'Maybe LeBron is a racist', Trump says to explain why NBA star dislikes him
Asked by a Fox News correspondent in the Oval Office on Friday where he stands on the question of whether LeBron James or Michael Jordan is the greatest ever basketball player, Donald Trump chose to answer an entirely different question: which NBA great likes him better?
“Well, Michael Jordan’s a gut that’s a friend of mine,” Trump began, turning the subject to himself.
“I play golf with him; he’s a really good guy. And I think LeBron is- maybe he’s a racist. But maybe he doesn’t like Trump, I don’t know,” the president continued, clearly still irked by LeBron James having called him a “bum” nine years ago, in a social media post after Trump cancelled a White House visit by that year’s NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors, because their star guard, Steph Curry, said he would not go. “Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” James posted at the time.
“I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way,” Trump said.
Asked at the time why he did not want to go to the Trump White House, Curry said the message was: “That we don’t stand for basically what our president has- the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said at the right times, that we won’t stand for it.”
“By acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country, what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye toward,” he added.
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'I'm not in a hurry': Trump bats down concerns of Iran war impacting midterms
Donald Trump batted down concerns that the ongoing Iran war – which has seen 13 days of consecutive strikes – could cost Republicans control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.
“Despite what everybody says about the election I’m not in a hurry,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”
In response to the Trump’s vow to inflict “major military punishment” for Tehran, the president said that the White House continues to speak with Iran.
“I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by,” Trump said. “We can take that to a much higher level if we want to. You know, we’re prepared to do that, as you know. We’re locked and loaded … we’ll see what comes of it.”
Notably, Trump declined to answer when New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh asked whether threats to bomb bridges and other civilian infrastructure in Iran would amount to war crimes.
At the White House today, Donald Trump announced that the US now has three nuclear reactors which have reached “criticality” –the state where the reactor’s chain reaction sustains itself without additional input.
Later, when asked about the new condition he placed on the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal that requires the kingdom to join the Abraham Accords, the president said “it’s a two-way street, and we think it’s very important for the future of the Middle East”.
Here's a recap of the day so far
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Two US small businesses have sued the Trump administration over its latest round of tariffs, affecting more than 80 countries and aimed at targeting countries that engage in forced labor. According to the lawsuit filed in the US court of international trade by Liberty Justice Center – the same organization that challenged Trump’s tariffs that the top court struck down – the plaintiffs argue that Trump’s latest round of duties require more detailed country-specific findings about “forced labor” to be legally justified.
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Meanwhile, Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with “substantial” tariffs after Brussels imposed a series of steep fines on US tech companies. In a post on his Truth Social, the president wrote: “The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!” It comes days after Google was fined €890m ($1bn) by the EU after its search and app store services were found to have breached online competition laws.
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Trump also said that in recent meetings with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, both leaders assured the US president separately that they would not sell weapons to Iran. The president added: “Two major countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them – certainly not in their best interests.”
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Later today, Trump will address the White House Correspondents’ Association at a rescheduled dinner later today, nearly three months after a shooting at the Washington Hilton hotel interrupted the event. The replanned dinner on Friday will only have around 700 guests, compared to the roughly 2,600 that attended in April, and will have enhanced security according to the Secret Service. More here.
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On Saturday, Maine Democrats will hold a special convention to select a nominee to replace Graham Platner for the US Senate race in November. Troy Jackson – a logger, longtime legislator and former president of the Maine senate – is now poised to clinch the nomination. Last weekend, all of Jackson’s serious challengers in the breakneck race to find a nominee dropped out, clearing a swift and unobstructed path for him.
Two US small businesses sue Trump administration over latest round of tariffs
Two US small businesses have sued the Trump administration over its latest round of tariffs, affecting more than 80 countries and aimed at targeting countries that engage in forced labor.
These, in effect, replace the blanket 10% tariff that Trump imposed in February, right after the supreme court declared many of his earlier tariffs were illegal.
