Closing summary
With Donald Trump recovering from jet lag in Beijing, we are concluding our live coverage of his second term in office for the day now, but our colleagues in Australia and China will resume live updates in a few hours. Here are the latest developments:
By a vote of 54-45, the Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to be chair of the Federal Reserve for a four-year term. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote in favor of Trump’s pick.
Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate banking committee, slammed Warsh’s confirmation as chair of the Federal Reserve. “Mr Warsh has proven to be a sock puppet for Trump,” she said.
Republican congressman Mike Lawler told reporters that Republican senator Rand Paul’s son William had drunkenly accosted him on Tuesday night at a bar in Washington on Tuesday night, and “said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die”. “I think that’s fucking disgusting,” Lawler added.
For the seventh time, the Senate failed to advance a war powers resolution that would curb military action in Iran. However, the vote, 49-50, was the closest one yet, with more Republican lawmakers voting in favor of the resolution. For the first time, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined her colleagues, Susan Collins and Rand Paul, in voting yes. John Fetterman was again the only Democrat to vote no.
The White House celebrated Donald Trump’s arrival in Beijing with a video that showed his son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara were front and center of his entourage, despite years of complaints from Republicans about Joe Biden bringing his son Hunter to China on Air Force Two to strike business deals.
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Republican congressman Mike Lawler says Rand Paul's son 'said he hates Jews and hates gays' in drunken diatribe
Republican congressman Mike Lawler told reporters on Wednesday that Republican senator Rand Paul’s son William had drunkenly accosted him on Tuesday night at a bar in Washington.
The younger Paul, who recently served as a congressional aide to two of Lawler’s colleagues, went on “a 10-minute diatribe about Jews” at the Tune Inn Restaurant & Bar, the New York congressman said, and “said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die”.
“I think that’s fucking disgusting,” Lawler said.
Details of the incident were first reported earlier on Wednesday by a witness, Reese Gorman of the digital publication Notus, in a remarkable first-hand account.
William Paul, who has been charged at least three times for drunken assault or driving, reportedly told Lawler that he was enraged at “anti-American” Jews for supporting a primary challenge against his father’s libertarian ally, congressman Thomas Massie.
Lawler added that Paul initially told him that he thought he was Jewish. When the Irish and Italian Catholic corrected him, Paul reportedly said: “Oh wow, I’m so sorry for calling you a Jew.”
William Paul’s LinkedIn profile indicates that he spent part of last week in San Diego, attending a conference with the Christian Employers Alliance. His profile photo on the social network shows him pointing approvingly at a statue of Barry Goldwater, whose grandfather was an Orthodox Jew, in the US Capitol.
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