House district on Tuesday that includes President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
This victory marks the latest in a string of over two dozen seats flipped by Democrats in GOP or battleground states since the 2024 election.
Despite the President’s endorsement of her opponent, Jon Maples, Gregory overcame a previous 19-point Republican margin to claim the seat formerly held by Mike Caruso.
Trump voted for Maples by mail and, just days later, called mail-in votes “cheating” at an event in Memphis this week.
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Republican senator Ted Cruz asked for his salary to be withheld until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown is over.
“Due to the Democrat’s Shutdown, I’ve asked the Financial Clerk of the Senate to hold my salary,” Cruz wrote in a post on X. “It’s not right for Members of Congress to be paid if the working men and women of DHS aren’t.”
Cruz attached a photo of his letter in the post, which shows his request to the Senate Financial Clerk Ted Ruckner.
“For the remainder of the current partial lapse in appropriations, please hold my salary check for pickup in the Disbursing Office,” reads the letter by the Texas Republican.
California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, is seeking a court order to stop the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department from continuing its recount of ballots from the November 2025 special election.
The LA Times reports that Bonta filed a petition with the Fourth Appellate District on Monday, writing that “the Sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence” in upcoming elections.
The move comes after Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, seized over 650,000 ballots cast in Riverside County from last November’s election.
Bianco said his recounting efforts stemmed from claims the results were off by 45,800 votes, but Bonta and Art Tinoco, the registrar of voters for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, have assured the votes differed by about 100 votes.
The executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California, Chandra Bhatnagar, called Bianco’s claims “misleading” on Tuesday.
“Let’s be clear: no sheriff has a legitimate role — much less experience — in administering our elections or in handling hundreds of thousands of voters’ ballots,” said Bhatnagar. “The sheriff’s investigation represents a serious threat to voter privacy, undermines our democratic process and raises questions about the misuse of law enforcement authority for political gain.”
Updated
Republicans continue to lead the California governor’s race amid a crowded field of Democrats, a new poll commissioned by the state’s Democratic party found, fueling concerns of a conservative win in the famously liberal state.
The party on Tuesday published the results of a large-scale poll of 2,000 likely voters conducted by Evitarus Research that revealed that 16% of participants would back the conservative political commentator Steve Hilton in the upcoming primary, while 14% would support Chad Bianco, the Riverside county sheriff.
Meanwhile, three Democrats were in a dead heat. Congressman Eric Swalwell, former Representative Katie Porter and billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer each had support from 10% of people surveyed.
The results were somewhat similar to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last week in which Hilton and Bianco were in the lead with 17% and 16% respectively, while Swalwell had 14%, Porter came in with 13% and Steyer had 10%.
Read the full story:
The Trump administration has seized on the killing of a college student at Loyola University Chicago in efforts to bolster a sharply anti-immigrant following reports that the suspect in the case is in the US illegally.
Sheridan Gorman, 18, was shot while walking with friends near a beach close to campus last week, and on Sunday, Chicago Police identified the suspect in the killing as Jose Medina. The Department of Homeland Security later released a photo of Medina and said he was in the US illegally.
On Tuesday, the White House posted on X that Gorman’s killing was a “result of failed border & sanctuary city policies.”
It is important to note that studies have repeatedly shown immigrants in the US are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born population. The Trump administration frequently instrumentalizes crimes involving immigrants to justify its restrictive immigration policy, as seen with Laken Riley’s death during the 2024 campaign.
Missouri lawmakers can redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade, the state’s supreme court ruled Tuesday, upholding a plan that could boost Republicans’ chances of picking up an additional House seat in this year’s midterms.
While opponents argued that Missouri’s constitution allows redistricting only immediately after a census, in a 4-3 decision, Judge Zel Fischer wrote that “the circuit court correctly concluded” the new map did not violate Missouri’s Constitution.
“Appellants acknowledge the Missouri Constitution does not expressly prohibit mid-decade congressional redistricting and, instead, argue the ‘Constitution denies such power by clear implication’,” Fischer wrote.
The redistricting ruling is a legal win for Donald Trump, who has previously urged Missouri Republicans to redraw the map as part of a broader national push to shore up the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.