However, according to the lawsuit filed in the US court of international trade by Liberty Justice Center – the same organization that challenged Trump’s tariffs that the top court struck down –the plaintiffs argue that Trump’s latest round of duties require more detailed country-specific findings about “forced labor” to be legally justified.
The businesses pursuing the case are Burlap and Barrell, a spice importer based in New York, and Collective Horology, a watchmaker based in California.
The complaint argues that Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which the administration has used to implement the tariffs, is “arbitrary and capricious” and asks the court to order the US trade representative to “set aside” and block the levies under the statute.
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Trump threatens retaliation after Google is hit with $1bn fine from EU regulators
Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with “substantial” tariffs after Brussels imposed a series of steep fines on US tech giants.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president wrote: “The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!”
It comes days after Google was fined €890m ($1bn) by the EU after its search and app store services were found to have breached online competition laws.
The US will “immediately” launch an investigation “into the practice of ‘ROBBING’ American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer”, Trump said. “The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about.”
Donald Trump complained that the US was “disinvited” to today’s bridge opening in Canada, adding that his administration has “changed the terms of the deal” so that the US receives half of all profits from it due to his tariffs.
Canada on Friday celebrated the completion of a new bridge to the US over the Detroit River, a multibillion-dollar, multiyear project that will serve as a critical path for trade and casual travel between the countries.
“Canada disinvited the United States of America to the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, which is fine, considering they are paying substantial TARIFFS to the United States, but the original Deal on the Bridge, which was terribly negotiated by a previous Administration, no longer stands,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We changed the terms of the Deal so that the United States of America now gets 50% of the Profit.”
The event was originally intended to be a celebration with officials from both countries, but Canada retracted the invite after Trump announced the 50% tariffs on Canadian goods.
Donald Trump will host executives from several advanced nuclear reactor companies at the White House on Friday to celebrate an industry milestone, according to Bloomberg.
The chief executive officers of privately held firms Antares Nuclear Inc., Deployable Energy, Aalo Atomics, and Valar Atomics Inc. will join Trump in the Oval Office following the successful startup of their experimental reactors.
A White House official told Bloomberg that the companies’ test reactors reached “criticality” – the pivotal stage where a nuclear fission chain reaction becomes self-sustaining and releases steady energy. According to administration officials, these projects represent the first privately funded, non-light-water advanced reactors to achieve criticality in the US in over 40 years.
Two dozen states are suing the White House for politicizing Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) disaster aid.
A group of 25 Democratic attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta are taking the Trump administration to court for imposing “unlawful” conditions on federal grants for disaster preparedness and response.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Fema have been placing stipulations on federal grants that amount to a “campaign of coercion” designed to force states to adopt the White House’s preferred voting and immigration policies, says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday.
Those requirements, which have been imposed on more than $740m in combined funding for disaster preparedness and counter-terrorism, include mandating states employ a federal system to verify the citizenship of all voters and conduct post-election audits.
Read more:
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East on our dedicated live blog. This includes the latest news that Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
As my colleague Lucy Campbell notes, since Trump’s return to the White House last year, the two have already met six times, but this will be the first such meeting in five months. At the last one in February, Netanyahu made the case for the joint offensive against Iran that Trump launched with him weeks later.
Trump says China and Russia gave assurances they would not sell weapons to Iran
Donald Trump said that in recent meetings with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, both leaders assured the US president separately that they would not sell weapons to Iran.
“Considering our relationship, I take him at his word,” Trump said of the Chinese leader. Meanwhile, the US president said that the Kremlin made the same guarantees, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. Putin understands that the US does not sell weapons to Ukraine, “but to Nato countries”, Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. “They pay full price, and how those weapons are distributed, I have no idea.”
The president added: “Two major countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them – certainly not in their best interests.”
Troy Jackson poised to win Democratic nomination for Maine Senate seat after breakneck
On Saturday, Maine Democrats will hold a special convention to select a nominee to replace Graham Platner for the US Senate race in November.
