Cassidy says he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general: ‘I will be criticized for this vote’
Senator Bill Cassidy, the last Republican who was undecided about Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general, said he would vote to confirm Blanche.
He noted that while Blanche, who previously served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is “not perfect”, it is ultimately a decision between him or “another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively”.
“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr Blanche in very specific circumstances,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor, explaining his decision process. His “yes” vote, will now likely clear the way for Blanche to receive the 50 votes needed. Vice-president JD Vance will then cast a tie-breaking vote that will ensure Blanche’s confirmation.
Key events
Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the banking committee, has slammed reports that Donald Trump is attempting to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook again, despite an earlier supreme court ruling this year that protects her from dismissal while she fights the Trump administration’s allegations that she has committed mortgage fraud.
Warren said that the president “is tanking the economy, and he is desperate to shift the blame for higher costs and higher interest rates. So he’s once again trying to illegally take over America’s central bank.”
She added: “If he [Trump] is successful, it will be working families who pay the price. We will fight back to make sure he fails.”
Donald Trump has started his state department roundtable on American mining, we’ll bring you the latest lines as it gets under way.
A number of Donald Trump’s other nominations were also confirmed in the Senate today.
By a vote of 51-47 along party lines, the upper chamber’s confirmations included David Cummins to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the new Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) administrator, Cameron Hamilton.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Senator Bill Cassidy, the last Republican who was undecided about Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general, said he would vote to confirm Donald Trump’s pick to lead the justice department. His “yes” vote, will now likely clear the way for Blanche to receive the 50 votes needed, effectively saving his nomination.
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This comes after Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican from Alaska, said earlier that she would oppose Blanche’s nomination. “The politicization – even weaponization – of the Department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it,” she said in a statement, adding that she does not have confidence that Blanche would be able to “check the worst impulses of this administration”.
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A US federal appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to halt construction of the US president’s $400m White House ballroom, in a fresh blow to the controversial project. Trump, who demolished the historic East Wing of the White House last year to make way for planned ballroom, has repeatedly touted it as “a gift” to the US people. The president has said his administration will be “immediately appealing” the decision to the supreme court.
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US employers unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs in July and job gains for the previous two months were revised down sharply, as the summer slump in job growth continued amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The unemployment rate, however, held steady at 4.1%. Economists had projected an unchanged unemployment rate and 83,000 new jobs for the month.
Chris Stein
By a large, bipartisan margin, the US Senate on Friday approved a bill intended to punish Russia and countries that buy its petroleum exports over the invasion of Ukraine, capping a legislative push that was spurred by the death of its champion, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham.
The measure, renamed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act in honor of the late senator’s work on the issue, was approved by an 86-11 vote.
The bill would impose new sanctions and visa bans on Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and top military commanders, as well as put tariffs of up to 500% on the country’s exports. It would also allow Donald Trump to impose levies of up to 100% on goods from countries that are the top five importers of Russian oil and gas.
The bill now heads to the House of Representatives, which may consider once it returns from recess at the end of August.
Some Democrats have warned that the bill would give Trump new tariff powers at a time when he has put such levies at the center of his trade policy.
“This bill gives him so much discretion that Trump can ultimately decide what countries to tariff, or what countries to exempt. And he can modify tariffs at his will,” said Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator who opposed the bill.
Trump vows to ‘immediately’ appeal court’s decision to block ballroom construction to supreme court
Following an appeals court’s ruling to temporarily stop construction of Donald Trump’s sprawling $400m ballroom, the president has said his administration will be “immediately appealing” the decision to the supreme court.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump went on to defend the new complex, which includes a “desperately needed military center” as well as a new “totally secure” ballroom.
“The Military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful ruling as a National Security threat to our Nation,” the president wrote, while noting that the project is privately funded. “Much is already on site, or being delivered … There will be no expense to the American Taxpayer. This unjust decision must be overturned by the Supreme Court in its entirety,” Trump added.
As my colleague Robert Tait notes, the latest ruling by a US appeals court for the Trump administration to temporarily halt construction on its sweeping ballroom project, supports an earlier decision issued by a federal judge in April. This limited the construction project only to the undergound part of the project deemed necessary on national security grounds while blocking the hospitality facility envisioned by Trump for entertaining guests.
At the time, Trump lambasted that decision, by Judge Richard Leon – appointed to the bench during George W Bush’s presidency – as the work of a “Trump Hating” judge who he alleged had “gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built”.
Trump moving forward with attempt to fire Lisa Cook after supreme court ruling – report
Donald Trump is moving forward with his attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, weeks after the US supreme court refused to allow the president to fire her, ABC News is reporting, citing sources.
According to ABC New’s report, the White House told Cook in a letter this week that the president was “considering” removing her from her role and demanded she respond within three weeks.
It comes after the supreme court refused Trump’s attempts to immediately fire Cook, in a landmark ruling that limited a president’s authority over the central bank.
