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‘Our memo speaks for itself’: Bondi breaks silence on Maga furore over Epstein caseSpeaking to NBC News earlier, the embattled attorney general Pam Bondi was of course asked about the frustration from Trump’s Maga base surrounding her department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.She said (on a different topic):
We’re going to fight to keep America safe again.
We’re fighting together as a team. That’s what’s so important right now. We’ve got a war on drugs. We’ve got a war on human trafficking, we’ve got cartels in this country … we have got foreign adversaries around this world as well, and we’re all going to work together as a team.
Asked about the president’s earlier remarks that she should release whatever files she thinks are “credible”, Bondi added:
Today, our memo speaks for itself. We’ll get back to you on anything else. I haven’t seen all of his statements today.
At a press conference earlier on drug enforcement, Bondi had refused to answer questions about Epstein. She told reporters:
Today is about fentanyl overdoses throughout our country and people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl. That’s the message that we’re here to send today. Not Epstein. Not going to talk about Epstein.
She also wouldn’t answer a question about Dan Bongino and whether he should stay in his role (though that has since been somewhat put to bed).Bondi, who has faced calls to resign from some conservatives because of the memo, including from Bongino, also said she has no plans to go.
I’m going to be here as long as the president wants me here.
Embattled attorney general Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference at the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/APShareUpdated at 22.49 BSTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureDemocrats target House Republicans who voted against measure to release Epstein filesThe House Majority PAC, which is working to elect a Democratic majority in the 2026 midterms, is trying hard to make an issue of Republicans in congress voting on Tuesday to block a procedural motion that would have forced a vote on a Democratic-sponsored amendment to force the release investigative files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who once claimed that he had been Donald Trump’s closest friend for a decade.The amendment calling for “the full release of the Epstein files” was introduced on Monday by Ro Khanna a California Democrat.In a press release sent to reporters on Tuesday, the House Majority PAC unveiled what it called “the GOP Epstein Simps Target List”, identifying House Republicans “who have remained complicit in the wake of the Trump administration’s push to bury the Epstein case.”The political action committee lists 43 Republicans it hopes to defeat next year, but draws particular attention to five.“For years, House Republicans were transfixed by Jeffrey Epstein’s network of exploitation. Nancy Mace demanded the client list, Anna Paulina Luna clamored for information, Cory Mills questioned the circumstances of his death, and Scott Perry insisted that the public has a right to know”, the Democratic group writes.“But now that Trump’s administration refuses to release the list—claiming it doesn’t exist, releasing selectively edited footage, and stonewalling transparency—those same Republicans have nothing to say. Some, like Rep. Mike Lawler, are now even dismissing coverage of Epstein altogether, calling it ‘nonsense’”, the attack ad in the form of a press release adds.ShareThe US Secret Service said in a statement that at about 11.30am local time in Washington on Tuesday:
Officers responded to an individual who threw an object over the White House fence along Pennsylvania Avenue. As a precaution, officers cleared the North Grounds, Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park. A military Explosive Ordinance Disposal team responded to the scene and cleared the object. One individual was transported to an area hospital for a mental health evaluation.