Troy Jackson – a logger, longtime legislator and former president of the Maine senate – is now poised to clinch the nomination. When Platner dropped out of the race earlier this month, following sexual assault allegations, it set off a frantic scramble inside the Maine Democratic party. Several contenders filed paperwork to be considered at a 25 July special convention of 601 delegates tasked with selecting a new nominee. But last weekend, all of Jackson’s serious challengers dropped out one after another, clearing a swift and unobstructed path for him.
I’ll be in Bangor for the convention and bring you the latest from the glamorous Cross Insurance Center where the delegates will gather!
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Embattled Platner adviser says prior controversies 'should have been enough' to end his campaign
Morris Katz, the former adviser to Graham Platner, has said that “knowing what we know now”, many of the ex-nominee’s controversies throughout the year “should have been enough” to end his campaign for the US Senate in Maine.
His comments are part of an interview with the New York Time, his first major-sitdown since Platner’s campaign imploded earlier this month.
Katz, as well as two other consultants who helped cherrypick Platner as the insurgent Democratic candidate, were left defeated when Platner dropped out of the race two weeks ago, after a former partner accused him of rape. Questions also circled around how thoroughly vetted the oysterman and marine veteran with no political experience was.
“The conversation around the vetting – there is no standard vetting process that would have found the credible allegation that ended the campaign. Eric Swalwell served on the House Intelligence Committee for about a decade and then saw similar allegations end his campaign,” Katz said in an interview with the New York Times.
“That being said, in hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts alone probably should have been enough – or should have been enough. The tattoo should have been enough. The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough,” the media strategist said, referring to the litany of controversies that plagued Platner’s run ahead of Politico story which alleged that Platner forced a woman he dated to have sex nearly five years ago, despite repeated objections.
Represenatives Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal, will visit the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis today to conduct a congressional oversight visit.
The Democratic lawmakers are visiting the site of sustained protests earlier this year against the immigration crackdown that swept the state of Minnesota, and resulted in the fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal immigration agents.
Omar, who represents a district that includes Minneapolis, was sprayed with an unidentified substance by a man with a syringe as she gave her first in-person town hall of the year during the federal immigration surge in her state.
It’s worth noting that a Harris Poll survey for the Guardian found earlier this year that 70% of Americans have reported paying more due to tariffs, and a majority of voters, including 60% of Republicans, say tariffs have had a negative effect on consumers.
Some Republicans applauded Trump’s latest announcement, including Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri and the chair of the House of Representatives ways and means committee, its chief tax-writing committee.
“True to its word, the Trump administration is fighting for American families, farmers and small businesses – as well as American values – when it comes to our trading relationships,” said Smith. “Holding accountable those countries that are not doing nearly enough to rid their supply chains of goods produced with forced labor is appropriate to address unfair trading practices that put American workers at a competitive disadvantage.”
But John Cornyn, a Republican senator from Texas, also raised concern about the effect of the tariffs on Americans. Cornyn is leaving the US Senate at this end of this term, after his Trump-endorsed rival, Ken Paxton, won the Republican nomination for his seat.
“There’s no question that tariffs on imports raise prices on American products,” Cornyn told The Hill. “So yeah, I’m concerned about that.”
After the US completed its 13th consecutive night of air strikes against Iran on Thursday, Brent Crude, the international benchmark for oil, dropped to $97.71.
It hit $100 yesterday amid fears around the conflict in the Middle East, particularly over Houthi threats to block Saudi Arabian naval ports.
The fall in oil prices comes after Trump said in an interview with Axios on Thursday that he was “considering a massive attack” against Iran.
Meanwhile US gas prices are still stuck at $4.1, a dollar higher than they were a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
The replanned White House correspondents’ dinner on Friday will only have around 700 guests, compared to the roughly 2,600 that attended in April.
As my colleague Robert Tait reports, the event will go ahead with enhanced security after the original dinner was thrown into chaos when a California resident Cole Tomas Allen, unsuccessfully tried to force his way into the ballroom where hundreds of journalists, along with Trump and his cabinet, were eating.
