US Senate passes aid and public broadcasting cuts in victory for Trump
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that the US Senate has approved Donald Trump’s plan for billions of dollars in cuts to funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, handing the Republican president another victory as he exerts control over Congress with little opposition.
The Senate voted 51 to 48 in favour of Trump’s request to cut $9bn in spending already approved by Congress.
Most of the cuts are to programmes to assist foreign countries stricken by disease, war and natural disasters, but the plan also eliminates the $1.1bn the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans argue that spending on public broadcasting is an unnecessary expense and reject its news coverage as blighted by “anti-right bias”.
Standalone rescissions packages have not passed in decades, with lawmakers reluctant to cede their constitutionally mandated control of spending. But the Republicans, who hold narrow majorities in the Senate and House, have shown little appetite for resisting Trump’s policies since he began his second term in January.
Read the full story here:
In other news:
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In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Donald Trump said that the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
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In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Elon Musk mocked Trump’s wild claim that files related to the federal investigation of Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend, are “a hoax”.
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Trump told reporters that he was “surprised” when Jerome Powell, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, was appointed by Joe Biden. But Powell was appointed by Trump himself in 2017, before being reappointed by Biden in 2022.
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Trump claimed that Epstein had “died three or four years ago”. But Epstein died in federal custody in 2019, when Trump was president, not during the Biden administration.
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The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper explained that Trump’s claims of a conspiracy makes no sense. “According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said: ‘Let’s create some fake files that destroy Trump’s political career’. They don’t ever use them,” Klepper said. “They let Trump get elected. Don’t use them. Let Trump get elected again. Still don’t use them. And then, once he’s the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them.”
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In a lengthy Truth Social post Trump dismissed the backlash over the Epstein files as a “scam” perpetuated by Democrats and accused supporters who have called for more transparency of “doing the Democrats’ work” by buying into the “hoax”.
Key events
Only about one quarter of US adults say that president Donald Trump’s policies have helped them since he took office, according to a new poll.
In fact, the Republican president fails to earn majority approval on any of the issues included in the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
He has even slipped slightly since earlier this year on immigration, which has consistently been a strength for him in his second term, AP reported.
And while a majority of Americans do see Trump as at least “somewhat” capable of getting things done following the passage of his sprawling budget bill, fewer believe he understands the problems facing people like them.
Roughly half of US adults report that Trump’s policies have “done more to hurt” them since his second term began six months ago, the survey found.
About two in 10 say his policies have “not made a difference” in their lives, with about one quarter saying his policies have “done more to help” them.
The vast majority of Democrats and about half of independents say Trump’s policies have had a negative impact, while even many Republicans say they have not seen positive effects.
The mixed reviews on Trump’s policies come as he struggles to follow through on key campaign promises, including lowering costs for working-class Americans, preserving popular social welfare programmes like Medicaid, ending foreign wars and lowering government spending.
Oliver Holmes
Donald Trump has lashed out against his own supporters, calling them gullible “weaklings” for questioning the transparency of a secretive government inquiry into the late high-profile socialite and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The US president is struggling to contain a political crisis within his usually loyal Make America Great Again (Maga) base over suspicion that the administration is hiding details of Epstein’s crimes to protect the rich elite Epstein associated with, which included Trump.
In a lengthy post on his social media website, Truth Social, Trump accused his voters on Wednesday of falling for what he called a “radical left” hoax by the opposition to discredit him.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,” he wrote.
“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support any more!”
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Trump doubled down on what should be done with the details around Epstein’s crime on Wednesday and said the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
“They could look at this Jeffrey Epstein hoax also, because that’s the same stuff, that’s all put out by Democrats,” Trump said. “And you know some of the naive Republicans fall right into line.”
Callum Jones
Donald Trump has privately indicated he is on the verge of firing the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, rattling Wall Street and renewing questions over the US central bank’s independence.
The US president insisted on Wednesday that it was “highly unlikely” he would dismiss the Fed chair, after reports he had suggested he would and shown a draft letter dismissing Powell to political allies.
“I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely. Unless he has to leave for fraud,” said Trump. The president has recently criticized Powell for a $2.5bn renovation of the Fed’s buildings. “I mean it’s possible there’s fraud involved,” said Trump.
Powell has reportedly asked the central bank’s inspector general to review the renovation.
Trump has repeatedly and publicly demanded the Fed cut interest rates to spur economic growth. Powell has so far declined, noting that Trump’s controversial rollout of tariffs has clouded the outlook for inflation.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign executive orders on Thursday afternoon at 4pm ET, the White House said on Wednesday, without specifying the topics of those orders.
Nationwide protests planned against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
Protests and events against president Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people are planned Thursday at more than 1,600 locations around the country.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. Protests are expected to be held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces. Organizers are calling for them to be peaceful, AP reported.
“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration … as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday’s protests.
Major protests are planned in Atlanta and St Louis, as well as Oakland, California, and Annapolis, Maryland.