ShareUpdated at 22.45 BSTHouse speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans call for Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to testify to CongressIn a series of livestreamed interviews with the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday, House speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans appeared to break with the president by supporting calls for testimony to congress from Ghislaine Maxwell, the former socialite who conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls.The question to the speaker was relayed by the podcast host (who shares his last name but is no relation) from a viewer of the podcast’s live stream, who asked if there will be a vote in congress on having Maxwell testify.“I’m for transparency,” Johnson said before adding that he trusts Donald Trump and his hand-picked attorney general. “They’re doing a great job; it’s a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide” Johnson said. “The White House and the White House team are privy to facts that I don’t know,” Johnson added, “but I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out there.”Three of the podcast host’s guests, senator Mike Lee and congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert also said they supported having Maxwell testify, despite Donald Trump’s repeated efforts to convince his supporters to stop asking for more information about the investigations of his late friend, Epstein.After Maxwell’s arrest in 2020, when Trump was asked at a White House briefing if he thought she was “going to turn in powerful men”, Trump he suggested that he didn’t know much about a woman he had been photographed socializing with in the past.“I don’t know. I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly,” the president said. “I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, but I wish her well.”ShareUpdated at 22.46 BSTTrump repeats false claim that China has only one wind farmIn a rambling set of remarks at an AI and energy investment summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Donald Trump veered wildly off-topic to praise two partisan, conservative reporters in attendance and made false claims about China having just one wind farm and about his uncle having once taught Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.After boasting that he had made it easier for US firms to burn coal to generate electricity, Trump returned to a debunked false claim he has made previously, about China lacking wind farms.“China makes windmills but how many wind farms do you see in China? I haven’t seen any lately,” Trump said. “It’s sort of crazy, they buy – they build the windmills, sell them into our country, they sell them all over the world and they ruin their fields and ruin their valleys.”He then imagined a conversation with China. “And then you look at China. ‘Where’s your wind farm?’ ‘Well, we have one, we’re thinking about one … ” Trump said.In fact, China is the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, producing more than half of the supply, but is also installing them at home at a record pace. As the Associated Press reported last week, to debunk Trump’s false claim on this subject at a cabinet meeting:
China has 1.3 terawatts of utility-scale wind and solar capacity in development, which could generate more electricity than neighboring Japan consumed in all of 2023, according to a report from the Global Energy Monitor released last week. The report highlighted China’s offshore wind development, calling China the undisputed leader in the offshore wind sector, though it also said coal and gas are still on the rise across China.
Wind turbines at a demonstration base for the ‘wind replenishing fishery’’ industry in the tidal flat in Yancheng, China, on 15 August 2024. Photograph: Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/ShutterstockTrump then moved on to praise two of the journalists waiting to interview him after the event. The first was the New York Post reporter Salena Zito, who has just published a book about the attempted assassination of Trump last year that he took time to promote last week.“We have a great woman here, Salena Zito, she’s the writer, she writes on the rust belt and the midwest really but the rust belt, anything having to do with rust and belt,” Trump said.“And also Miss McAdams,” the president added, referring to Alexis McAdams of Fox. “Where is Miss McAdams? We’re going to do one with her too, and she’s great, with Fox. And she’s been fantastic.”Spotting the Fox correspondent in the crowd, Trump addressed her directly with words of praise: “Stand up! Stand up! Young and smart and vibrant. You’ve done a great job, so I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”The president’s remarks also included an apparently new false claim that his late uncle, John Trump, who was an accomplished a professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, taught Kaczynski, the former University of California mathematics professor who sent a series of letter bombs.While Trump recounted a conversation with his uncle about what kind of student Kaczynski was, there appears to be no evidence that the murderous mathematician, who was educated at Harvard, ever studied with Trump’s uncle, a physicist at MIT.Trump veered into the subject of his uncle’s scientific brilliance for the same reason that he usually does, to suggest that he has some sort of innate, genetic predisposition to understand science.ShareUpdated at 22.49 BST’Our memo speaks for itself’: Bondi breaks silence on Maga furore over Epstein caseSpeaking to NBC News earlier, the embattled attorney general Pam Bondi was of course asked about the frustration from Trump’s Maga base surrounding her department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.She said (on a different topic):
We’re going to fight to keep America safe again.
We’re fighting together as a team. That’s what’s so important right now. We’ve got a war on drugs. We’ve got a war on human trafficking, we’ve got cartels in this country … we have got foreign adversaries around this world as well, and we’re all going to work together as a team.
Asked about the president’s earlier remarks that she should release whatever files she thinks are “credible”, Bondi added:
Today, our memo speaks for itself. We’ll get back to you on anything else. I haven’t seen all of his statements today.
At a press conference earlier on drug enforcement, Bondi had refused to answer questions about Epstein. She told reporters:
Today is about fentanyl overdoses throughout our country and people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl. That’s the message that we’re here to send today. Not Epstein. Not going to talk about Epstein.
