Mitch McConnell statement suggests he considers Bill Pulte unfit for national intelligence director role – US politics live

Mitch McConnell statement suggests Bill Pulte unqualified for DNI role

The Republican senator Mitch McConnell put out a scathing statement today suggesting that Donald Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, is not qualified to serve in the role.

“Very few Senate-confirmable positions come with statutory eligibility requirements,” McConnell said. “There are good reasons why the director of national intelligence is one of them.”

Though he did not name Pulte in his statement, McConnell made clear that he would not vote for him to serve as DNI in a permanent capacity.

“Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote,” he said.

McConnell was the only Republican to join with Democrats to vote against the confirmation of former DNI Tulsi Gabbard to the role, citing her “alarming lapses of judgment”.

“When a nominee’s record proves them unworthy of the highest public trust, and when their command of relevant policy falls short of the requirements of their office, the Senate should withhold its consent,” he said at the time.

The three top Democrats in the US House on Wednesday called for the Senate’s Republican leadership to pass the war powers resolution adopted by the House, which directs the president “to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran”.

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After the House voted 215 to 208 to approve the resolution, the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar said in a statement:

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More than three months ago, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth plunged America into a reckless and costly war of choice in the Middle East without clear objectives, an exit strategy, public support or the authorization required by the United States Congress. Republicans have since spent billions in taxpayer dollars and carelessly put our brave men and women in uniform into harm’s way while causing gas prices at home to skyrocket out of control.

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Following repeated attempts to get sycophants in the Republican-controlled House to join us, House Democrats successfully passed our War Powers Resolution today to stand up for the American people and hold Donald Trump accountable. It is now time for Senate Republicans to do the right thing.

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Before signing an executive order related to customs in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Donald Trump took seven minutes to reassure an anxious public, beset by worries about a protracted war with Iran, surging gasoline prices and rising inflation, that progress has been made on at least one front: the resurfacing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is nearly complete.

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The pool, he added, is extremely long.

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signing an executive order on Wednesday, Donald Trump asked an aide to hand him a poster he said he had commissioned to show that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would be a very tall building, if it was a building instead of a pool, and was vertical instead of horizontal.”,”caption”:”Before signing an executive order on Wednesday, Donald Trump asked an aide to hand him a poster he said he had commissioned to show that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would be a very tall building, if it was a building instead of a pool, and was vertical instead of horizontal.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

“We’ll have it open before July 4th,” the president announced, after once again holding up a series of renderings of what he assured the nation would be a beautified “reflecting pond, or the reflecting pool, as some people call it.”

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To date, the only person to call it “the reflecting pond” appears to be the current president.

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“It’ll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything,” Trump said, pointing to the “very strong, powerful substance” the company he gave a no-bid contract to used to temporarily seal its base.

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During his seven-minute monologue on the renovation, the president again made the point he seems fixated on: that the 2,028ft-long reflecting pool is so long that even some of the tallest buildings on the world would be shorter, if, for some reason, they were laid on their side.

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He then called on an aide to hand him a poster comparing the length of the pool to three American skyscrapers: Chicago’s Willis (Sears) Tower, New York’s Empire State Building and One World Trade Center.

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“I just had this done,” the president told reporters as he held up the poster he apparently commissioned.

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As he explained the quite self-evident poster to the assembled White House press corps, the president was apparently dissatisfied with one element: the poster includes an accurate measurement of the reflecting pool’s length, slightly rounded up to 2,030ft.

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The pool, the president insisted without explanation, is “actually much more than 2,000, close to, including everything its about 2,500ft, in length, to the end”.

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The president did not explain what the “everything” was that he was including to reach the higher figure.

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The US House of Representatives delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump over his war on Iran on Wednesday, as representatives backed a move to force him to seek approval from Congress or withdraw US forces.

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The House voted 215 to 208 in favor of the war powers resolution, as four Republicans voted with Democrats.

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Wednesday’s vote came nearly two weeks after House Republicans cancelled an earlier scheduled vote, on the grounds that they lacked the votes to defeat it.

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The Senate voted last month to advance a resolution forcing Trump to seek congressional approval after four Republican senators rebelled and voted with the Democrats.

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While bragging about how great his deal with Iran will be, once he manages to close it, Donald Trump just told reporters a blatant lie about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal he withdrew from in 2018.