The day so far
Donald Trump sent mixed signals on a nascent deal emerging between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate that could see funding restored to the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose agencies are currently unfunded. “I’m going to look at it and we’re going to take a good hard look at it,” he said. “I want to support Republicans.” Returning to the issue later in the press conference after Markwayne Mullin’s swearing in, he said: “I guess they’re getting fairly close but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”
Markwayne Mullin has been sworn in as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, who was fired this month after a succession of controversies. Trump sang his praises as “someone strong professional and fair” as Mullin and his wife, Christie, looked on.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump “a complete fraud” after it emerged that the president – who has been urging senators to limit mail-in voting by pushing through his Save America act – cast his own ballot by mail in a special election in Palm Beach county.
Donald Trump has appointed so-called “alpha male” influencer Nick Adams to the position of “special presidential envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values”. According to the state department website, Adams started the role last week, though it was only announced today.
The supreme court is hearing a case on Tuesday that could decide whether Trump’s administration is allowed to turn away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. The case centers around the question whether people seeking asylum must fully cross the border in order to be allowed to claim asylum – or whether they can turn up at the border and seek entry.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio is expected to testify on Tuesday in former congressman David Rivera’s criminal trial on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s government.
The former White House strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon has suggested the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at airports is a “test run” for using them at polling stations in the midterms later this year.
President Donald Trump endorsed TW Shannon, a former Republican Speaker of the Oklahoma House, for lieutenant governor of Oklahoma on Tuesday.
“As your next Lieutenant Governor,” Trump said in a post on Truth social, “T.W. will work hard to Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Support our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Advance Election Integrity, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Strengthen our Military, Veterans, and Law Enforcement, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”
According to Shannon’s campaign website, he identifies as a “Trump conservative” who “will fight alongside President Trump to stop the radical left and keep Oklahoma MAGA-strong.”
Shannon launched his campaign in January, joining other Democratic and Republican candidates, including Oklahoma auditor of state Cindy Byrd, business owner Victor Flores, and educator Kelly Forbes, among others.
Trump also posted a wave of endorsements for the Indiana State Senate on Tuesday, backing candidates like Michelle Davis, Jeff Ellington, Brenda Wilson, and Paula Copenhaver. He also pushed Sydney Gruters, wife of Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters, to run for Congress in Florida’s 16th Congressional District.
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It may be all the more galling to Noem that Trump gave credit for a border he now proclaims as historically secure not to her, but on Tom Homan, the White House border czar.
“We created the strongest border with the help of that man right there,” he said, indicating Homan, who was looking on at Mullin’s swearing in ceremony.
“Tom is, so incredible. And he’s going to be a big influence here, too. There’s nobody more professional, nobody better. There’s nobody better as a human being. You know, he looks tough, but he’s got a good heart. But not too good. Don’t make it too good.”
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Kristi Noem, the former homeland security secretary – whose firing this month prompted the elevation of Mullin – appeared to make one final bid for the limelight on Tuesday, fondly invoking her time in the job.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as the 8th Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,” she wrote in a social media post that was conspicuously lacking in congratulations for Mullin but trumpeted her own supposed achievements.
Referring to her new non-cabinet post – recently created by Trump - she continued: “As special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, I will build on the years of national security expertise I forged during my time as Secretary of Homeland Security, governor of South Dakota, and congresswoman on the House Armed Services Committee.”
Updated
Even before Markwayne Mullin’s swearing-in as the new homeland security secretary, fresh controversy stalked him – in the form of a three-year-old video in which he happily admits to spanking his children.
In a speech to the City Elders, a religious group, Mullin said: ““I’ll tell you right now, I do spank, I have no problem with that.”
Referring to his twin daughters, the former mixed martial arts (MMA) combatant and father-of-six went on: ““I can spank them and I’m still upset and they’ll come and crawl on my lap two minutes later and just hug on me.”
He then described how one of the twins begged him from mercy: “‘No, Daddy. No, Daddy. No, Daddy! No! I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry, Dad, She’d just get madder and madder and she just couldn’t bring herself to even bend over for me to bust her butt.”