He was tackled by Secret Service agents, one of whom was wounded in an exchange of fire, in an area one floor above where the dinner was taking place.
Trump and other VIPs were evacuated from the scene and the dinner abandoned, after an initial attempt to resume. Allen was subsequently charged with trying to assassinate the president and assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon.
Notable absentees on Friday will be the first lady, Melania Trump, the vice-president, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, all of whom attended the original dinner.
Fox News Digital, citing a White House spokesperson, said their absences were due to “prior commitments”.
Other members of the cabinet are expected to attend, the same outlet reported.
Donald Trump is in Washington today.
We’ll hear from him at 3pm ET, when he makes an announcement about American nuclear innovation. Then we’ll see him later this evening when he attends the rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. As we noted earlier, that the original event had to be postponed after a shooting took place outside the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel.
The Trump administration continues to expand its authoritarian and radical drive to revamp voting rules and seize state election powers, though it faces growing resistance from US courts, state officials and Democrats, who warn the moves are sparking “chaos” and endangering voting rights and the rule of law.
Donald Trump’s unprecedented drive to change election rules, which states legally set, is fueled by his obsession with his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, which he falsely attributes to voting fraud, coupled with his fear that Democrats will “find a reason to impeach me” if they take control of the House in November’s midterms elections, say former election officials and legal experts.
Given Trump’s dark mindset, his administration has used justice department legal moves and threats, FBI raids and investigations, and other federal agencies to coerce states to change voting rules in key ways, including curtailing voting by mail and machines that Trump and Maga allies have vilified, baselessly, as riddled with fraud.
Legal experts say the administration is intimidating election workers and voters before the November elections, and laying the groundwork for potentially challenging election results where Republican candidates lose to ensure the GOP keeps control of Congress.
Trump returns to White House correspondents' dinner after April attack halted gala
President Donald Trump will address the White House Correspondents’ Association at a rescheduled dinner later today, nearly three months after a shooting at the Washington Hilton hotel interrupted the event.
The black-tie gathering of journalists, politicians and administration officials was called off on 25 April after a man tried to force his way through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun outside the ballroom where Trump and members of his cabinet were taking their seats.
The suspect, Cole Allen, pleaded not guilty in May to charges including attempting to assassinate the president. The dinner has been moved to the Waldorf Astoria hotel and will take place under heightened security.
Secret Service director Sean Curran told reporters that an advance team was implementing a comprehensive security plan at the hotel.
“We do expect bad people to show up,” Curran said. “It’s just a reality of where we are, but we’re treating it no differently than any other site that the president goes to.”
The April incident occurred during Trump’s first presidential appearance at the correspondents’ dinner. He had boycotted the event in his previous years in office.
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What to know about Trump’s new tariffs on more than 80 countries
Just before a temporary levy on global imports was set to expire, the Trump administration issued a fresh wave of tariffs on more than 80 countries late on Thursday, ranging from 10% to 12.5%. The new tariffs take effect Friday morning.
It’s Donald Trump’s latest effort to continue imposing global levies without congressional approval, despite the supreme court ruling in February that found the US president had illegally used his executive power to implement his global trade policies. Trump has long maintained that the US has been paying more than its fair share in tariffs, and that increased duties are necessary to boost American manufacturing and jobs.
Here’s what to know about Trump’s latest round of tariffs:
‘Forced labour’ rationale for fresh tariffs met with bewilderment
Donald Trump has once again inspired anger and confusion in US allies and trading partners as he imposed a wave of tariffs on more than 80 countries, replacing an expiring global duty introduced earlier this year.
The new measures effectively replace blanket 10% tariffs that Trump imposed in February. The US supreme court ruled many of those were illegal. The new levies come in at between 10% and 12.5% on countries including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and the 27 countries that make up the EU.