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His deal, Trump said, will be “the exact opposite of the Obama deal. The Obama deal was a disgrace, it gave them a nuclear weapon.”

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In fact, the very first paragraph of the deal sealed in July 2015 said the exact opposite.

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US secretary of state John Kerry during final talks over Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna on 14 July 2015.”,”caption”:”Then US secretary of state John Kerry during final talks over Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna on 14 July 2015.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Here is the full text of the agreement’s first words, negotiated by the US, the EU and five other nations:

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n

The E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the Islamic Republic of Iran welcome this historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which will ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful, and mark a fundamental shift in their approach to this issue. They anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.

n

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Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump was just asked in the ceasefire with Iran is still on, given the deadly Iranian attack on Kuwait’s international airport, and US strikes on Iran.

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The president played down the significance of the Iranianattack that killed at least one person and wounded 63 in the first deadly attack in the Gulf since a ceasefire came into effect on 8 April.

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“You know, there’s a reason for everything, and we hit them pretty hard” Trump said, casting Iran’s strike as retaliation. “They did something, not a big deal,” he added. “Some people would say they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action… they were reciprocating.”

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He went on to suggest that talks on a peace deal are continuing. “I hear the negotiation is going well, very well.”

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“If it happens, might not happen, but it if happens it could happen over the weekend,” the president said, of a deal to end the fighting he has been promising is imminent for months now.

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Asked how he defined ‘ceasefire’, the president joked: “I’d say, in that part of the world, ‘ceasefire’ is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

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As some of his aides laughed, Trump turned to them and praised his own quip about an exchange of fire in which at least one person died and dozens were wounded. “That’s not bad,” he said.

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If there was a glimmer of a possibility that the Voting Rights Act survived a body blow of a decision from the US supreme court in Louisiana v Callais in April, the court’s conservative justices extinguished it yesterday evening.

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In an unsigned order issued on the court’s emergency “shadow docket”, the court’s six conservative justices allowed Alabama to use a congressional map that gets rid of one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts. That map the state will use is one that a three-judge panel ruled was drawn with an intent to discriminate against Black voters.

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Even after the supreme court made it nearly impossible to bring Voting Rights Act claims in Callais, there seemed a slim chance that it would uphold Alabama’s map. In Alabama, a lower court had found that the map was drawn with an intent to discriminate, something that wasn’t an issue in the Louisiana case.

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But in its Tuesday order, the supreme court said that didn’t matter.

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“Under Callais, the District Court was required to deny relief unless the plaintiffs’ alternative map performed ‘just as well’ with respect to all of the State’s constitutionally permissible districting criteria,” the court’s majority wrote. “Yet, the District Court found a violation even though the plaintiffs’ alternative map would not perform just as well as to the State’s constitutionally permissible criteria of keeping together the Gulf Coast community of interest and avoiding the pairing of incumbents.”

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n
The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, refused to say whether Donald Trump, his family and his businesses would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration yesterday abandoned plans for a $1.8bn fund that would have benefited the president’s allies. Bessent declined to answer when pressed repeatedly by lawmakers, citing the unresolved legal dispute, after the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, indicated yesterday that the provision remained unchanged.

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The Republican senator Mitch McConnell put out a scathing statement suggesting that Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, is not qualified to serve in the role. “Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote,” McConnell said. More on Pulte’s appointment here.

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The US secretary of state, Mario Rubio, told the House foreign affairs committee that Trump will be attending the Nato meeting of heads of state in Turkey next month. “I think the next meeting of Nato and Turkey in July is probably the most important meeting in Nato’s history, because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed,” Rubio said.

n
Rubio also admitted that the Trump administration “understood the risk factors” when it launched war on Iran, including that Tehran would retaliate against US allies in the region and close the strait of Hormuz, driving up costs globally. “Everyone knew what Iran would do in response … but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” the secretary of state said.

n
Donald Trump confirmed Axios’s report that he shouted and cursed at the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over Israel’s threats to resume airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier this week. “I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know, at some point I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this, we gotta stop it,’” he told the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast.

n
Trump also told the podcast that the vice-president, JD Vance, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, running together in 2028 would be “unbeatable”. “I would think that JD and Marco as a team would be very hard to beat,” Trump said. He has continued to fuel the succession talk even as both Vance and Rubio downplay their 2028 ambitions.

n
Trump threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labour failures, in the latest attempt to revive his signature trade policy. The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said: “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field. We will no longer tolerate this disparity.” Here’s our story.