Trump faces backlash as 69% believe Epstein details concealed – Reuters/Ipsos poll
Most Americans think President Donald Trump’s administration is hiding information about accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and give it poor marks on the issue after pledging to make public documents in the case, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The two-day poll, which closed Wednesday, showed 69% of respondents thought the federal government was hiding details about Epstein’s clients, compared to 6% who disagreed and about one in four who said they weren’t sure.
Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died by suicide in jail in 2019. He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was dismissed after his death.
The case has captivated swaths of Trump’s political base who were expecting lurid details after some of Trump’s top law enforcement officials said they would be releasing documents that would lead to major revelations about Epstein and his alleged clientele.
The Trump administration last week reversed course on its pledge, enraging some of the president’s followers. Close to two-thirds of Republicans think the administration is hiding details on Epstein’s business, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Just 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the case, a weaker rating than the president received on any other issue in the poll. Among Republicans, 35% approved, compared to 29% who disapproved and the rest who said they weren’t sure or didn’t answer the question.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he thinks China will soon sentence people to death for fentanyl manufacturing and distribution, as he offered fresh optimism about the prospects of a deal with Beijing on illicit drugs.
The drug trade has joined a range of economic and security issues as a major flashpoint in the relationship between the countries in recent years, Reuters reports.
Washington accuses Beijing of failing to curb the flow of precursor chemicals for fentanyl, a leading cause of US overdose deaths. Beijing has defended its drug control record and accused Washington of using fentanyl to “blackmail” China.
Trump imposed 20% tariffs on Chinese imports over the issue in February, and they have remained in effect despite a fragile trade truce reached by both sides in Geneva in May.
“I think we’re going to work it out so that China is going to end up going from that to giving the death penalty to the people that create this fentanyl and send it into our country,” Trump said. “I believe that’s going to happen soon.”
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, reiterated on Thursday that fentanyl was a problem for the US, not China, and said US tariffs over fentanyl “severely impacted the dialogue and cooperation between China and the US in drug control.”
President Donald Trump is expected to visit Pakistan in September, two local television news channels reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
If confirmed, the visit would be the first by a US president since nearly two decades ago, when President George W Bush visited Pakistan in 2006.
Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson said he was not aware of Trump’s expected visit.
The two TV news channels said that Trump would also visit India after arriving in Islamabad in September.
Donald Trump said on Wednesday the transportation department is rescinding $4bn in US government funding for California’s high-speed rail project.
The department said there was no viable path forward for California’s high-speed rail project and it was considering potentially clawing back additional funding related to the project.
The Federal Railroad Administration issued a 315-page report last month citing missed deadlines, budget shortfalls and questionable ridership projections.
One key issue cited is that California had not identified $7bn in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California.
The California high-speed rail system is a planned two-phase 800-mile (1,287km) system with speeds of up to 220mph that aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim, and in the second phase, extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority said previously it strongly disagrees with the administration’s conclusions “which are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California”.
It noted California governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal before the legislature extends at least $1bn per year in funding for the next 20 years “providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment”.
The authority noted in May there is active civil construction along 119 miles in the state’s Central Valley.
US strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites, NBC News reports
A new US assessment has found that American strikes in June destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites, NBC News reported on Thursday, citing current and former US officials familiar with the matter.
President Donald Trump rejected a military plan for further comprehensive strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, which would have lasted several weeks, the report added.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
US Senate passes aid and public broadcasting cuts in victory for Trump
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that the US Senate has approved Donald Trump’s plan for billions of dollars in cuts to funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, handing the Republican president another victory as he exerts control over Congress with little opposition.
The Senate voted 51 to 48 in favour of Trump’s request to cut $9bn in spending already approved by Congress.
Most of the cuts are to programmes to assist foreign countries stricken by disease, war and natural disasters, but the plan also eliminates the $1.1bn the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans argue that spending on public broadcasting is an unnecessary expense and reject its news coverage as blighted by “anti-right bias”.
Standalone rescissions packages have not passed in decades, with lawmakers reluctant to cede their constitutionally mandated control of spending. But the Republicans, who hold narrow majorities in the Senate and House, have shown little appetite for resisting Trump’s policies since he began his second term in January.
Read the full story here:
In other news:
-
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Donald Trump said that the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
-
In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Elon Musk mocked Trump’s wild claim that files related to the federal investigation of Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend, are “a hoax”.
-
Trump told reporters that he was “surprised” when Jerome Powell, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, was appointed by Joe Biden. But Powell was appointed by Trump himself in 2017, before being reappointed by Biden in 2022.
-
Trump claimed that Epstein had “died three or four years ago”. But Epstein died in federal custody in 2019, when Trump was president, not during the Biden administration.
-
The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper explained that Trump’s claims of a conspiracy makes no sense. “According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said: ‘Let’s create some fake files that destroy Trump’s political career’. They don’t ever use them,” Klepper said. “They let Trump get elected. Don’t use them. Let Trump get elected again. Still don’t use them. And then, once he’s the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them.”
-
In a lengthy Truth Social post Trump dismissed the backlash over the Epstein files as a “scam” perpetuated by Democrats and accused supporters who have called for more transparency of “doing the Democrats’ work” by buying into the “hoax”.