In a narrow 5-4 opinion, the court said that Cook could stay on as a governor while she fights unproved allegations of mortgage fraud made by the Trump officials.
“The court decides this application on the narrow ground that the president failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute. Without such protections, she could not properly dispute the charges the president laid against her,” the justices said.
But, as ABC News notes, the high court did not take a position on the underlying allegations against Cook – effectively leaving the door open for Trump to try to remove her.
“Only after Cook has had the opportunity to respond to the charges made against her … may a final decision be made,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “And only then can the courts assess the validity and sufficiency of such charges.”
After the decision, Trump doubled down, saying he would “take appropriate action immediately” to remove Cook from her position.
According to the letter reported by ABC News, Trump now appears to have formally initiated the process to remove her for “gross negligence” based on the allegations of mortgage fraud, which are still untested in court. It also suggested that Trump was carrying out the steps set out in the supreme court’s ruling.
ABC News’s sources said the letter was signed by deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, who argued that Cook’s conduct constituted negligence that calls into question her trustworthiness as a Federal Reserve governor, even if the allegations do not amount to a crime.
“These allegations are as baseless now as they were a year ago when President Trump tried to remove Governor Cook and interfere with the independence of the Federal Reserve,” Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement to ABC News. “No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent — there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook. As we did before, we will challenge this latest pretext and preserve her position and the historic role of the Fed.”
A reminder that Trump abruptly fired Cook in August last year, claiming he had evidence that she had committed mortgage fraud. Cook denied the allegations and sued the Trump administration, saying it fired her without cause.
It came amid Trump’s broader pressure campaign on the Fed and its chair at the time, Jerome Powell, whom he routinely attacked for defying his calls for lower interest rates.
In a statement after the supreme court ruling, Cook said: “This was never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor. It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people.”
US judge allows deportation protections to end for South Sudanese nationals
A federal judge has cleared the way for the Trump administration to end temporary protections from deportation that had allowed hundreds of South Sudanese nationals to live and work in the United States.
US district judge Patti Saris in Boston rejected a last-ditch effort by immigrant-rights advocates to maintain South Sudan’s Temporary Protected Status designation after the US supreme court in June allowed the administration to strip similar protections from thousands of people from Haiti and Syria.
The supreme court’s ruling this year, powered by its 6-3 conservative majority, curtailed the ability of lower-court judges to review the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts under Trump to end TPS for about a dozen countries.
That designation covers people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events, providing eligible migrants temporary protection from deportation and work authorization.
DHS moved in November to terminate TPS for conflict-ridden South Sudan, saying the country no longer met the conditions for the designation, which was first issued in 2011. The department’s action would have led to the end of protections for more than 232 South Sudanese and at least 73 South Sudanese with pending applications. An earlier order by Saris had blocked that from happening.
After the high court’s ruling, lawyers for a group of South Sudanese nationals and the nonprofit African Communities Together urged Saris to once again block the end of TPS on new grounds that the justices had not addressed.
That included an argument that DHS lacked authority to terminate TPS because the statute that created the TPS program in 1990 referred only to the attorney general as the official who had authority to extend and terminate the deportation protections. DHS was established later, in 2002, after 9/11.
Most of the Department of Justice’s immigration-related functions were transferred to it at that time. Saris, an appointee of Bill Clinton, concluded that Congress had likewise transferred authority over TPS to DHS.
She said arguments to the contrary rested on a “self-contradictory, self-defeating foundation,” since if DHS had no authority to terminate TPS for South Sudan it also never had the ability to extend protections in the first place.
“South Sudan’s original TPS designation would thus be invalid by the same token as its termination,” she said.
Dharna Noor
Donald Trump’s statement that oil companies have made “too much money” from his war against Iran has angered environmentalists, who say that his policies were designed to benefit those very corporations and if he really believes his own claims, he should impose a windfall profits tax.
“Trump’s declaration that big oil is ‘making too much money’ belies his accommodation and giveaways to the industry that have enabled its price-gouging – not to mention his disaster of a war of choice against Iran,” said Tyson Slocum, energy program director at the consumer advocacy non-profit Public Citizen. “But like a broken clock that’s correct twice a day, the president is right that oil companies are ‘making too much money’, which means Trump should endorse a windfall profits tax.
ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday both reported windfall profits for the second quarter of the year. Chevron said its earnings soared nearly 400% to $12bn, while Exxon’s profits more than doubled to $14.5bn. On Monday evening, Trump took aim at those gains, saying the companies “ought to give some of that back to the public”.
“They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” he told reporters at the White House. “I don’t like it.”
Not long ago, however, Trump was celebrating the fact that the war on Iran, which he launched with Israel in February, has pushed up gas prices. “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he said on social media in March.
Earlier that month, Trump claimed that Iran’s shutdown of the major shipping route the strait of Hormuz “doesn’t really affect” the US the way it does “other countries” because it is the top global crude producer, and because just a small portion of the country’s oil imports comes from the Persian Gulf. But oil prices are influenced by global markets and supply chains, experts have noted.