Other parts of the video – first reported by The New Republic – show Mullin talking about his own childhood punishments at the hands of his father, which he called being "raised by the fear of a belt,” and threatening violence against his daughter’s boyfriend if he kissed her.
“We got to discipline people. That doesn’t mean you gotta discipline with hatred, you can discipline with love,” Mullin said.
Recalling a conversation with his daughter’s teenage boyfriend, Mullin said he told him: “If I ever see you kiss her in front of me, I’m dragging your face across the asphalt.”
Critics have questioned Mullin’s temperamental suitability for high office, citing a history of physical confrontations.
Donald Trump says he will be 'not happy' with any deal made over DHS funding
Donald Trump sent mixed signals on a nascent deal emerging between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate that could see funding restored to the Department of Homeland Security, some of whose agencies are currently unfunded.
“I’m going to look at it and we’re going to take a good hard look at it,” he said. “I want to support Republicans. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship. They don’t want to do anything about men playing in women’s sports.”
Returning to the issue later in the press conference following Markwayne Mullin’s swearing in, he said: “I guess they’re getting fairly close but I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”
Asked about the plight of Transportation Safety Authority staff, who have gone unpaid during the partial shutdown of the DHS, Trump said: “Well, some of them are needing money, you know, because the Democrats cut off their money. I blame the Democrats more than anything else.”
Many staff members are no longer turning up for work, a situation the Trump administration has responded to by deploying ICE (immigration and immigration enforcement) agents in airports to carry out functions normally conducted by the TSA.
Updated
After being sworn in, Mullin told Trump “I won’t let you down.”
“It just seems surreal being in the Oval Office and having the president of the United States speak so highly of me and then recognize my family and know my family by name. It’s humbling and I never take anything for granted…No one’s going to outwork me.”
Markwayne Mullin sworn in as new homeland security secretary
Markwayne Mullin has been sworn in as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, who was fired this month after a succession of controversies.
Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, officially became the new cabinet secretary in charge of enforcing Donald Trump’s flagship immigration policy in a ceremony at the White House. He was sworn in by the attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Trump sang his praises as “someone strong professional and fair” as Mullin and his wife, Christie, looked on.
“I have no doubt that he takes the helm at DHS that Markwayne will fight for homeland security, the United States and securing the country and making it really strong and the way it should be,” Trump said in a speech which quickly devolved into a rambling monologue about his favorite complaints and grievances.
Mullin’s fellows senators voted on Monday night, by 54 to 45, to confirm his nomination. Only two Democrats, Jon Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, voted in favor of Mullin, after intense questioning over his suitability from both Democrats and fellow Republicans.
Critics have said Mullin is an unsuitable choice to oversee bodies like the immigration and customs enforcement agency, whose staff have been criticized for their heavy handed approach to detaining presumed immigrants.
He faced criticism over his description of Alex Pretti, a nurse who was shot dead by border patrol agents in Minneapolis in January as he lay on the ground, as a “deranged individual.” He also came under pressure from Rand Paul, a fellow Republican from Kentucky, who challenged him to justify his comments expressing sympathy for a man who violently assaulted Paul over a neighborhood dispute in 2017.
Updated
US supreme court justices indicated sympathy on Tuesday toward Donald Trump’s administration in its defense of the government’s authority to turn away asylum seekers when officials deem US-Mexico border crossings too overburdened to handle additional claims.
The legal dispute centers on a policy called “metering” that the Republican president’s administration may seek to revive after it was dropped by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden in 2021. The policy allowed US immigration officials to stop asylum seekers at the border and indefinitely decline to process their claims.
See here for full story.
Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, is contemplating a potential deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end its partial closure, according to Semafor.
The site says Schumer he sees the path to re-opening the department – and by extension some of its affected constituent agencies, such as the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA) – but is still seeking further Republican concessions.
The hoped-for formula is for Republicans to agree to reopen the DHS without funding some of Donald Trump’s more contentious immigration policies while also winning reforms on how immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) officers conduct operations.
