A new blog dawns
We are wrapping up here and moving our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a fresh blog, focused on the president’s much anticipated primetime address, widely expected to concern the 2020 election he just can’t admit he lost. Please join us there for updates and analysis before, during and after the speech.
Here are the latest developments as we sign off here:
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Donald Trump’s wildly false claim that the CHIPS Act, a bipartisan law signed by his predecessor Joe Biden, required firms receiving funding to be run by transgender executives, baffled the law’s author, and set off a scramble to figure out where this entirely untrue claim came from.
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Rather than wait to react, Democratic lawmakers are getting their pre-bunks of Donald Trump’s expected claims about the 2020 election in ahead of time on social media. Maryland senator Angela Alsobrooks framed her comments in the style of a young person concerned about an elderly relative unable to let go of a favorite conspiracy theory. Georgia senator Jon Ossoff said: “Here’s what’s going to happen tonight: the world’s most famous sore loser will deliver a prime time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election”.
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Two of the major broadcast television networks, NBC and ABC, reportedly declined to air Trump’s primetime address live, relegating the president’s remarks to their streaming platforms.
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Senator John Fetterman said he would consider leaving the Democratic party it ever became “the anti-Israel party”, as more than 100 House lawmakers backed halting military aid to Israel over its wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
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In her first press briefing since returning from maternity leave, Karoline Leavitt said that Trump’s findings about alleged interference in the 2020 election “will shock you,” during his televised address to the nation this evening.
Trump's false claim that Biden's CHIPS Act required 'transgender' executives baffles law's author, and she's not the only one
Speaking at an innovation summit in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Donald Trump made a startling claim: the CHIPS Act, the bipartisan law signed by his predecessor Joe Biden, which provided $52bn in subsidies and tax credits to boost the manufacturing of computer chips in the US, required firms accepting funding to be run by transgender executives.
“We had this ridiculous CHIPS Act where you give billions of dollars to a company,” Trump said, “and of course, the standards were so high - if you weren’t transgender, as an example, you didn’t qualify. So they’d get the money, they’d hire, they’d look all over for transgender people to run the company, large portions. They couldn’t find them. They weren’t into the chip making business, I guess, right? They had other things on their mind.”
The president’s claim was startling in large part because it was entirely untrue, as one of the co-authors of the legislation, California congresswoman Doris Matsui noted on social media.
“As one of the architects of the CHIPS Act, let me be clear: Donald Trump is lying,” Matsui wrote in response to video of Trump’s remarks. “He’s deliberately spewing disinformation to incite hatred and divide Americans while attacking one of the most important investments we’ve made in American manufacturing, economic growth, and national security.”
The president’s wildly false claim set off a scramble to figure out what he was talking about, with several competing theories about how he had misread the law circulating online.
The White House has not yet responded to a request to explain the comment, but a look at the text of the law reveals that it does, at various points, refer to a Department of Energy office that was named at the time, the Office of Technology Transitions. Last year, after Trump returned to the presidency, that office, which funds new companies, jobs and technologies, was formally renamed the Office of Technology Commercialization.
Another section of the law says that funding should “give priority to institutions that demonstrate effective strategies to recruit and provide career and technical education to veterans and members of the Armed Forces transitioning to the private sector workforce.”
While no part of the law refers in any way to transgender individuals, the legislation was praised, when it was signed into law in 2022, for a provision that directed the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to address sex-based and sexual harassment in science, technology, engineering and math departments at universities.
Under the law, millions of dollars was to be awarded, “on a competitive basis, to institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations … to expand research efforts to better understand the factors contributing to, and consequences of, sex-based and sexual harassment affecting individuals in the STEM workforce, including students and trainees; and … to examine approaches to reduce the incidence and negative consequences of such harassment.”
'The president is going to go before the American people and repeat his false claims about voter fraud', Maryland senator Angela Alsobrooks says
Rather than wait to react, Democratic lawmakers are getting their pre-bunks of Donald Trump’s expected claims about the 2020 election in ahead of time on social media.
Senator Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, said in a video statement framed as the concerns of a young person indulging an elderly relative who is unable to let go of their favorite conspiracy theory.
