Closing summary
We are pausing our live coverage of the second Trump administration here, at the end of an unusually quiet day. Here are some of the latest developments:
Although he spent a rare day out of sight of the cameras, Donald Trump once again attacked Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman from Kentucky who has defied the president’s efforts to draw attention away from the unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files. “This is not a hoax” Massie told a reporter. “If it were a hoax a man wouldn’t have killed himself, and there wouldn’t be a woman in jail”.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, confirmed that the entire deployment of 700 active-duty US marines is being withdrawn from Los Angeles.
Citing concerns over possible violations of bribery laws, senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden wrote on Monday to David Ellison, whose company Skydance is about to buy CBS owner Paramount, to ask if he struck a “secret side deal” with Trump in exchange for federal approval of the purchase, or played any part in the decision to cancel Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s CBS show.
A federal judge sentenced an ex-Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the 2020 deadly raid on Breonna Taylor’s home, declining a justice department recommendation that he be given no prison time.
Three Democratic senators, Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal want Delta’s chief executive to explain the airline’s plan to shift away from listing set fares for flights to a ‘surveillance pricing’ model, in which each customer will be asked to pay the highest possible fare they are likely to agree to, based on an AI analysis of their personal data.
White House border czar Tom Homan said that immigration officials will escalate operations in New York and other so-called sanctuary cities. “Sanctuary cities are now our priority,” Homan said. “We’re gonna flood the zone.” It was at least the thirteenth time Homan had threatened to “flood the zone” with federal immigration officers in a city run by Democratic elected officials since May.
As Trump stays out of sight, House Republicans pause legislative business to avoid talking about Epstein
Although he spent a rare day out of sight of the cameras on Monday, Donald Trump once again attacked Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman from Kentucky who has defied the president’s efforts to draw attention away from the unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files by introducing a petition that could compel their release.
Writing on social media, Trump insulted Massie, as “lazy, slow moving and totally disingenuous – a real loser”, and urged someone to run against him in next year’s Republican primary.
The president’s attack came as the House was essentially stalled by the Republican leadership’s determination not to push forward with any legislative business that could offer Democrats a chance to propose amendments on the Epstein files.
Earlier on Monday, Massie told the independent reporter Pablo Manríquez that Trump’s base was so interested in seeing what is in the files from the federal investigations of Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, “because he promised it, his kids promised it, his attorney general promised it, his FBI director promised it.”
“This is not a hoax,” he added. “If it were a hoax a man wouldn’t have killed himself,” Massie said, pausing to indicate air quotes with his free hand. “And there wouldn’t be a woman in prison. This is not a hoax. They have more information than they have released, and that’s what the American people want to see.”
Later, Manu Raju of CNN asked Massie why he thinks the administration won’t release more information on Epstein.
“I think it’s embarrassing to the intelligence community” Massie said. “It may be embarrassing to the President’s friends. I’m not particularly implicating the President himself. I don’t allege him of any wrongdoing, but I do believe that there are some things that need to be brought to the American public’s knowledge that have happened that will be embarrassing”.
Updated
