Trump declines to call for Max Miller’s resignation amid abuse allegations
Trump stopped short of calling on Rep Max Miller to resign Monday, saying he would “let the families figure that out”.
Asked whether the Ohio Republican should step down following allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, Trump said he has always known Miller as “a good person” and called the situation “a very sad thing.”
The abuse allegations, which include physical abuse of Moreno and their two-year-old daughter, alleging in police reports that he threw her against a wall, previously held a gun to her head, and threw hot water on her. Miller denies all the claims and is suing his ex-wife for defamation.
The accusations have drawn calls for resignation from Emily Moreno’s father, Republican senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio, as well as several Democratic lawmakers, amid a bitter custody dispute over the couple’s young daughter.
Trump said the matter comes down to “accusations” that the families involved should resolve themselves.
Key events
Closing summary
And that brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump declined to call for Rep Max Miller’s resignation following allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno. Trump said he has always known Miller as “a good person” and called the situation “a very sad thing.”
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In an 89-4 vote, the Senate voted to take up a measure that would temporarily keep the government funded and help avoid a shutdown in the fall. The measure, known as a continuing resolution, would maintain government funding at current levels through 11 December, with some adjustments for specific programs. The Senate is slated to debate the funding bill and move it closer to a final vote.
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Two Republican senators who threatened to block Todd Blanche’s bid to permanently become US attorney general announced they will advance his nomination after he said in writing that a planned $1.8bn slush fund for Donald Trump’s allies was dead. Legal experts and Democrats said what Blanche announced Sunday was far from ironclad and left room for Trump to resurrect the fund. More here.
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A coalition of 25 US states sued the Trump administration over new tariffs pegged at 10% to 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes struck down by the supreme court in February. The states are asking the US Court of International Trade to halt the tariffs, declare them unlawful and order refunds of duties that have already been paid. More here.
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Trump accused US attorney Jeanine Pirro of having “folded like an umbrella” amid reports that he was considering removing her from her post. Trump criticized Pirro on Monday after she dropped vandalism charges against a former Olympian accused of damaging the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. More here.
Richard Luscombe
A far-right Republican candidate in Florida’s governor’s race has been accused of stiffing a high school debate champion over the better part of $11,000 in scholarship money she won from a company he founded.
Student Briana Whatley landed the awards as regional and national champion of Incubate Debate, a league-style competition set up by the candidate, James Fishback, to encourage youth to engage in political discourse.
A recording posted to Substack by Fishback in May 2024 shows Whatley, now a second-year history student at Florida State University, accepting a $10,000 check for besting seven other finalists in the 2024 Incubate Debate national championship, adding to two $500 area awards she previously won.
According to Florida Politics, Whatley is suing Fishback for not delivering $8,000 of the money that a letter from the company promised would be paid to her in full on the day she graduated high school in May last year.
Trump administration halts border wall well drilling in New Mexico amid ranchers’ concerns
Construction crews building a border wall in New Mexico were ordered to stop drilling new wells after ranchers said that pumping groundwater to produce concrete could threaten their livestock amid a severe drought.
At a public meeting in July, ranchers said they were noticing unmonitored tapping of border aquifers that threatened the water for those nearby.
“Whatever they do on that well affects everybody in this basin,” one rancher said in the meeting, adding that, from his conversation with border patrol, he believed that “they really don’t even understand what an aquifer is.”
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection told the AP on Monday that border wall contractors in New Mexico have been instructed to stop drilling new wells.
“CBP is committed to working collaboratively with local landowners to ensure that construction activities do not adversely impact their water needs,” said CBP in a statement.
Previously, CBP, which oversees the border wall construction, has said water is needed to produce concrete, build roads, construct barriers and control dust at construction sites. New Mexico’s Office of the State Engineer told NPR last month that it counted at least six wells under development along the border, and that none had the necessary permits required by state law.
The US state department is planning to close five foreign missions, reducing its diplomatic footprint in the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and North America, Reuters reports.