“Well tonight, bless his heart, the president is going to go before the American people and repeat his false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election,” Alsobrooks began.
“None of us buy it, and we are not fooled by it. But what we know is that this president is not interested in strengthening the democracy in our country. He is instead interested in preventing eligible Americans from exercising their right to vote,” she continued.
“As we remember the life and legacy of John Lewis, we must remember that the right to vote is sacrosanct. And no matter the number of false claims made by this president, it does not erase the fact that eligible Americans deserve not to have their right to vote blocked or impeded through all of these false claims that really just hope to prevent people from voting by mail,” Maryland’s first Black senator added.
“The attacks on election workers; the raids that have been illegal – all of these actions are designed to prevent Americans from voting, not to prevent those who are not eligible to vote. His actions are designed to prevent Americans from voting,” Alsobrooks also said.
“Let’s let that sink in as we listen to the false claims of this president who, bless his heart, just cannot accept what all of the evidence has shown, is that there is absolutely nothing improper that happened in 2020,” she concluded.
Hard-right figures from around the world have gathered in London for the inaugural British spin-off from America’s influential CPAC gathering, which powered the rise of Donald Trump.
The first CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) GB has been spearheaded by Liz Truss, the former Conservative leader who was the UK’s prime minister for six weeks, as she seeks to rebuild her legacy and influence on the British right.
Keynote speakers included the US rightwing influencer Jack Posobiec, who previously promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as paedophiles.
“The British people must rise up and take back their country,” he said to applause from a few hundred attendees who had paid between £100 and £10,000 for access to the three-day event.
Sponsors include the John Birch Society, the hard-right US advocacy group, AI company Alpha Compute and companies involved in Bitcoin, which will be a major theme on Friday.
Those due to speak in the next two days include Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, and Pauline Hanson, the leader of Australia’s anti-immigration One Nation party whose recent polling has gained her support among the populist right.
Other speakers on Thursday included George Simion, a pro-Trump, Romanian ultranationalist who was narrowly defeated in presidential elections last year. He used a speech to reference far-right slogans such as “remigration” and the “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
“This is not diversity. This is replacement. The answer is remigration. Legal, orderly but firm,” he said.
Georgia senator Jon Ossoff pre-bunks Trump's address as '2020 election denialism' from 'the world’s most famous sore loser'
Amid rumors that Donald Trump plans to claim in a primetime address on Thursday night that the 2020 election was illegitimate, senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat who won his seat in a runoff tied to that election, gave reporters in Washington a preview of what he expects to hear from the president.
Ossoff first noted that Trump’s nominee to become director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, had refused to answer his yes or no question about whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election during his “disqualifying and disastrous” confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
That question, Ossoff said, was particularly important “given the continued misuse of America’s intelligence services and intelligence authorities and personnel by this president in the pursuit of 2020 election denialism and conspiracy theories.”
“Which brings me to the president’s anticipated address this evening,” Ossoff continued. “Here’s what’s going to happen tonight: the world’s most famous sore loser will deliver a prime time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country.”
“I expect the president to reheat debunked conspiracy theories about the repeatedly litigated and audited and confirmed 2020 presidential election in Georgia, an election that Donald Trump lost,” he went on. “And let me be very clear about this: if the President declares Georgia’s election illegitimate, or if the President declares Georgia’s sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate.”
Ossoff then urged the correspondents around him to remind their viewers that Trump was caught in an audio recording of his phone call with Georgia’s Republican secretary of state on 2 January 2021 asking for the results to be changed in Georgia to reverse his loss to Biden.
“It’s Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election; Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud, when he called Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger – and it was caught on tape, and you should play the tape to your viewers today - and badgered and bullied Georgia’s top election official to, quote, ‘find him’ the votes that he needed to win in a state where he had lost.”
Two days after Trump failed to convince Georgia’s secretary of state in that phone call to “find 11,780 votes” for Biden that could be disqualified as fraudulent - which would have handed the state to Trump by a single vote - the president gave a speech at a rally for two incumbent Republican senators forced into a runoff election on 5 January 2021.