A putative deal under discussion would leave out $5bn from enforcement and removal operations while retaining funds for investigative areas including drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Democrats have been demanding significant changes to ICE’s processes after the heavily-criticized deployment of federal immigration agents into Minneapolis, which presaged the shooting deaths of two US citizens at the hands of agents.
Any deal struck by Schumer is certain to draw scrutiny from the Democrats’ progressive wing after fierce criticism of a compromise he made with the GOP to avoid a government shutdown just weeks into Trump’s second presidency last year.
Here’s my colleague Shrai Popat’s story on Trump, who calls voting by mail “cheating”, voting by mail recently.
'This guy is a complete fraud,' says Jeffries, after Trump – who calls mail-in voting 'cheating' – votes by mail
Earlier we reported that Donald Trump – who has been urging senators to limit mail-in voting by pushing through his Save America act – cast his own ballot by mail in a special election in Palm Beach county.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries reacted on X:
This guy is a complete fraud. Don’t ever believe a word he has to say about election integrity.
Records from the county elections office show that Trump, registered at his Mar-a-Lago residence, voted by mail in a race between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican Jon Maples for a state legislative seat – even though, as my colleague Shrai Popat notes, he has recently been in Palm Beach where early in-person voting was available until Sunday evening.
Trump has long railed against mail-in voting (yesterday, he called it “mail-in cheating”) to bolster his baseless claims that the practice is subject to widespread fraud.
His mail-in vote comes as Trump pushes the Save America act, a sweeping election reform proposal that includes restrictions on mail-in voting.
The bill would also require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls, among other new rules that Trump and his most loyal supporters are pushing as part of an effort to assert more federal control over elections.
This also isn’t the first time in recent years that Trump has voted by mail. During the 2020 presidential primary he mailed his ballot despite declaring – with no evidence – that the Democrats were attempting to “steal” the election via mail-in ballots.
Updated
Trump taps 'alpha male' influencer Nick Adams as 'special presidential envoy for American tourism, exceptionalism and values'
Donald Trump has appointed so-called “alpha male” influencer Nick Adams to the position of “special presidential envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values”.
According to the state department website, Adams started the role last week, though it was only announced today.
It’s unclear what his role will specifically entail, but in a statement shared by Adams on X, he said he “will play a vital role in revitalizing America’s diplomatic position as a beacon of free speech, the freedom to worship, and a land of unlimited opportunity for those who align with the traditions and values of the United States of America.”
“I look forward to serving as America’s brand Ambassador, bringing the message of America’s excellence to the entire world,” he said in the post. “With America 250, the FIFA World Cup, and the Olympics coming up, the world needs to be reminded of all we have to offer. I will be a tireless spokesman for American greatness, at home and abroad.”
Adams was previously Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Malaysia in June last year, but his nomination reportedly fell apart in recent months.
The Australian-born Adams, who became a US citizen in 2021, is a known figure within the Maga movement and in the online manosphere. He self-identifies as one of Trump’s “favourite authors”, champions so-called “traditional masculinity” in his videos (think very rare steak, heavy lifting, and many warnings about the “dangers of radical feminism”), and has well documented his love for the Hooters restaurant chain.
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Abel Ortiz was brought from Mexico to LA when he was just two months old and has been living undocumented ever since. Now 38, he has a full life cutting hair, building a community, loving a city that has never fully loved him back. In a time of escalating ICE raids and the ache of uncertainty, Abel has made a radical decision: he’s leaving – not because he has to, but to escape perpetual limbo and be free to see the world.
You can watch the documentary – Abel leaves LA: self-deportation from Trump’s America – here:
Are you travelling or have you been travelling in the US and been caught up in the delays? How long were you waiting? Did this disrupt your travel plans? What was your experience? We would like to hear from you.
You can tell us your experience via the form in this article and we will include some contributions in our reporting:
Supreme court hears case on whether US can turn away asylum seekers at Mexico border
The supreme court is hearing a case on Tuesday that could decide whether Trump’s administration is allowed to turn away asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.
The case centers around the question whether people seeking asylum must fully cross the border in order to be allowed to claim asylum – or whether they can turn up at the border and seek entry.
Federal law says a non-citizen who is “physically present in the United States” or who “arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum. The question for justices is what “arrives” means exactly.