Trump has also relentlessly boosted oil and gas interests while in office. In 2024, he reportedly met with more than 20 oil bosses, seeking $1bn in campaign donations from their industry and promising if elected to remove dozens of environmental regulations.
While he did not manage to get to that $1bn figure, he did obtain record contributions from the sector. Since re-entering the White House last year he has eased dozens of restrictions and regulations on fossil fuel expansion, exempted fossil fuel producers from environmental rules, and signed an executive order last year directing the attorney general to prioritize blocking climate lawsuits targeting oil majors.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that the same companies that struck a $1bn quid pro quo to help elect Trump in exchange for delivering on their policy wishlist are now cashing in on his anti-consumer agenda,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of climate advocacy group Evergreen Action.
Here’s Dharna report:
Appeals court halts construction of Trump’s $400m White House ballroom
A US federal appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to halt construction of the US president’s $400m White House ballroom, in a fresh blow to the controversial project.
Donald Trump, who demolished the historic East Wing of the White House last year to make way for planned ballroom, has repeatedly touted it as “a gift” to the US people.
But in a major setback in a case testing his presidential authority, the Washington-based US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upheld a preliminary injunction in a divided 2-1 order on Friday.
The injunction was won by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued last year after the Trump administration tore down the East Wing and began building a 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq meter) ballroom without seeking authorization from Congress.
The appeals court put its ruling on hold for two weeks, allowing the administration to appeal to the US supreme court.
Cassidy also noted that pushing back against Donald Trump’s “unrelenting” pursuit of perceived political enemies is a constant “no matter who the attorney general is”.
“This is the rationale for having a Senate confirmed attorney general with more leverage to push back,” Cassidy added, while explaining his vote for Blanche.
The Louisiana senator also said that Blanche is criticized “for things over which he has no control” – namely the presidential pardons of January 6 rioters.
“But this is a presidential prerogative, and he is not the president,” Cassidy said. “He can advise the president, but the president is not obligated to take his advice.”
Cassidy noted in a recent conversation with Bill Barr, an attorney general for part of Trump’s first term in office, that the president would “at times” not take Barr’s advice.
While Cassidy did criticize Blanche’s recent actions, noting that Trump’s nominee showed “poor judgment” in approving the $1.8bn so- called “anti-weaponization fund”, and exempting the president from IRS audits, these did not impact his vote to confirm Blanche as attorney general.
Cassidy says he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general: ‘I will be criticized for this vote’
Senator Bill Cassidy, the last Republican who was undecided about Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general, said he would vote to confirm Blanche.
He noted that while Blanche, who previously served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is “not perfect”, it is ultimately a decision between him or “another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively”.
“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr Blanche in very specific circumstances,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor, explaining his decision process. His “yes” vote, will now likely clear the way for Blanche to receive the 50 votes needed. Vice-president JD Vance will then cast a tie-breaking vote that will ensure Blanche’s confirmation.
One of the first legislative items on the Senate’s agenda today is a sanctions bill, named after the late senator, Lindsey Graham.
Late last month, the Senate voted to advance the bill with widespread support from both sides of the aisle, but did receive criticism because it would allow Donald Trump to slap hefty tariffs on major importers of Russian oil – namely India, China and the European Union.
We can expect a vote shortly in the upper chamber, where it will need 60 votes to pass.
In a new straight-to-camera video on social media, Mike Rogers – the Republican nominee in the US Senate race in Michigan – made a plea to Democratic voters who did not pick Abdul El-Sayed in Tuesday’s primary to join his campaign in the general election.
Rogers – who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2024 but lost out narrowly to Elissa Slotkin – addressed Democratic voters who “woke up on Wednesday feeling well hopeless because the person who won does not represent your values”. Rogers added that they “have a home” in his campaign.
“To the vast majority of people across Michigan who do not want to throw their support behind a campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence, and the views that are out of touch with your values, well, you have a home with us,” Rogers said.
Haley Stevens lost by a single percentage point, just over 15,000 votes, in the Democratic primary, and now El-Sayed is working to heal the fracture within his party to shore up Stevens’ base to ensure that Democrats can retain Michigan’s open Senate seat in November.
Max Miller lends re-election campaign $1m despite growing calls to resign amid domestic abuse allegations – report
Max Miller, the controversy-plagued congressman running for re-election in his Ohio district, is lending his campaign $1m, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This comes as Miller faces pressure to drop out of the race and resign, amid several allegations of domestic abuse against his ex-wife and infant daughter.
The outlet is the first to report that the congressman is investing the large sum of cash, which appears to be the latest example of him choosing to stay in the race.
Miller said he plans to transfer $1m to his campaign in two installments of $500,000, according to the Journal. The loan would give Miller at a significant financial bump over his Democratic challenger, Brian Poindexter.