Instead of urging voters to support those candidates, Trump undermined faith in the election process by obsessively repeating lies about the presidential election he lost. “Hello, Georgia,” Trump began that night. “By the way, there’s no way we lost Georgia. There’s no way. Rigged—that was a rigged, that was a rigged election, but we’re still fighting it”.
One day later, both incumbent Republican senators lost their seats in the runoff to their Democratic challengers, Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
“Donald Trump lost Georgia in 2020,” Warnock said in a statement on Trump’s speech. “That’s not my opinion, it’s a fact. The votes were counted, recounted, audited, and litigated. He lost, he lost, he lost. But this really isn’t about 2020. It’s about 2026. He is trying to sow doubt on the integrity of our elections in Georgia so that he can create the pretext to interfere in 2026. This president is a liar, a cheater, and a fraud. And he has shown us over and over again that staying in power matters more to him than anything else.”
NBC and ABC will not turn over their airwaves to Trump for 2020 election speech - report
Two of the major broadcast television networks, NBC and ABC, have decided not to air Donald Trump’s primetime address live on Thursday, relegating the president’s remarks, likely to present false claims about the 2020 election he lost, to their streaming platforms, CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter reports.
In statements to Stelter, NBC said it would stream Trump’s remarks on NBC News NOW, and follow the address with a special report unpacking the claims on television; ABC likewise stream the speech on ABC News Live, and could run a special report on television “should significant developments occur”.
Those two networks, and CBS, previously declined to pre-empt their regular broadcast to air what they considered a political speech by then-president Joe Biden, on threats to democracy, in 2022.
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Senator John Fetterman said he would consider leaving the Democratic party it ever became “the anti-Israel party”, as more than 100 House lawmakers backed halting military aid to the Middle Eastern ally over its incursions into Gaza and Lebanon.
The Pennsylvania senator has emerged as one of Israel’s most prominent advocates among Senate Democrats, even as others in the party back away from their traditional support for the country amid accusations that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government committed genocide in Gaza.
“My long term concern has been with the Democratic party, as I am a member of that, is that our party is going to back away and turn their back to Israel,” Fetterman said on Wednesday at an event organized by the Hill and NewsNation.
Nodding to recent primary victories by candidates who oppose aid to Israel, Fetterman said: “I’ve described that if our party ever becomes … the anti-Israel party, you know, that’s when I would leave.”
“That’s been a moral clarity for me,” he added.
While the senator acknowledged some attempts by Republicans to convince him to switch sides, he said he otherwise had no interest in doing so because he disagreed with the majority of the GOP’s policies.
“I’ve been very clear. I am never changing my party, except for that one condition that we just discussed,” Fetterman said. “If I was going to, I would have already done that.”
Trump approval rating stuck at 37% according to new poll, the same level as his 2021 departure
Donald Trump’s approval rating is sitting at 37%, according to a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll. The level is almost identical to his April approval rating, and when he left the White House in 2021 – after losing the presidential election to Joe Biden.
While 81% Republicans surveyed in the poll say they approve of Trump’s performance, only 52% of those who lean-Republican have the same assessment.
As a peace deal with Iran appears increasingly elusive, with renewed back-to-back strikes this week, only 29% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the war.
Here's a recap of the day so far
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In her first press briefing since returning from maternity leave, Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump’s findings about alleged interference in the 2020 election “will shock you,” during his televised address to the nation this evening. “Everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening,” the press secretary added. Leavitt also defended the president’s fixation on the election he lost, despite relentless unsubstaniated claims of fraud, because the “the media has refused to acknowledge that tens of millions of Americans share his concerns about the sanctity of our elections.”
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Leavitt also confimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would continue vehicle stops, despite a back and forth between Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the practice. Federal officers across the US had been told to temporarily stop pulling drivers over after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on 7 July, and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine on Monday. She added that Trump and Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, “are on the same page that vehicle stops are a necessary tool that ICE agents need in order to continuing continue their deportation campaign”.
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The press secretary also confirmed that Trump will attend the Fifa World Cup final in New Jersey on Sunday. “This is a fitting conclusion to a tournament that showcased America’s ability to host the world on the grandest stage,” Leavitt said.