Asylum seekers were first barred from setting foot on US soil by Barack Obama, a report in the New York Times says. The policy was expanded by Donald Trump in his first presidency before Joe Biden scrapped it. Lower courts have repeatedly declared the policy invalid. Now the second Trump administration is asking supreme court justices to decide.
In court filings, the Department of Justice said the policy a “critical tool for addressing border surges when they occur.”
Trump to swear in new DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin
Donald Trump is due to swear in his new homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday. Mullin, a Trump loyalist, was confirmed on Monday along party lines, with a vote of 54-45.
Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against him, while Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and New Mexico’s Martin Heinrich were the sole Democrats to vote in favor.
The swearing in is scheduled for 1.30pm ET. We’ll have a live feed and bring you any lines as we get them.
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Why are airport lines so long and why can’t Congress just solve the problem?
My colleagues George Chidi and Chris Stein have some answers in this explainer:
Travelers are still facing long lines and hours-long waits at US airports a day after the Trump administration began deploying federal immigration officers at some security checkpoints.
Houston’s George Bush intercontinental airport said wait times at standard security checkpoints could take between three and a half and four hours on Tuesday morning, according to AP. Meanwhile, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport urged travelers to allow at least four hours for domestic and international screenings.
Baltimore-Washington international airport advised passengers to arrive three hours before their flights as currently “minimal” wait times could change.
The security bottle necks come as many TSA agents have called in sick or quit their jobs after weeks of no pay due to an ongoing DHS shutdown.
Gregory Bovino, the customs and border protection (CBP) commander who led the agency’s aggressive anti-immigration push in Minneapolis before being sidelined by the White House, has decided to go out with a bang it would seem.
Having announced his forthcoming retirement from the CBP, the publicity-hungry Bovino – known for his florid statements – has given an interview to the New York Times that stresses defiance over contrition.
Bovino – who drew widespread opprobrium for his provocative posturing as well as the admonition of a judge who accused him of lying under oath – voices regret that he did not go far enough.
“I wish I’d caught even more illegal aliens,” he told the paper, which has written a long piece marking the end of his career. “I mean, we went as hard as we could, but there’s always a creative and innovative solution to catching even more.”
Bovino, the head of the border patrol’s El Centro division in California, gained notoriety when the Trump administration redeployed him in several cities to enforce its immigration detention drives.
It culminated in ignominy in Minneapolis when CBP agents shot Alex Pretti, a protester 10 times in the back, as he lay on the ground. The Trump administration removed Bovino from the city after he gave several high-profile interviews justifying the shooting and making unsubstantiated claims about Pretti.
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Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is scheduled to testify in a federal court on Tuesday in the trial of former Florida congressman, David Rivera, who is accused of secretly lobbying for Venezuela’s socialist government during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
Rubio and Rivera are longtime friends, having worked together in Florida state politics. It will mark the first time in more than four decades that a sitting cabinet member testifies in a criminal trial.
Prosecutors allege that Rivera and a co-defendant, Esther Nufehr, tried to influence the first Trump administration on behalf of the then Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his foreign minister, Delcy Rodriguez, with the goal of lowering tensions and having US sanctions lifted.
The timing of the case seems paradoxical, in view of the fact that Maduro is now in US custody after being seized by US forces in a raid on his compound in Caracas in January and awaits trial on narco-trafficking charges. Rodriguez is now interim president, having apparently reached an agreement with the administration in which Rubio plays a prominent role.
The two defendants were indicted in 2022 in on money-laundering charges and for failing to register as a foreign agent. Prosecutors allege that they were recruited on a $50m contract for three months of lobbying work in 2017 for a US-arm of a Venezuela state oil company, PDVSA, which operates under the name CTGO.
The indictment accuses Rivera and Nuhfer of attempting to lobby Rubio - at a time when he was a Republican senator from Miami – and then White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on behalf of people in the top echelon of the Venezuelan government.
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Bob Woodward, the doyen of Washington insider reporting, is brining out a new book that promises to lift the veil on half a century of unearthing political secrets.
