Hillary Clinton accuses Trump of Epstein ‘cover-up’ and calls for public testimony
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next couple of hours.
We begin with the news that the former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has accused president Donald Trump of orchestrating a “cover-up” over files related to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to an interview with the BBC published on Monday.
“Get the files out. They are slow-walking it,” Clinton, who is due to testify before a Congressional committee on the issue, told the British broadcaster in an interview in Berlin.
The Justice Department last month released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files – more than 3m documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into Epstein, who died from what was determined to be suicide while in custody in 2019.
Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, features regularly in the files, but no evidence has come to light implicating either Clinton in criminal activity, AFP reported.
The couple has been ordered to give closed-door depositions before the House oversight committee, which is investigating Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.
“We will show up but we think it would be better to have it in public,” Hillary Clinton told the BBC. “I just want it to be fair,. I want everybody treated the same way.”
The former secretary of state said she and her husband “have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly.”
In other developments:
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Donald Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal with Russia “fast” before US-brokered talks in Geneva on Tuesday. “Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One while en route to Washington. Trump is pushing to end the conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but two previous rounds of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi did not yield any signs of a breakthrough.
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Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate. “The UK’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”
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Trump’s most unbridled critics at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference were not Europeans but Americans – and not just Democratic politicians. A few Republicans, out of earshot of the US president’s favoured Fox News, have had the courage to challenge Trump’s diet of tariffs and unpredictability.
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Trump is committed to the success of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, because his leadership is crucial for US national interests, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said. “President Trump is deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success,” Rubio said, standing next to Orbán at a joint press conference in Budapest.
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John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Donald Trump’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to move an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees. Workers at the plant have called the relocation “a slap in our face”, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.
Key events
Donald Trump has also spent time on Truth Social, posting pictures of himself alongside the late civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson.
The pair were friendly in the 1980s and 1990s, when Jackson thanked Trump for supporting the Rainbow Push Coalition. But he notably broke with the president during the 2016 campaign and sharply criticized his rhetoric and policies once he entered the White House.
Trump touts tax refunds as benefit of sweeping tax policy bill
Donald Trump has insisted that tax refunds this year will be “substantially greater” thanks to the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ – the president’s sweeping tax policy legislation signed into law last year.
In a recent statement, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that so far the average refund processed is almost 11% higher in 2026, compared to last year’s filings.
“In some cases, estimates are that over 20% will be returned to the Taxpayer,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “NO TAX ON TIPS, NO TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY FOR OUR GREAT SENIORS, NO TAX ON OVERTIME, INTEREST DEDUCTIONS ON CAR LOANS, AND MUCH MORE. Don’t spend all of this money in one place!”
US residents have until 15 April to file their taxes.
‘We stood on his shoulders’: Obamas pay tribute to ‘true giant’ Jesse Jackson
Former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have paid tribute to the late civil rights trailblazer Rev Jesse Jackson, calling him a “tribute giant”.
“From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect,” the Obamas said in a statement.
They added that Michelle got her “first glimpse” of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager.
“In his two historic runs for president, he laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office of the land,” the Obamas noted. “We stood on his shoulders. We send our deepest condolences to the Jackson family and everyone in Chicago and beyond who knew and loved him.”
Democrats and Republicans have finalized a settlement over voter registration issues in North Carolina that threatened the ballots of about a quarter million voters.
The Republican National Committee had sued North Carolina’s State Board of Elections, arguing that some voters had registered without providing a driver’s licence number, the last four digits of their social security number or another unique identifier, as required under the Help America Vote Act. When a Republican-friendly board conceded to the suit, Democrats intervened.
State officials have been whittling down the number of voters caught in the middle, contacting them to get identifying information. About 70,000 voters remain according to the state’s tracking web page. The settlement requires the state to maintain a separate list of these voters and bars the state from discounting their votes but requires them to present identification numbers and an ID when they vote. Their ballots will be cast provisionally in some cases, to allow them to provide ID later.
The settlement also bars the state from registering future voters who do not provide the last four digits of their social security number, a driver’s license number or attest that they have neither.
“The DNC has put Republicans on notice: If you attack voting rights, the DNC will be there to defend Americans at every turn,” said DNC chairman Ken Martin. “While the RNC has waged an all-out assault on voters in North Carolina, we have been fighting like hell to protect the sacred right to vote — and we will never back down.”
Democrats send homeland security counter-proposal to White House as shutdown continues
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially shut down over the weekend, after negotiations to implement guardrails on federal immigration enforcement stalled in Congress.
Now, Democratic lawmakers are continuing to push for greater oversight on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). On Monday, a spokesperson for Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats had sent the White House a counter-proposal after they deemed the initial GOP offer “insufficient”.
Democrats have demanded judicial warrants for arrests made in homes, requiring immigration officers show their face while patrolling, and the use of body-worn cameras. Republicans, by and large, have called these conditions non-starters.
A reminder that ICE received a $75bn infusion thanks to Donald Trump’s tax policy bill signed into law last year, and remains operational. However, several other agencies within DHS have been affected by the shutdown, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The DHS official also confirms that McLaughlin will leave the department next week.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as we get them.