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Earlier, former pardon attorney Liz Oyer blasted Todd Blanche’s testimony during his confirmation hearing to be the next attorney general this week. Oyer said she was fired from the justice department after she refused to recommend restoring the firearm rights to actor and Trump-ally Mel Gibson, who was previously convicted of domestic violence. On Wednesday, Blanche said Oyer’s recommendation did not lead to her termination. “His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents and evidence,” she added. Oyer then urged senators to not “degrade our justice system further” by promoting Blanche.
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Also today, the president’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on a number of Trump’s speeches on the prediction market, Kalshi, according to a report from ABC News. At the briefing room podium today, Leavitt said the president is aware of the investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). “[Trump] believes it’s deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace,” Leavitt said, noting the operator has been put on unpaid administrative leave and there will be a different person running the teleprompter for tonight’s address.
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Despite consecutive days of US strikes on Iran, Leavitt insisted negotiations are not stalled, saying conversations between Tehran and Washington “continue”.
“They want to make a deal with us because they are suffering devastating blows at the hands of the United States military,” she said, echoing the president’s frequent claim that Iran wants to “settle so badly”.
Leavitt defended the strikes as retaliation for Iran violating its memorandum of understanding with the US and for launching attacks on commercial vessels in the strait of Hormuz.
“President Trump is not going to sit by and allow these active acts of terrorism to take place in the strait without ensuring Iran pays consequences for that – and that’s what we are witnessing right now,” she said.
White House confirms that ICE vehicle stops will continue
In response to a question about three men who have been killed by ICE in the past week, Leavitt confimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would continue vehicle stops, despite a back and forth between Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the practice.
The press secretary said that DHS has issued “verbal guidance has been given to all field offices across the country”.
She added that Trump and Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, “are on the same page that vehicle stops are a necessary tool that ICE agents need in order to continuing continue their deportation campaign”.
Federal officers across the US had been told to temporarily stop pulling drivers over after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on 7 July, and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine on Monday. Both men were unarmed, neither was the intended target of the operation that killed him, and in both cases the agents involved wore no body camera to record what had happened.
Leavitt noted that “over half of all ICE field offices” now have body cameras, and the remainder of the field offices are expected within 60 days. However, she blamed the slower rollout on Democratic lawmakers after a DHS shutdown earlier this year over ICE tactics following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis in January.
In response to a report from ABC News that the president’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on a number of Trump’s speeches on the prediction market, Kalshi, the press secretary said the president is aware of the investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC).
“[Trump] believes it’s deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace,” Leavitt said, noting the operator has been put on unpaid administrative leave and there will be a different person running the teleprompter for tonight’s address.
Leavitt insisted there are “very strict ethical guidelines” at the White House that “explicitly state not to do this”.
“The White House Counsel’s office makes that clear to all of us who sign up to work in government on behalf of the president,” she said. “This individual unfortunately violated the plan, and therefore he’s paying the consequences for it.”
Leavitt says that Trump is fixed on 2020 elections because media has 'refused to acknowledge' concerns about 'sanctity' of elections
Fielding questions about the substance of the president’s televised address tonight – specifically reports that Trump plans to unveil new claims of interference in the 2020 election, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud – Leavitt argued that the president remains focused on the results because “the media has refused to acknowledge that tens of millions of Americans share his concerns about the sanctity of our elections.”
She added that Trump’s forthcoming “findings will shock you,” urging viewers to tune in. “Everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening,” she said.
In her opening remarks, Leavitt touted the administration’s arrests of undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes, but notably made no reference to the deaths of the three immigrants killed at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the last week.
Leavitt returns to podium, confirms Trump's attendance at World Cup final
Karoline Leavitt begun her first press conference since returning from maternity leave, and confirmed that Donald Trump will attend the Fifa World Cup final in New Jersey on Sunday.
“This is a fitting conclusion to a tournament that showcased America’s ability to host the world on the grandest stage,” the press secretary said.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is due to hold her first press briefing since returning from maternity leave shortly. As ever, we’ll bring you all the key lines here.
Trump administration revives rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits
The Trump administration is reviving a rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, and even housing assistance.