According to a notice obtained by the outlet, the department said it plans to close its posts in St. George’s, Grenada; Nagoya, Japan; Medan, Indonesia; Douala, Cameroon; and Winnipeg, Canada.
The notice, sent to several congressional committees last week, follows similar moves at the beginning of Trump’s second term, when the administration announced plans to close a dozen foreign missions to align with his “America first” agenda.
In an 89-4 vote, the Senate voted to take up a measure that would temporarily keep the government funded and help avoid a shutdown in the fall.
The measure, known as a continuing resolution, would maintain government funding at current levels through 11 December, with some adjustments for specific programs. The Senate is slated to debate the funding bill and move it closer to a final vote.
US House ethics panel recommends censuring North Carolina’s Chuck Edwards
Chris Stein
The US House of Representatives ethics committee on Monday recommended that Chuck Edwards, a Republican congressman, face censure after determining he “fostered a hostile work environment and engaged in sexual harassment” by giving gifts and lavishing attention on two young female staffers.
The bipartisan panel began investigating the second-term North Carolina congressman earlier this year, after receiving complaints about his conduct. In their report, they determined Edwards broke House rules by singling out the two unidentified aides for special treatment that made them uncomfortable and harmed relations with other employees.
While the investigation uncovered no evidence that Edwards engaged in sexual activity with the staffers or suggested it, his behavior violated provisions in the House code of conduct that prohibit sexual harassment and unwanted advances. The congressman “acknowledged at least some of the behavior at issue could be viewed as inappropriate”, but “has not acknowledged or taken responsibility for the harm he caused”, the committee wrote in its report.
Sam Levine
A compromise between Todd Blanche and two Republican senators that potentially cleared the way for Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general is weak, Democrats and several experts said, as it makes promises Donald Trump can easily reverse.
Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted two documents on Sunday evening showing he was withdrawing an 18 May order allowing for the creation of a $1.8bn weaponization fund and clarifying that broad tax immunity the justice department granted to Trump only applied retroactively to the president, his sons, and businesses.
The agreement stemmed from a deal worked out with senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, two Republicans who had threatened to block Blanche’s nomination. Cornyn and Tillis said on Monday they would support Blanche when his vote comes up for the Senate judiciary committee Tuesday.
“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” Cornyn and Tillis said. “Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”
But legal experts and Democrats said what Blanche announced Sunday was far from ironclad and left room for Trump to resurrect the fund.
“These assurances are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Brandon DeBot, policy director at the Tax Law Center at NYU, said in a statement. “They don’t pull back on the ongoing attempts to give the president, his family, and his affiliates unauthorized immunity from tax audits. They don’t do anything new to stop the president from trying to bring back the fund, as he threatened to this weekend. It’s abundantly clear we need congressional action.”
25 states sue Trump administration over latest round of tariffs
A group of 25 states sued the Trump administration over a round of tariffs that went into effect last month, arguing that the US president exceeded his legal authority to tax imports after the US supreme court struck down his previous set of global tariffs.
“President Trump is so intent on raising the cost of living for Americans that he is willing to break law after law after law to do so,” said California attorney general Rob Bonta in a statement. “Tariffs are taxes, and the American people cannot and should not shoulder the extra costs that come from the President’s failed and illegal economic policy — no matter how much the President wants them to.”
The lawsuit challenges tariffs of 10% to 12.5% imposed on dozens of countries, including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and the 27 countries that make up the European Union, which took effect on 24 July.
The Trump administration said it imposed the tariffs in an effort to stop exports of goods produced with forced labor. But states argue the latest measures are an unlawful attempt to replace tariffs the courts have repeatedly rejected.
In February, the US supreme court declared many of Trump’s tariffs illegal in a 6-3 ruling, deciding that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not provide the legal justification for most of the Trump administration’s tariffs. In May, the US court of international trade ruled in favor of small businesses that challenged the tariffs.