A DHS official tells the Guardian that McLaughlin started planning to leave the department back in December but ultimately pushed back her departure in the aftermath of the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings in Minneapolis, according to the people briefed on her exit.
Top DHS spokesperson to leave role as agency shutdown continues – report
Tricia McLaughlin, the top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson is set to leave her position, according to a report from Politico.
McLaughlin, who has become one of the agency’s most vocal defenders and supported several nationwide immigration crackdowns, is expected to inform colleagues Tuesday about her plans, and will DHS leave next week, according to two unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Her departure comes amid a department wide shutdown, as negotiations over guardrails for federal immigration enforcement have stalled.
Early voting begins in hotly contested Texas primaries
Lauren Gambino
A Texas-sized showdown is brewing deep in the heart of the largest red state in the US. As early voting begins on Tuesday for the Lone Star state’s 3 March primaries, Republicans and Democrats alike face a high-stakes choice that could set the stage for one of the fiercest Senate races of the 2026 midterm cycle.
At the center of the fractious Republican contest is a clash between the party’s old guard and a Maga culture warrior, with four-term incumbent John Cornyn, a conservative fixture of Senate leadership locked in the fight of his political career against the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton.
Democrats, meanwhile, are waging their own internal battle – a race between two rising liberal stars: Austin-based state senator, James Talarico, who grounds his Bernie Sanders-style populism in biblical teachings and Representative Jasmine Crockett, a civil rights attorney and liberal media darling known for her sharp-tongued clapbacks to Republicans.
It has been three decades since Democrats last won a statewide election in Texas. In 2024, Donald Trump dominated the state, widening his margin of victory with the support of Hispanic voters.
But now, as Trump contends with sagging approval ratings amid economic unease and a backlash to his deportation agenda, Texas Democrats sense an opening.
Trump pays tribute to Jesse Jackson while swiping at Obama
We’re also covering the death of African-American civil rights trailblazer and presidential candidate Rev Jesse Jackson at the age of 84.
My colleagues are monitoring the latest developments and reactions to his passing. There has been an outpouring of messages, highlighting Jackson’s legacy – which included paving the way for Barack Obama’s presidential run and victory in 2008.
Donald Trump posted a tribute on social media a short while ago, though much of it focused on his own past relationship with Jackson.
“Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,” Trump wrote, adding that he provided office space for Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition “for years” at 40 Wall Street.
Jackson did describe Trump as a “friend” during that period and publicly thanked him for supporting the Rainbow Push Coalition, which works on educational and economic equality. But he broke with Trump during the 2016 campaign and sharply criticized his rhetoric and policies once he entered the White House.
“The victory can be legal but without moral legitimacy,” Jackson told Politico after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. “It was a divisive campaign full of race targeting: People in Mexico were going to be stopped by a wall; Muslims were going to be kept from coming in; there was a whole campaign saying Barack had not been born here.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump also claimed Jackson had “much to do” with Obama’s victory “without acknowledgment or credit” from the former president. That is incorrect. Obama has repeatedly credited Jackson’s presidential runs with helping make his own possible. Trump further asserted that Jackson “could not stand” Obama, without offering evidence.
Jackson did privately criticize Obama during the 2008 campaign, in remarks caught on a live microphone. “Barack, he is talking down to black people,” Jackson said, adding that he wanted to “cut his nuts off”. He later apologized and went on to support Obama throughout both of his terms.
My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is covering the latest developments out of Europe. He’s keeping an eye on the US brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia, as representatives continue to negotiate an end to the conflict. A reminder that it’s been almost four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Jakub notes that the summit kicked off about an hour ago in Geneva.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. As of now, we’re not expected to hear from the president. He has a number of closed door meetings, but nothing open to the press according the official White House schedule.
We’ll let you know if anything changes.
Luke Harding
Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet this week in Switzerland for a third round of talks brokered by the Trump administration, days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The two-day meeting, kicking off on Tuesday, is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.
While the Abu Dhabi discussions were largely focused on military ceasefire proposals, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday the Geneva talks would address a “broader range of issues”, including territorial questions and other demands put forward by Moscow.
Eric Berger
When Zohran Mamdani was a New York state assembly member, he sponsored the Stop Fakes Act, which would have prohibited law enforcement from creating fake electronic communication service accounts and collecting users’ account information.
“Digital dragnet surveillance is widespread and dangerous, yet it continues to go unregulated,” Mamdani co-wrote in a 2023 City & State op-ed. “Although the NYPD claimed in a Department of Justice report to keep detailed records of its undercover accounts, the department refuses to provide any documentation of its social media surveillance policies or practices for public review.”
The Stop Fakes act failed, and the battle over the New York police department’s (NYPD) use of surveillance technology has continued. Only now Mamdani is the city’s mayor, and as a democratic socialist backed by an enthusiastic leftwing coalition, his every move is closely scrutinized – especially when it comes to law enforcement.
On 4 February, the NYPD disclosed that it used “internet attribution management infrastructure” from the technology company Ntrepid to “allow its personnel to safely, securely and covertly conduct investigations and detect possible criminal activity on the internet”. In other words, to create the sort of “sock puppet” online identities that Mamdani had once sought to prevent.