The policy, known as “public charge”, appeared today in the Federal Register and will be formally published on 20 July, the Associated Press reports.
The so-called “public charge” test is an immigration screening tool used to determine whether applicants for permanent residence are likely to rely on government support.
The policy was first implemented in February 2020 as one of Donald Trump’s moves to limit legal immigration during his first administration, but it was limited under Joe Biden in 2022.
The move will directly place hundreds of thousands of green card holders under broader scrutiny each year, according to CBS News, which was first to report the move.
As CBS News notes, it could also trigger a broader ripple effect if immigrant families avoid healthcare, food, or housing assistance - even when they or their US-citizen children legally qualify - out of fear that tapping into those benefits could ultimately hurt their immigration cases.
The federal government “is reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources and ending policies that encouraged dependency on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers,” US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post on X.
Under President Trump, USCIS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves.
Under the policy, applicants for green cards have to show they wouldn’t be burdens to the country or “public charges”.
The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, Mike Collins, who has been plagued by a string of controversies in his time in public office, has close ties with a white nationalist influencer – his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II – CNN reports.
A trucking executive and one-time “Freedom caucus” conservative endorsed by Donald Trump, Collins has been the GOP representative for Georgia’s 10th congressional district since 2023. In that time, the anti-abortion hardliner has drawn scrutiny over his associations with far-right and extremist figures, incendiary social media activity and accusations of antisemitism, which he has denied. He has also denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election and defended January 6 rioters, who he has said deserved pardons.
Collins won the Republican nomination in June, but enters the race as an underdog in a state that Trump won in 2024, against rising Democratic star Jon Ossoff in November’s midterm elections.
Scheer, who is married to Collins’s daughter Summer, is a pro-white nationalist and social media influencer with a history of sharing antisemitic material and sentiment and Nazi imagery on the internet. Among them are posts from the neofascist, white supremacist hate group Patriot Front, which descended on Washington DC this Fourth of July wearing white masks and brandishing the Confederate flag.
According to CNN, Scheer is registered to vote at a Collins-owned property in Georgia, has been featured in Collins’s campaign photos, and was at Collins’s victory party after he won the Republican primary in June.
On social media, Scheer has over 1.5 million followers across platforms TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram, where he posts about fitness, Christianity and masculinity. He has promoted white nationalist ideology, shared antisemitic conspiracy theories and Nazi propaganda, called for Muslims to be deported and shared an antisemitic infographic, which he said his wife made.
On a podcast last November, Scheer warned that white people were being driven toward extinction and said restoring an America populated by people of white European descent would require “clearing our land of other people”. He later pushed for keeping Somalis, Mexicans and Nigerians in their home countries so he could “enjoy my slice of this world with my people”. Scheer also blamed “Israel and Zionist Jews” for policies he said were intended to “undermine the white, Christian nature of America”. He also said: “I do believe that the more homogenous a culture is, the more it thrives.”
He recently asked his followers to vote on a poll whether he should make a video on “why Gen-Z doesn’t hate Hitler”. He later deleted it but CNN saved it. He has also invoked the antisemitic “Jewish Bolsheviks” conspiracy theory, which falsely portrayed communism and the Bolshevik revolution as a Jewish plot. It was embraced by the Nazis, who scapegoated Jews as to blame for Germany’s socio-economic collapse after the first world war.
Within a YouTube comment section from a video posted in November 2025, Scheer liked a comment in German quoting a 1930s marching song co-opted by the Nazis called “Erika”. In English it translates to, “On the heath, there blooms a little flower.”
In an Instagram post from June 2025, Scheer posted a meme of a family cradling a baby with an eagle in the background, with a text overlay reading: “I want to make babies Not die for Israel.” The caption reads: “If you haven’t noticed, we all have a common enemy.” The image used comes from a 1930s Nazi propaganda and recruitment poster, which features a quote that translates to: “The Nazi Party protects the people’s community.”
We have reached out to Collins’s campaign for comment. In a statement to CNN, it did not address questions regarding Scheer and his social media activity. A spokesperson for Collins said: “Rep. Collins’ lifelong support for Israel is unquestionable and backed by his consistent record in Congress of standing up for Israel and her people.”