They are imposed under section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, and the Trump administration has said the new measures are due to the dozens of countries failing to enforce bans on goods produced by forced labor.
The imposition of the new tariffs led to Asian stock markets taking a hammering overnight. The Japanese Nikkei 225 fell 3.1%, while the Chinese SSE Composite dropped 1.4%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was the most heavily hit, down 11.4%, while the South Korean Kospi, which is dominated by its major semiconductor companies, slumped 6.2%.
It was more of a mixed picture in Europe as trading began on Friday, with the Stoxx 600, which tracks the biggest companies on the continent, dropping 0.7% before steadying to a fall of 0.1%. France’s Cac 40 initially fell almost 1% before moving into positive territory, up 0.12%.
Similarly, Germany’s Dax fell 8% before erasing losses to climb 0.51%. In the UK the FTSE 100 index rose 0.28% in early trading. For many officials digesting the news on Friday, the US rationale was hard to swallow.
“You can’t say that for the European Union,” its foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on the sidelines of the Asean meeting in Manila. “If you compare our labour laws to the ones of the United States, I mean, we have paid vacations, we have very good labour conditions for our employees, so it’s not really grounded.”
Trump's latest tariffs draw criticism from Democrats and concerns from his allies
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump’s move to impose a fresh round of tariffs on more than 80 countries has drawn criticism from both Democratic politicians and his own allies.
Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, announced that the Trump administration “is imposing tariffs on more than 80 countries for their failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor”.
The tariffs will replace a 10% global duty that was due to expire for supposedly failing to crack down on forced labor. However, congresswoman Linda Sánchez, a California Democrat, denounced the pretext for the new tariffs as a sham.
“President Trump isn’t serious about combating forced labor. He’s trying to make an end-run around the Supreme Court and Congress to reimpose his illegal tariffs,” Sánchez wrote on social media.
She continued:
If he was serious, he would not be applying the same tariff rate to China, one of the worst forced labor abusers in the world, as he does to countries like Australia. Then again, unlike China, Australia, doesn’t manufacture any Trump corporation products.
This is the same administration that gutted funding to combat forced labor through cuts to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs and rolled back worker protections here at home, while encouraging companies to profit off some of the world’s worst forced labor abusers through his proposed US-China Board of Trade.
We need to take forced labor seriously. But that includes addressing our problems here at home, including by taking on the export of goods made with American prison labor. Slapping more tariffs on every country that upsets the president isn’t the way to do it.
“Trump is hell-bent on raising your prices,” congressman Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat said in a statement on Trump’s lastest tariffs. “His new tariffs are a nationwide sales tax that will only serve to make life harder for Americans just trying to make ends meet.”
And even the president’s own allies have raised concerns over the latest round of tariffs, Politico is reporting.
One person close to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said:
Everything that you do that’s not focused on affordability is not helpful. This might not be a negative five, but it’s a negative 0.5. Anything that you’re doing that is not on the plus side of the scale is a problem.
When you announce new tariffs, it’s not like, okay, well, let’s see what they do. It’s, ‘Oh crap, those are the bad things.’
Another White House source told Politico:
I think Republicans are comfortable with the threat, even though that has some market impacts. But actual revenue coming away from people’s pocketbooks is not what Republicans are happy with.
Any conversation about tariffs, unless it’s reducing them, is a bad conversation for Republicans.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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The government of Brazil has rejected the Trump administration’s claim that it, and 84 other nations, failed to enforce a ban on forced labor, and called the new 12.5% US tariff on imports from Brazil “completely arbitrary and unjustified”.
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The Pentagon’s official online list of service members killed in the ongoing Iran war does not include the four soldiers who died during renewed fighting over the weekend, despite the fact that their names were included in a Pentagon press release on the formal transfer of their remains back to the United States on Wednesday.
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The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, said “it’s very hard to deal with President Trump when he changes his mind every single day. One day the prime minister [Canada’s Mark Carney] is with him side by side, and next thing you know, President Trump turns on him like a rabid dog.”
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