She also wouldn’t answer a question about Dan Bongino and whether he should stay in his role (though that has since been somewhat put to bed).Bondi, who has faced calls to resign from some conservatives because of the memo, including from Bongino, also said she has no plans to go.
I’m going to be here as long as the president wants me here.
Embattled attorney general Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference at the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/APShareUpdated at 22.49 BSTThe day so far
Mike Waltz had his confirmation hearing to become UN ambassador, where he said he has plans to “make the United Nations great again”. Democrats slammed Waltz over his role in Signalgate, saying he lied about aspects of the leaked chat, and excoriating him for “cowardice” and acting in a manner that is “disqualifying” for this position. Republican senators were far less critical of Trump’s nominee, instead confirming that his thoughts and decision-making would align with the president’s Maga agenda.
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Donald Trump and Republican senator Dave McCormick are set to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments at a summit at Carnegie Mellon University, near Pittsburgh, as his administration prepares more measures to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence.
The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that he has asked Israel to “aggressively” investigate the murder of an American citizen who was beaten to death in the occupied West Bank.
Trump has continued to defend Pam Bondi, who has come under furious fire from the president’s Maga base, including from FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who returned to work yesterday and was expected at the office today, days after he had threatened to quit over Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Trump said he is set to meet the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, during his upcoming trip to Scotland and refine the trade framework agreed upon by the two leaders.
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said secondary sanctions could hit countries such as China, Brazil and India if Russia is not serious about peace talks to end its war on Ukraine. He also said Europe would “find the money” for Ukraine to continue defending itself from Russian aggression ahead of any peace talks.
Inflation shot up in June as the impacts of Trump’s tariffs slowly started to show in US prices.
A group of Republican lawmakers complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.
A Biden-era plan to implement a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Ohio, which would have eliminated tons of greenhouse gases from the local environment year over year and created more than a thousand jobs, was put on hold indefinitely by the Trump administration.
ShareTrump to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments for PennsylvaniaDonald Trump and Republican senator Dave McCormick are set to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments at a summit at Carnegie Mellon University, near Pittsburgh, shortly.Trump will reveal details of the new initiatives at the event in Pennsylvania where McCormick is hosting the summit.Dozens of industry leaders are expected to attend, including heads of ExxonMobil, BlackRock, Palantir and Google. Also expected are senior members of Trump’s cabinet and Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro.We’ll bring you any key lines here.ShareUpdated at 20.30 BSTTrump administration seeks to end bond hearings for immigrants without legal statusEric BergerThe Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.The new policy would apply during removal proceedings, which can take years, for millions of immigrants who entered the country from Mexico in recent decades, according to a report from the Washington Post, which reviewed documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Such immigrants had previously been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge, but Todd Lyons, Ice’s acting director, stated in a memo reviewed by the Post that the homeland security and justice departments had “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities”. The departments determined that such immigrants “may not be released from Ice custody”, Lyons reportedly wrote in the memo.That new restriction, which is expected to face legal challenges, was issued on 8 July shortly after the Republican-controlled Congress provided Ice $45bn over the next four years to detain immigrants for civil deportation proceedings.“To be clear, [Ice’s] position here is laughable and is being rejected by immigration judges all over the US, and will soon be dismissed by actual federal court judges in habeas proceedings,” Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and Emory University law professor, wrote on X in a post that alluded to challenges against one’s detention.The policy change would mark the latest significant departure for Ice, which during Joe Biden’s presidency provided a guide on how immigrants who are detained can post bond.ShareUS ambassador asks Israel to investigate murder of American citizen in occupied West BankThe US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that he has asked Israel to “aggressively” investigate the murder of an American citizen who was beaten to death in the occupied West Bank.Relatives of Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet have been calling for the Trump administration to arrest and prosecute those responsible for his killing.