The Guardian has reached out to Scheer for comment.
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Candidates vying to replace Platner in Maine Senate race take part in televised debate
Before Donald Trump delivers a televised address to the nation at 9pm ET tonight, Mainers will be able to watch eight candidates vying to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race.
This comes after Platner ended his scandal-plagued campaign last week, after a former partner accused him of sexual assault.
Now, the Maine Democratic party has been scrambling to find an alternative. Several people have filed paperwork to be considered at a 25 July convention of 601 delegates who will select the new nominee.
First, the candidates will need to collect 500 signatures to get on the convention ballot by Monday, and at least 50 of those will need to be from eight different counties.
Tonight, those making their case in the televised debate include Jordan Wood, a former congressional staffer who unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary for Maine’s second congressional district. Also on stage will be three candidates who lost out on the Democratic gubernatorial nomination: Troy Jackson, a logger and former state lawmaker; Nirav Shah, the former Maine CDC director; and Shenna Bellows, the current secretary of state.
Dan Kleban, founder of the Maine Beer Company, who initially ran in the Senate race against Platner but withdrew well before the primary, will also take part in the debate.
Kleban’s campaign, however, issued a statement criticizing News Center Maine’s rules for taking part, and splitting up the event into two sections. The local station has said that in order to debate in the 7pm-8pm hour, candidates need to have secured at least 20% of the vote in last month’s primaries.
“We believe the criteria for splitting up the candidates is deeply flawed and punishes someone like Dan who is not a career politician,” Kleban’s campaign wrote. “It punishes Dan for not losing a completely unrelated race last month.”
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One quick note, Bensky and many of the survivors who are in the Senate hearing room today are wearing butterfly brooches in honor of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most vocal and public Epstein accusers who took her own life last year.
Bensky acknowledged Giuffre’s “monumental” contribution to the overall Epstein investigation into the late sex-offender’s crimes and accomplices. “I think it would be unfair to not name her because her deposition holds the key to quite a few things,” Bensky added.
Bensky also said that neither she nor her team have received communication from justice department following Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing yesterday, after he said that a staffer would reach out to survivors of Epstein’s abuse.
“The DoJ has never followed up in 30 years with any of us. There is a lot in the files right now that you should be investigating and looking into,” Bensky added. “This case was never handled correctly from the beginning.”
As I noted earlier, Dani Bensky – a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse –is speaking before the Senate judiciary committee about Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general.
Blensky criticized the acting attorney general for meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell despite not sitting down with survivors.
“According to public reporting, Mr Blanche spent approximately nine hours meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell. He did not even spend nine minutes meeting with a survivor,” Blensky said.
She also recounted her experiences when the justice department accidentally revealed identifying details of several Epstein survivors in when they released files related to his crimes.
“Crime victims deserve better from the nation’s highest level of law enforcement officials,” Bensky added.
Former pardon attorney slams Blanche nomination for AG: 'Do not degrade our justice system further'
Speaking in front of senators on the judiciary committee today, Liz Oyer blasted Todd Blanche’s Wednesday testimony.
“I declined to rubber stamp a political favor for a friend of the president, and it cost me my job,” the former US pardon attorney told lawmakers about her firing after she refused to recommend restoring the firearm rights to actor and Trump-ally Mel Gibson, who was previously convicted of domestic violence.
Trump’s nominee to lead the justice department said that Oyer’s reccommendation last year did not lead to her termination. “The decisions that she had made as pardon attorney in the weeks and months leading up to the end of President Biden’s term were completely inconsistent with President Trump’s authority,” Blanche insisted.
Today, Oyer said that the acting attorney general’s comments were “provably false”.
“His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents and evidence,” she added.
Oyer urged senators to not “degrade our justice system further” by promoting Blanche.
“To the American public, it looks like Mr Blanche is running the DoJ as Donald Trump’s personal law firm,” she said. “He is using law enforcement powers to pursue petty grudges harbored by the president. These pointless vendettas are wasting our scarce resources and destroying [the] DoJ’s credibility.”