As mayor, Mamdani can presumably now stop the police department from using such a tool. But wielding actual power is complex. After previously using anti-police rhetoric, since launching his mayoral candidacy, Mamdandi has been more supportive of the NYPD.
So the question is: will he neglect an issue he was once passionate about or block investigators from using such technology and risk alienating the police, whose help he needs to run a city with 8.4 million residents?
“Mamdani was a strong partner in the fight against mass surveillance while an assembly member,” said Will Owen, communications director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (Stop), a non-profit that aims to outlaw such practices in New York. “Stop will continue to hold him accountable, and we are cautiously optimistic that he will continue that fight.”
Mamdani’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment.
Iran’s supreme leader warned on Tuesday that US attempts to depose his government would fail, as Washington and Tehran began indirect talks in Geneva on their long-running nuclear dispute amid a US military buildup in the Middle East.
Just a few hours after the negotiations began, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that parts of the strategic Strait of Hormuz will close for a few hours due to “security precautions” while Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards conduct military drills in the world’s most vital oil export route.
Tehran has in the past threatened to shut down the strait to commercial shipping if it is attacked, a move that would choke off a fifth of global oil flows and drive up crude prices, Reuters reported.
The US, which joined Israel in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, has deployed a battle force to the region and US president Donald Trump has said “regime change” in Iran may be the best thing that can happen.
US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are taking part in the negotiations, which are being mediated by Oman, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters, alongside Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi. Donald Trump said that he would be involved “indirectly” in the Geneva talks and that he believed Tehran wanted to make a deal.
Robert Mackey
A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday ordered the National Park Service to reinstall a slavery exhibit at a Philadelphia historic site, pending the outcome of litigation after the city sued the federal government over its removal.
The National Park Service last month dismantled and removed a long-established slavery-related exhibit at the Independence National Historical park, which holds the former residence of George Washington, in response to Donald Trump’s claims, which have been rejected by civil rights groups, of “anti-American ideology” at historical and cultural institutions.
The city of Philadelphia sued over the matter, accusing the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, and top officials of breaking the law and asking a judge to restore the exhibit.
On Monday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, Cynthia Rufe, granted the city’s request to temporarily block the federal government’s changes and ordered the National Park Service to restore the exhibit pending the outcome of litigation.
Rufe, who was appointed by George W Bush, began her ruling with a quote from a section of George Orwell’s 1984 which described the process by which the authoritarian party in the novel conducted a constant rewriting of past editions of newspapers – as well as “books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs” – to erase any uncomfortable facts from history.
Trump: Clinton ‘merely showed her anger’ at Munich security conference
President Trump has said Hillary Clinton “merely showed her anger” at the Munich security conference and called her a “really bad representative” of the US.
Trump also said Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “shouldn’t be talking badly” about the US – but also, presumably, him – on “foreign soil”.
Writing on Truth Social, he said:
Heading to D.C. Will give an Air Force One Press Conference, shortly. Marco was fantastic in Munich! AOC and Newscum were an embarrassment to our Nation. For one thing they shouldn’t be talking badly about the U.S.A., especially on “foreign soil.” They made fools of themselves, and always will! Crooked Hillary merely showed her anger and Trump Derangement. Really bad representatives of our now very successful Country!
Hillary Clinton accuses Trump of Epstein ‘cover-up’ and calls for public testimony
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next couple of hours.
We begin with the news that the former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has accused president Donald Trump of orchestrating a “cover-up” over files related to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to an interview with the BBC published on Monday.
“Get the files out. They are slow-walking it,” Clinton, who is due to testify before a Congressional committee on the issue, told the British broadcaster in an interview in Berlin.
The Justice Department last month released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files – more than 3m documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into Epstein, who died from what was determined to be suicide while in custody in 2019.
Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, features regularly in the files, but no evidence has come to light implicating either Clinton in criminal activity, AFP reported.
The couple has been ordered to give closed-door depositions before the House oversight committee, which is investigating Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.
“We will show up but we think it would be better to have it in public,” Hillary Clinton told the BBC. “I just want it to be fair,. I want everybody treated the same way.”
The former secretary of state said she and her husband “have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly.”
In other developments:
-
Donald Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal with Russia “fast” before US-brokered talks in Geneva on Tuesday. “Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” the US president told reporters onboard Air Force One while en route to Washington. Trump is pushing to end the conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but two previous rounds of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi did not yield any signs of a breakthrough.
-
Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate. “The UK’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”
-
Trump’s most unbridled critics at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference were not Europeans but Americans – and not just Democratic politicians. A few Republicans, out of earshot of the US president’s favoured Fox News, have had the courage to challenge Trump’s diet of tariffs and unpredictability.
-
Trump is committed to the success of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, because his leadership is crucial for US national interests, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said. “President Trump is deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success,” Rubio said, standing next to Orbán at a joint press conference in Budapest.
-
John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Donald Trump’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to move an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees. Workers at the plant have called the relocation “a slap in our face”, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.
