White House boasts family of suspect in Boulder attack ‘could be deported as early as tonight’
The White House is boasting on its official social media accounts about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, who were taken into custody on Tuesday.
Soliman’s six family members, “have been captured and are now in ICE custody for expedited removal”, a White House post says. It adds, in all caps: “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”
That timeline would appear to conflict with both court orders that people threatened with deportation should be given sufficient time to challenge their removals, and a statement from the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, earlier on Tuesday, that authorities “are investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it”.
According to a state arrest affidavit, Soliman told the Boulder police “no one knew about his plans and he never talked to his wife or family about it”.
For its post on Instagram, the White House cropped an image of Soliman taken during the attack to include a rainbow Progress Pride Flag on the Boulder courthouse behind him.
Stephen Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, said on Tuesday that all of the victims of the firebomb attack are expected to survive, the Denver Post reports. Three of the 12 victims are being treated at UCHealth’s burn and frostbite center at the University of Colorado in Aurora.
Key events
‘Elon Musk is right’ to criticize spending bill says House Republican who voted for spending bill
Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, just seconded Elon Musk’s criticism of the massive spending bill that passed the House by a single vote as “ a disgusting abomination” and added that the billionaire Republican donor “is right to call out House Leadership”.
Perry, who voted for the bill last month, shared Musk’s post with that criticism on the billionaire’s social media platform X along with a comment that he and his colleagues “were right all along” to object to the spending bill Donald Trump is eager to sign into law. Projections from non-partisan experts suggest that the spending bill, which includes massive tax cuts for the rich and could deprive 14 million people of health insurance, could add over $3 trillion to the federal debt in 10 years.
Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Representative Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, replied to the comment from Perry by pointing out that he could have defeated the bill himself by simply voting no. The House vote in favor of the bill, thanks to Perry’s vote, was 215-214.
Perry reportedly played a key role in Trump’s plot to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden, according to records obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith, and the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
White House boasts family of suspect in Boulder attack ‘could be deported as early as tonight’
The White House is boasting on its official social media accounts about the arrests of the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the suspected Boulder attacker, who were taken into custody on Tuesday.
Soliman’s six family members, “have been captured and are now in ICE custody for expedited removal”, a White House post says. It adds, in all caps: “THEY COULD BE DEPORTED AS EARLY AS TONIGHT.”
That timeline would appear to conflict with both court orders that people threatened with deportation should be given sufficient time to challenge their removals, and a statement from the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, earlier on Tuesday, that authorities “are investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it”.
According to a state arrest affidavit, Soliman told the Boulder police “no one knew about his plans and he never talked to his wife or family about it”.
For its post on Instagram, the White House cropped an image of Soliman taken during the attack to include a rainbow Progress Pride Flag on the Boulder courthouse behind him.
Stephen Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, said on Tuesday that all of the victims of the firebomb attack are expected to survive, the Denver Post reports. Three of the 12 victims are being treated at UCHealth’s burn and frostbite center at the University of Colorado in Aurora.
Brazil’s president resists Trump’s threats to his supreme court
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, vowed on Tuesday to defend his country’s supreme court against attacks from the United States, in a sharp rebuke of potential sanctions from Washington against one of the top court’s justices.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio told Congress last week that the Trump administration could impose economic sanctions on the judge overseeing the trial of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally accused of plotting a January 6-style attack by his supporters on government buildings in Brasília in 2023, to demand that the presidential election he lost be overturned.
“It is unacceptable for the president of any country in the world to comment on the decision of the supreme court of another country,” Lula told reporters, adding that the United States needs to understand the importance of “respecting the integrity of institutions in other countries”.
The Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes is under fire from the far-right in Brazil and the US as he leads the court’s crackdown on what he has called threats to Brazil’s democracy, both online and in an alleged coup plot.
His orders to social media companies to remove posts from Bolsonaro supporters that he considered threats to democratic institutions were called censorship by Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, and Rumble, a right-wing alternative to YouTube backed by Peter Thiel and JD Vance.
The judge suspended Musk’s social media platform in Brazil until it acquiesced to his orders.
Tensions have spiked between the two nations since Trump took office, according to reports in the Brazilian press. Last month, the country’s leading newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo, reported that a Trump administration diplomat, David Gamble, was rebuffed when he asked, during a visit to Brazil, for the Brazilian gangs PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and CV (Comando Vermelho) to be designated terrorist organizations.
Two weeks later, according to Folha, a visit to Brasília by the head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, “caused discomfort among Brazilian military officials” and “a dinner he hosted that ended up sparsely attended after key invitees failed to show”.
The tension in that case was over the American’s announcement that he planned to visit a military base along the border with Peru and Bolivia, to highlight illegal trafficking, without getting permission from Brazil’s military.
The visit to the border was ultimately cancelled and Brazil’s defense minister and the leaders of its army, navy and air force did not attend the dinner hosted by the visiting US admiral.
Marjorie Taylor Greene would have voted against spending bill if she had read it, she says
Joseph Gedeon
Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn widespread criticism from Democratic colleagues for admitting that not only did she not read Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill before voting for it, but she would have voted against it had she read thoroughly.
Greene revealed she was unaware of a provision in Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” (OBBB) that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence systems for a decade. The Georgia representative said she would have voted against the entire bill if she had known about the AI language buried on pages 278-279.
“Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years,” Greene wrote on X. “I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”
Democratic lawmakers, who all voted against the bill, responded with incredulity of Greene’s admission.
“You have one job. To. Read. The. Fucking. Bill,” Representative Eric Swalwell wrote in response.
Representative Ted Lieu said he had read the AI provision beforehand and “that’s one reason I voted no on the GOP’s big, ugly bill”, he posted on X. “PRO TIP: It’s helpful to read stuff before voting on it.”
Representative Mark Pocan was more forward: “Read the f**king bill instead of clapping for it like a performing monkey. You should have done your job while it was written. You didn’t. You own that vote.”
Read more:
Elon Musk’s online outburst could embolden fiscally conservative Republican senators – some of whom have already spoken out – to defy Trump as they continue crucial negotiations on Capitol Hill over the so-called “big, beautiful bill”, my colleague David Smith reports.
Musk drew immediate support from Thomas Massie, one of only two Republicans who last month voted against the bill in the House of Representatives. “He’s right,” Massie responded on X today.
Having narrowly passed the House, the bill is now under consideration in the Senate, which is aiming to pass a revised version by 4 July. Some Republican fiscal conservatives, such as senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, share Musk’s concerns about the need for significant spending cuts.
Trump, who has been pressuring Republicans to pass his signature legislation to enact his domestic agenda, attacked Paul on Truth Social earlier today, writing: “Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting “NO” on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. The BBB is a big WINNER!!!”
He then posted again: “Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!”
House speaker Mike Johnson calls Musk ‘terribly wrong’ for slamming megabill
Politico reports that House speaker Mike Johnson said Elon Musk is “terribly wrong” after the tech billionaire – and, until last week, top Trump adviser – blasted Trump’s megabill as a “disgusting abomination” that will expand the “already gigantic” budget deficit.
“With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big, beautiful bill,” Johnson told reporters.
Johnson said he spoke over the phone with Musk for what he described as a friendly conversation of more than 20 minutes yesterday about the “virtues” of the bill. “And he seemed to understand that,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that he discussed with Musk the accelerated repeal of many green energy tax credits in the House version of the bill, which Musk also voiced opposition to last week.
“But for him to come out and pan the whole bill, to me, is just very disappointing, very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday,” Johnson said. “It’s not personal,” the speaker added. “I just deeply regret that he’s made this mistake.”
House majority leader John Thune, according to Politico, simply said GOP senators “have a difference of opinion” with Musk and that he hoped “he’ll come to a different conclusion” after learning more about the bill.
Family of Colorado fire-bomb suspect taken into Ice custody
The family of the Egyptian national charged with attacking people with a makeshift flamethrower and other incendiary devices at an event for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, was taken into federal custody today, officials said.
The Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a social media video post that Ice had taken into custody the family of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who lived in Colorado Springs and who federal officials have said was in the US illegally, having overstayed a tourist visa and an expired work permit – though he had a pending asylum claim.
Noem said while Soliman will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, federal agents were also “investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack – if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support for it”.
Ice did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for more details about the detention of Soliman’s family.
According to local media reports, Soliman’s family included two teenagers and three younger children. FBI and police officials had said on Monday that the family has cooperated with investigators. The suspect told investigators he acted alone.
DHS officials said Soliman entered the US in August 2022 on a tourist visa, filed for asylum the following month, and remained in the country after his visa expired in February 2023.
A police affidavit filed in support of Soliman’s arrest warrant said he was born in Egypt, lived in Kuwait for 17 years and moved three years ago to Colorado Springs, about 100 miles south of Boulder, where he lived with his wife and five children.
Federal and local authorities said at a news conference in Boulder yesterday that Soliman had done nothing to draw law enforcement attention before Sunday’s attack. He was believed to have acted alone, they said.
US announces visa restrictions for several central American government officials
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has announced visa restrictions for several unnamed Central American government officials and their families for allegedly exploiting Cuban medical professionals, Reuters reports.
Rubio, who did not name the officials or the countries they are from, said the officials are responsible for Cuban medical mission programs that include elements of forced labor and the exploitation of Cuban workers.
“These steps promote accountability for those who support and perpetuate these exploitative practices,” he said in a statement.
“Attacks on the judiciary itself are dangerous to the rule of law and to the actual judges themselves,” says Dick Durbin, citing a spike in violence and threats against judges and their families in light of the president’s rhetoric.
“Let us recognise that violence begets violence,” he says. “Threats of violence … are never acceptable.
“People are welcome to debate the merits of any particular judicial decision but we cannot condone personal attacks and threats against judges who rule against this administration, and we can’t allow partisan politics or the latest outrage from the president to undermine the judicial branch and our constitutional order.”
Durbin cites language used by Trump and his allies to attack the “authority and legitimacy” of the judiciary and to intimidate judges, including demanding impeachment of a judge who ruled against him.
It is difficult to imagine either President Bush, President Obama or President Biden using such unhinged, bombastic and childish language, or calling for the impeachment of a judge simply for ruling against his administration.
The reason it’s difficult is because Obama or Biden never did anything like this.
Durbin goes on to say that Trump and “his allies go after anyone who dares to speak up because fear of political retribution is now at the core of this Maga world, and my Republican colleagues have been silent as the president has made the statements he has about judges”.