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The second day of Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing to be the next attorney general has begun.
Today, we’ll hear from several expert witnesses about Blanche’s ability to serve as the nation’s top prosecutor. Dani Bensky, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, is among those speaking, along with Liz Oyer – the former US pardon attorney who says she was fired after Donald Trump returned to office last year because she refused to recommend restoring firearm rights to Mel Gibson, the actor and prominent presidential ally who received probation for a 2011 domestic‑violence conviction.
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The average price of diesel fuel in the US has increased again to more than $5 a gallon, according to the AAA, and the average price of gas is almost $4, returning to their highs before the June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
It’s a reminder to consumers and truckers of the costs of the Iran war and the unpredictable rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran. A year ago today, the AAA says, the average price for a gallon of diesel was $3.72, almost a dollar and a quarter less than it is now.
The renewed diplomatic uncertainty and new US and Iranian airstrikes are driving prices higher both at the pump and on the international wholesale markets.
The price of a barrel of oil stands at about $81. That’s still down from the highs during the most intense part of Trump’s war in Iran but wholesale prices recently have been driven by erratic news from the White House.
Trump nominee to lead labor department faces senators in confirmation hearing
At 10am ET, Keith Sonderling will face lawmakers on the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee for his confirmation hearing to be the new labor secretary.
A reminder that the former department head, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned in April after a series of misconduct allegations including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking on the job.
Sonderling has been serving as acting labor secretary since Chavez-DeRemer stepped down, a role he took on after being confirmed as deputy secretary in March 2025.
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Also today, we’ll hear from press secretary Karoline Leavitt at 1pm ET. She will hold her first briefing since returning from parental leave earlier this year.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. His 9.30am ET meeting with Darline Graham, the sister of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, will be closed to the press. His 11am ET meeting with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who has developed a strong relationship with the Trump White House, won’t be open to reporters either. We’ll let you know if the guidance on either of these change and bring you the latest lines.
At 9pm ET we’ll be covering the president’s televised address to the nation, which will be broadcast from the East Room.
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Donald Trump said Wednesday Iran had agreed to release an American citizen who has been “wrongfully detained” since December 2024.
“She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition,” Trump wrote on social media, without naming the woman. “The United States of America appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran!”
Trump’s announcement came as the US launched fresh strikes on Iran. The woman is Dena Karari, a dual American and Iranian citizen, her lawyer Jared Genser announced on social media.
Genser said that he was “excited to report” that Karari, who was banned from leaving Iran after visiting her family in 2024, “is now safe and traveling back to the United States”.
“This would not have happened but for the extraordinary and relentless efforts” of the president, he added.
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Critics say the Trump administration acted under the “cover of darkness” to replace an exhibit exploring the lives of nine enslaved people who lived at George Washington’s Philadelphia home with a version that is overly sympathetic to enslavers and that whitewashes the country’s origins.
The installation of new information panels followed a six-month fight between the city of Philadelphia and the Trump administration over an enslavement memorial at the former home of Washington and John Adams.
The National Park Service (NPS) removed the original panels on 22 January 2026 to conform with Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” issued on 27 March 2025. After the city of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit against the federal government, Judge Cynthia M Rufe ordered the original panels to be reinstated on 16 February. NPS then reinstalled half of the exhibit, and the site remained in limbo for several months. The federal government appealed to the US third circuit, which ruled in mid-June that the exhibit could be replaced. On 3 July, a three-judge panel declared that the Trump administration could install new panels.
By the early morning of 15 July, the NPS had replaced the original exhibit – which told the story of the nine enslaved people who served George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when the US capital temporarily moved to Philadelphia – with new panels the Trump administration contends gives a fuller picture of the nation’s origins.
“Overnight, under the cover of darkness, the federal government removed panels at the President’s House that told a thorough history of Philadelphia,” said Cherelle L Parker, the city’s mayor, in a statement. “It was allowed to do this by the decision of the federal court, but that it did so at night shows it understands this action is shameful, that it violates community trust.”
Brazil has condemned the US decision to impose 25% tariffs on certain Brazilian products, after the Trump administration found a range of what it deemed unfair trade practices by the South American country.