“Secrets: A Reporter’s Memoir” will shine a light on how a lifetime of Woodward’s reporting on Washington’s movers and shakers, spanning Watergate – a story he helped break along with fellow Washington Post reporter, Carl Bernstein – to the Donald Trump era.
Publishers Simon & Schuster say the new memoir will come out on 29 September and will “lift the lid” on decades of reporting and interviews with the major figures in US politics over the decades.
Woodward, who turns 83 this week, has chronicled every presidency since Richard Nixon’s, which he and Bernstein helped to bring to a premature end.
He has written two books on Trump’s presidency, “Rage” and “Fear”, but has expressed doubts about authoring any further works on the current president, citing his high media exposure.
“I think we know who he is,” Woodward told AP. “He’s so transparent. He’s out there talking, two or three hours a day.”
Secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet with Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in France on Friday for talks on Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Middle East situation stemming from the US-Israel war on Iran, the state department said.
US allies are dealing with the fallout from president Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran late last month, which triggered strikes from Iran against its Gulf neighbors and against shipping that have stopped most transit through the strait of Hormuz.
Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat and national security advisor, will attend the G7 foreign affairs ministerial meeting taking place in Cernay-la-Ville, outside of Paris, principal deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Trump used mail-in ballot despite trying to restrict mail-in ballots
President Donald Trump, who has been urging senators to limit mail-in voting by pushing through his Save America Act, cast his own ballot by mail in Tuesday’s special election in Palm Beach County.
Records from the county elections office show Trump, registered at his Mar-a-Lago residence, voted by mail in a race between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican Jon Maples for a state legislative seat.
Officials confirmed the information is accurate, the Washington Post reported.
The vote comes as Trump pushes the Save America Act, a sweeping election reform proposal that includes restrictions on mail-in voting.
The bill would also require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls, among other new rules that Trump and his most loyal supporters are pushing as part of an effort to assert more federal control over elections.
Updated
Trump may be open to deal on DHS funding - report
Senate Republicans believe Donald Trump may be open to a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after a White House meeting Monday night, signaling a shift from his earlier refusal to negotiate without action on the Save America Act.
Lawmakers briefed on the talks said Trump is willing to accept a package that does not fully fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including separating some enforcement funding to win Democratic support, The Hill reported.
Under the proposal, Republicans would later seek additional ICE funding through the budget reconciliation process and attempt to advance elements of the Save America Act in a follow-up bill.
“I think we showed him that we can run a parallel process where we can fund DHS now and have a second reconciliation bill that would put a down payment on some of the Save [America] Act,” said a person familiar with the meeting.
Supreme court to weigh Trump's power to limit asylum processing
The US supreme court is set on Tuesday to hear a defense by president Donald Trump’s administration of the government’s authority to turn away asylum seekers when officials deem US-Mexico border crossings too overburdened to handle more claims, Reuters reports.
The legal dispute centers on a policy called “metering” that the Republican president’s administration may seek to revive after it was dropped by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.
The policy allowed US immigration officials to stop asylum seekers at the border and indefinitely decline to process their claims.
The Trump administration has appealed a lower court’s finding that the policy violated federal law.
This policy is separate from the sweeping ban on asylum at the border that Trump announced after returning to the presidency last year. That policy also faces an ongoing legal challenge.
Under US law, a migrant who “arrives in the United States” may apply for asylum and must be inspected by a federal immigration official.
The narrow legal issue in the current case is whether asylum seekers who are stopped on the Mexican side of the border have arrived in the United States.
US democracy has settled into diminished state, experts find
The health of American democracy, as measured by those who study it most closely, has settled into a diminished state – stabilizing after a sharp decline last year, but still well below the levels recorded at any point before the start of Donald Trump’s second term, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.
The findings, by the nonpartisan democracy-tracking project Bright Line Watch, which surveys hundreds of US scholars at American colleges and universities, suggest that the erosion of norms detected after Trump’s return to the White House last year has hardened into a new baseline.
The public also holds a dim view of American democracy, the most recent survey found, but are sharply divided along partisan lines over how well the system is functioning.