Ahead of a vote by the senate judiciary committee on whether to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination to become US attorney general, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer attacked Blanche, saying he has “no intention of stopping Trump’s corruption,” adding that he has instead “spent his career enabling it.”
Amid threats from two Republican senators to block Blanche’s confirmation, Blanche rescinded his establishment of Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund.” John Cornyn and Thom Tillis said they would advance with their nomination.
Addressing this, Schumer said: “Instead of seeing Todd Blanche’s so-called deal for the sham that it is, Senate Republicans are once again taking Trump’s personal attorney at his word.”
“Blanche is still perfectly fine giving Trump a permission slip to commit tax fraud to the tune of millions of dollars,” Schumer added. “Is the GOP willing to go along with it?”
Ex-Trump prosecutor Jack Smith called to testify before Senate Judiciary Committee
Senate judiciary committee chair Chuck Grassley has asked Jack Smith, the former special counsel behind the criminal cases against Donald Trump, to appear before the committee on 22 September, according to an invitation reviewed by Politico. The request follows months of scrutiny from Grassley’s team into Smith and the investigations he oversaw.
Smith is the former federal prosecutor tapped by the justice department to lead inquiries into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, cases that were dropped after Trump’s 2024 election win. He testified before the House judiciary committee back in January.
Democratic Rep Daniel Goldman trades barbs with democratic Rep Ro Khanna online
Representative Daniel Goldman, who was absolutely crushed in his re-election bid for his New York seat by Brad Lander, said representative Ro Khanna from California’s opinion was “wrong” that an “unfair political and economy system” is what drove progressive victories in House democratic primaries.
“All three of us who lost in NYC had very progressive records (including supporting Medicare for All) and we all had the overwhelming support of actual working families — labor unions, public housing residents and immigrant communities,” Goldman wrote. “That’s because we all have gone to battle for those communities and offered practical and meaningful solutions that could actually get passed in a system that requires bipartisanship.”
“The voters in my district prioritized a different issue, and I respect their decision,” Goldman wrote, implying that his pro-Israel stance had been his electoral downfall.
On Sunday, Max Miller’s ex father-in-law and Ohio senator Bernie Moreno issued a public statement against Miller, calling for his resignation.
In his statement, Moreno said that the “last two years have been pure hell for my wife Bridget, our daughter Emily, me, and our entire family in the aftermath of Emily’s divorce.”
Addressing reports of the abuse allegations as well as the public scrunity, Moreno said: “It has been horrific to watch this play out in full public view, all while knowing an innocent two-year-old girl is caught in the middle… Out of concern for the safety of my family, I hoped to keep this matter private but Max Miller’s increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior has made that impossible.”
He went on to join calls of resignation against Miller, saying: “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.”
Trump’s refusal to call for Max Miller’s resignation comes amid heightened scrutiny into the Ohio representative’s abuse allegations.
The Republican congressman, 37, who represents Ohio’s seventh congressional district, has denied accusations made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and former girlfriend Stephanie Grisham, as he campaigns for re-election. On Sunday, Miller doubled down on his denial, saying: “I’m not getting out of this race, and I’m winning in November.”
Moreno, a conservative policy adviser, shares a two-year-old daughter with Miller. The pair have been engaged in a legal battle over custody of their child since 2024.
In one alleged incident, Miller “took hot water from a pan he had just cooked eggs in and threw it at me”, Moreno testified earlier this year amid a defamation lawsuit Miller filed against her. Moreno has also accused Miller of holding a gun to her head, the New York Times reported. The pair married in 2022.
Separately, Miller’s former girlfriend Grisham, who served as White House press secretary during Donald Trump’s first administration, has also accused him of abuse, an allegation he has denied. Grisham and Miller dated from 2019 to 2020.
In a 2021 Washington Post op-ed, Grisham – without naming Miller – wrote about a relationship that “turned abusive”, and of a former partner who was “physical” with her. Although she did not identify Miller in the article, he said it was widely understood that the op-ed referred to him. She later confirmed she was talking about Miller, according to the Times.