“The Brazilian government repudiates the decision announced today by the United States government regarding the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Brazilian products,” the office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a statement on X, denying it had engaged in unfair trade practices.
The tariffs, which were first proposed last month, will take effect on 22 July. The order exempts some goods not produced in the US or that officials worry would disrupt supply chains. They include coffee, beef, oranges and orange juice, some oil and gas energy products and aerospace parts and components.
The office of the US trade representative said it concluded after a year-long investigation that Brazil had a range of unfair trade practices, including lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other practices seen as unreasonable and unfair.
The US, however, has had a goods trade surplus with Brazil for years.
Friedrich Merz has warned Donald Trump’s administration against interfering in German elections after the US state department announced a scheme to fund Maga-aligned causes in Europe.
The German chancellor was responding to a US initiative offering grants of up to $3m (£2.2m) for European charities, thinktanks and individuals.
The funding will be for those seeking to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law and our common western civilizational heritage”.
Amid growing concerns that the US is seeking to directly influence European politics, Merz said he did not want the US to interfere in German state elections in September.
“For our part, we do not interfere in American elections,” he told a press conference on Wednesday. “Conversely, I do not want the American government or institutions close to the government to interfere in German elections.”
Former US officials say the grant scheme is part of a months-long effort by the state department to repurpose US government funds to support far-right groups and potentially political parties in Europe.
Trump to deliver primetime speech on election security
Donald Trump plans to deliver a primetime speech today focused on election security, bringing renewed attention to his long-running complaints about voting systems and election administration.
The White House was deciding whether the president’s remarks would include the disclosure of sensitive intelligence related to China’s intention or ability to interfere in the 2020 US election, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing four sources.
Some Trump officials worried the information could be misleading, sources said. Trump has spent years sowing doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely asserting that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.
He has also advanced other false claims, including that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and non-citizen voting is widespread.
“As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what president Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. “The truth is, nobody knows yet what president Trump will ultimately say.”
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Trump to meet Darline Graham at White House later today
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump is due to meet Darline Graham - the sister of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who was sworn in to temporarily fill his Senate seat – later today.
The president will meet with the new senator, just five days after her brother’s sudden death, in the Oval Office at 9.30am local time. Graham was appointed on Tuesday by Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s governor, to fill the remainder of her brother Lindsey’s current term.
Lindsey died on Saturday night, aged 71, after what his office called a “brief and sudden illness”. The chief medical examiner then preliminarily ruled on Sunday that he died of aortic dissection due to cardiovascular disease. With the backing of Trump, Darline was swiftly appointed to serve the remaining months of his Senate term, which ends on 3 January.
In brief remarks at a press conference on Monday, Darline said it was an “honor” to replace her older brother – who became her legal guardian after their parents died when she was a girl – in the Senate. She said he had always been there for her and vowed: “Now, I will be there for him.”
“I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States,” she said. “I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted, and I plan to honor him in this way.”
At the time of his death, Graham was seeking a fifth Senate term, having won the Republican nomination only last month. The state GOP will hold a separate special election on 11 August to choose a new Senate nominee, who will face off against Democrat Annie Andrews in the November midterms.
The US president is scheduled to meet the El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele, at 11am local time, also in the Oval Office.
In other developments:
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103 House Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as accusations that Israel’s government carried out a genocide in Gaza are gaining more traction in the party.
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Two of Donald Trump’s nominees for powerful positions, Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton, buckled under pressure during their confirmations hearings. Blanche, the acting attorney general, described himself as Trump’s lawyer, before correcting himself. Clayton, the would-be national intelligence director, refused to say who won the 2020 election when asked by the senator Jon Ossoff.
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Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law requiring the release of investigative files on the late child sexual abuse offender Jeffrey Epstein, introduced a sequel that would allow state officials, victims and members of Congress to sue the attorney general over withheld records.
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In an interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, JD Vance discounted the conspiracy theory that Trump’s long association with Epstein had been used by Israel to blackmail the president into attacking Iran.
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The treasury department announced on Wednesday that the US Mint has started producing a new commemorative $1 coin featuring Donald Trump as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
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