“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act. Saif was just 20 yrs old,” Huckabee said in a post on X.The 20-year-old from Tampa, Florida, was visiting his family in an area near Ramallah, and was killed last week trying to protect their farm from invaders, they said at an emotional press conference in Florida yesterday.Musallet was beaten with clubs and bats, and died in the same attack that killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man. Razek Hussein al-Shalabi was shot and left to bleed to death, the Palestinian health ministry said.Hasem Musallet, Sayfollah’s uncle, said the settlers prevented ambulances from reaching the injured men, and that a brother watched Sayfollah take his last breath.The attacks come amid a wave of increasing Israeli settler violence targeting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank – more than 1,000 Palestinian people have been killed there and at least 9,000 injured since the Hamas raid into southern Israel on 7 October 2023.ShareUpdated at 19.14 BSTTrump says Bondi handled Epstein case ‘very well’On that note, Donald Trump has continued to defend Pam Bondi, who has come under furious fire from the president’s Maga base over the perceived lack of transparency surrounding the justice department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.“The attorney general has handled that very well,” Trump said of Bondi. “She has really done a very good job.”Asked whether she had told him if his name appeared in a file related to Epstein, Trump said “no,” adding that Bondi has “given us just a very quick briefing”.Trump claimed that the files were “made up” by his predecessors, though previously he has discussed the files, and his allies – from the vice-president, JD Vance, to Bondi herself – have called for their release.“She’s handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her,” Trump said. “Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.”ShareUpdated at 19.04 BSTBongino back at FBI after threatening to quit over Epstein rowFBI deputy director Dan Bongino returned to work yesterday and was expected at the office today, a federal law enforcement source told NBC News this morning, days after he had threatened to quit over a justice department memo that effectively ended the government’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.The source told NBC that Bongino was expected to stay on in his role, but that tensions remained high with the FBI, justice department and White House attempting to weather the storm in the hope that the controversy might die down over the coming days.A source told NBC last week that the former podcaster was “out-of-control furious” after the memo was made public and had gotten into a heated confrontation with attorney general Pam Bondi over his frustration with how the justice department had handled the case.He didn’t show up to work last Friday and had threatened to quit unless Bondi was fired, NBC News reported.But Trump has repeatedly backed Bondi and also expressed support for Bongino over the weekend, saying they had spoken and he sounded “terrific”.Related: How the Jeffrey Epstein row plunged Maga world into turmoil – a timelineShareUpdated at 19.02 BSTRepublicans move to block Democratic effort to force release of Epstein filesEdward HelmoreRepublican lawmakers have moved to block a Democratic effort to force the release of the so-called Epstein files, a near-mythological trove of undisclosed information about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at the center of an internal political war among US conservatives.Democrats had been pressing for an amendment to cryptocurrency legislation that would have forced the release of information and exhibits itemized in a list of evidence held by the justice department from the 2019 child sex-trafficking case against disgraced financier Epstein.Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, teased a full accounting of the Epstein evidence, including a purported client list earlier this year. But 10 days ago, she changed course when she announced that the Trump administration had reviewed the evidence, concluded that Epstein had indeed killed himself in jail, and decided not to release the contents that the justice department said included a thousand hours of video depicting child sexual abuse.That set off a firestorm within Trump’s conspiracy-minded Maga movement that the president has since tried to calm.Democrats had weighed in on the issue, hoping to force a release of the documents. “The question with Epstein is: Whose side are you on?” California Democratic US House member Ro Khanna, the author of the Epstein measure, told Axios. “Are you on the side of the rich and powerful, or are you on the side of the people?”Khanna promised to introduce the amendment “again and again and again”.But Republicans on the US House rules committee voted down the amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on whether the evidence – which includes micro cassettes, DVDs, CDs including one labelled “girl pics nude book 4”, computer hard drives and three massage tables in green, beige and brown – should be released.Yet the federal case against Epstein, which dates back to 2005 and involves a mysterious plea deal that allowed to the financier to plead guilty to Florida state charges of solicitation of a minor, continues to challenge what political hardliners on the right and left believe is evidence of a nefarious nexus of international power.ShareUpdated at 18.45 BSTTrump to meet UK’s Starmer in Scotland to refine trade dealDonald Trump said he is set to meet the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, during his upcoming trip to Scotland and refine the trade framework agreed upon by the two leaders.“We are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen. And we’re going to do a lot of different things, also refine the trade deal that we’ve made,” Trump said.Trump plans to visit both his Turnberry and Aberdeen golf properties, and officially open a new 18-hole golf course at his resort on the North Sea coast at Menie, north of Aberdeen, on a trip expected to last from 25 to 29 July.ShareUpdated at 18.39 BSTRutte: Secondary US sanctions could hit China, Brazil and India ‘very hard’Jakub KrupaThe Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said secondary sanctions could hit countries such as China, Brazil and India if Russia is not serious about peace talks to end its war on Ukraine.Speaking on the final day of his visit to Washington DC, Rutte also said Europe would “find the money” for Ukraine to continue defending itself from Russian aggression ahead of any peace talks.He said:
“What happened yesterday was important. First of all that the US will now supply, massively, Ukraine with weapons out of [the] US; not just air defence, also missiles, also ammunition, paid for by the Europeans.