The report draws on two waves of surveys. The first was conducted in late December and early January, a volatile period in which the Trump administration ramped up its immigration crackdown in Minnesota and US military forces bombed Venezuela and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Given the gravity of both events, the researchers opted to field a second survey in February and early March to account for any shifts in perceptions, rather than release potentially outdated findings.
In the initial findings, experts’ views of US democracy rose to 60 on a scale of 100, up from a record-low of 53 in the early months of Trump’s second term.
The researchers suggest the uptick may be attributed to Democrats’ success in a string of off-year elections – a sign that “the playing field had not been tilted against the opposition and that free and fair elections were still possible”, the report states.
Following the toppling of Maduro, experts’ ratings slipped back to prior levels – 56 – and remained consistent in the second survey at 57.
Rubio to testify in ex-congressman's Venezuela foreign agent case
Secretary of state Marco Rubio is expected to testify on Tuesday in former congressman David Rivera’s criminal trial on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s government.
Rubio’s testimony will briefly take him out of Washington, where he has been engaged in high-level diplomacy around president Donald Trump’s war in Iran, and into the federal courthouse in downtown Miami, his hometown and where his political career began, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors say Rivera, who represented southern Florida in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013, lobbied politicians in 2017 to relax pressure on Maduro without disclosing that he was paid $20 million by a subsidiary of a Venezuelan state-owned company, a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Among the politicians both prosecutors and Rivera’s defense lawyers say he met with at the time was Rubio, his onetime roommate and then a senator for Florida.
Rubio and Rivera are both Cuban-American Republicans who have been outspoken critics of left-wing governments in Cuba and Venezuela throughout their careers.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon says ICE agents at airports is 'test run' for polling station rollout
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The former White House strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon has suggested the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at airports is a “test run” for using them at polling stations in the midterms later this year.
Speaking to conservative lawyer Mike Davis on his ‘War Room’ podcast, Bannon asked:
We can use what’s happening with these ICE [officers] helping out at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections, sir?
Davis replied:
Yeah, I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places, because if you’re an illegal alien you can’t vote, right? It’s against the law, it’s a federal crime for you to vote in federal elections.
And so, if you’re an American citizen, you should be happy that ICE is there, because you’re not going to have illegal aliens canceling out your vote.
“Pick ‘em out of line starting today, and maybe the lines will get shorter,” Bannon added, as reported last night by The Hill.
Security lines stretched for hours on Monday at US airports where unpaid Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) screening agents refused to report for duty and ICE agents deployed by Donald Trump were reportedly seen in a dozen cities.
ICE agents were seen at airports such as Atlanta, Newark, New Orleans and New York’s John F Kennedy. CNN reported nine other airports where ICE agents were seen.
In other developments:
The US Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, elevating the Republican senator to a role where he will be among the public faces of Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The Republican controlled chamber confirmed Mullin largely along party lines, with a vote of 54-45. More here.
Donald Trump has claimed there have been talks between the US and Iran over the past day in which the two sides had “major points of agreement”, appearing to avert a potentially severe escalation of the conflict. Tehran has denied the claim, in which Trump also speculated that a deal could soon be done to end the war. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said no talks had been held with the US since the bombing campaign began 24 days ago. More here.
The US supreme court appeared poised to curtail how mail-in ballots can be counted if they arrive after election day, which would affect laws in more than a dozen states during a midterm election year. The justices are considering Watson v Republican National Committee, a challenge over a Mississippi state law that was brought in 2024 by the Republican party. More here.
California attorney general Rob Bonta said he has sued the US energy department to stop it from using a cold-war era law to restart the long-disputed Sable Offshore pipeline system linking the Santa Ynez offshore platform to California refineries. US energy secretary Chris Wright earlier this month restarted the pipelines using powers granted to him by Donald Trump through an executive order that invoked the Defense Production Act to supersede state laws. More here.
Prediction markets are facing fresh bipartisan scrutiny in the US Senate as companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket continue to battle state-led efforts to regulate online betting. A bill was introduced in the US Senate on Monday that would ban federally regulated platforms from allowing wagers on sporting events, what would be a huge blow to marketplaces where billions of dollars have been traded on major events like the Super Bowl and the NCAA’s March Madness. More here.