“And, secondly, that President Trump said basically if Russia is not serious about peace talks, [then] in 50 days, he will slam secondary sanctions on countries like India, China and Brazil.
“My encouragement to these three countries is … you might want to take a look into this because this might hit you very hard. Please make a phone call to [Russian president] Vladimir Putin and tell him he needs to get serious about peace talks.”
He added:
“We will find the money in Europe to make sure Ukraine is in the best possible position as soon as these peace talks start.”
ShareUpdated at 18.30 BSTSummary: Mike Waltz’s Senate confirmation hearingIn case you’re just catching up, here are some of the top lines from Mike Waltz’s Senate confirmation hearing to become the US ambassador to the United Nations:
Waltz was critical of the UN’s approach to China and “antisemitism” in his opening remarks. He said the UN had drifted from its original peacemaking goals and should return to its founding principles – “peacemaking, not nation-building”.
Waltz also pledged to “make the UN great again”, echoing Trump’s message for revamping America.
It took over an hour before the Signal group chat leak was mentioned. The leak, which occurred when Waltz was national security adviser and inadvertently added an Atlantic journalist into a group chat about US strikes on Yemen, led to his removal from that role in May and current nomination as ambassador to the UN.
Waltz said using Signal was “not only authorized, it was recommended” for government and personal devices. He also repeatedly claimed no classified information was disclosed.
Democratic senators Chris Coons, Tim Kaine and Cory Booker were the ones to press Waltz about Signalgate. Booker in particular excoriated Waltz for “cowardice” and acting in a manner that he said is “disqualifying” for this position.
Republican senators were far less critical of Trump’s nominee, instead confirming that his thoughts and decision-making would align with the president’s Maga agenda.
Waltz stressed that the Trump administration’s diplomatic strategy would be focused on cutting costs to what he called “waste, fraud and abuse that are endemic to the UN system”.
Democratic senator Jacky Rosen then cited that strategy when asking whether Waltz was still on White House payroll, despite being removed from his former role months ago, and said that could be perceived as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
ShareUpdated at 17.48 BSTWaltz denounces UN global reports that examined US domestic policyEarlier in the hearing, the Associated Press reported that Mike Waltz stressed that the Trump administration’s diplomatic strategy would be focused on cutting costs to what he called “waste, fraud and abuse that are endemic to the UN system”.“It’s worth remembering, despite the cuts, the US is by far the most generous nation in the world,” said Waltz, responding to concerns that the administration’s cuts to global programs hurt US influence.Waltz added that some UN-funded research and projects were anti-American and received input from some UN members whom the administration considers adversaries.“The UN’s radical politicization, such reports as ‘Stolen Native American Land’ reports and investigations, called the ‘George Floyd mechanism’, labeling American police and America systemically racist with input from countries like Cuba and Venezuela, is unacceptable,” said Waltz.ShareUpdated at 17.46 BSTMike Waltz’s hearing has officially concluded.Share
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