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And finally, Senate Republicans officially dropped language providing up to $1bn for security upgrades to Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom from the updated text for their immigration enforcement bill released today. They unveiled the revised bill shortly before the first procedural vote on a motion to proceed with the measure.

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“Very few Senate-confirmable positions come with statutory eligibility requirements,” McConnell said. “There are good reasons why the director of national intelligence is one of them.”

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Though he did not name Pulte in his statement, McConnell made clear that he would not vote for him to serve as DNI in a permanent capacity.

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McConnell was the only Republican to join with Democrats to vote against the confirmation of former DNI Tulsi Gabbard to the role, citing her “alarming lapses of judgment”.

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Senate Republicans have officially dropped language providing up to $1bn for security upgrades to Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom from the updated text for their immigration enforcement bill released today.

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GOP senators had already decided before the Memorial Day recess that they would not pass the $70bn legislation to restore funding to ICE and border patrol ahead of the 1 June deadline set by the US president amid concerns about the $1bn proposal for security measures and controversial plans to create a $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund (though the administration abandoned the latter yesterday).

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Some Republican senators were concerned about the optics of funding the ballroom with taxpayer dollars amid a cost-of-living crisis in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.

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Republicans unveiled the revised bill shortly before the first procedural vote on a motion to proceed with the measure at about 2.30pm ET.

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At his Senate finance committee hearing earlier today, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, dodged a slew of questions about Donald Trump’s contentious $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund – which is as of yesterday dead in the water – and repeatedly deferred to the justice department on the president’s IRS settlement.

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“I’m unable to comment because of litigation,” he told the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “Treasury is represented by the Department of Justice in all matters. They act as our attorneys, so I would suggest that you direct your questions to acting attorney general [Todd] Blanche.”

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Bessent declined to comment on whether the provision that provides Trump and his family with immunity from IRS audits is still in place. Blanche said yesterday that it was.

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The Democratic senator Catherine Cortez also pressed Bessent on whether other taxpayers whose returns were leaked alongside Trump’s would receive “the same immunity as President Trump and his family received”, but Bessent deflected once again.

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“Treasury does not give any of that,” Bessent said. “We are represented by the justice department.”

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Pressed again, he said only: “We will follow the instructions and the settlement.”

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older man gestures with his hands in front of a microphone.”,”caption”:”Scott Bessent testifies at a hearing of the Senate committee on finance.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1780508180000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”13.36 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1780509574000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”13.59 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1780509174000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”13.52 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”13.52″,”title”:”Bessent dodges questions on Trump’s tax audit immunity”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 3 Jun 2026 18.34 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 3 Jun 2026 05.49 EDT”},{“id”:”6a205a0d8f086468566b4c45″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Mario Rubio, the US secretary of state, told the House foreign affairs committee today that Donald Trump will be attending the Nato meeting of heads of state in Turkey next month.

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“The president himself will be attending,” Rubio said.

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Trump has long criticized Nato but has escalated his rhetoric over the war in Iran. In April, he called the 77-year-old alliance a “paper tiger” and suggesting the US may consider leaving after Nato member countries ignored his call for military assistance to help reopen the strait of Hormuz.

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“I think the next meeting of Nato and Turkey in July is probably the most important meeting in Nato’s history, because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed,” Rubio said on Wednesday.

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Donald Trump’s appointment of a close political ally with no intelligence experience to lead the nation’s spy agencies has thrown last-ditch efforts to renew a critical surveillance program into doubt.

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Bill Pulte, currently head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), major Republican donor and heir to a home construction fortune, was tapped by Trump to serve as acting director of national intelligence days after Tulsi Gabbard departed the role.

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Senior Democrats immediately said the move could doom a fragile bipartisan agreement to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is due to expire next week.

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Section 702 permits US intelligence agencies to collect communications of foreign targets operating outside the country without a warrant. Congress is working toward a deadline of 12 June.

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More here:

“,”elementId”:”1270ec71-d6ba-4daf-b874-acbdc5c4bf1d”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”Trump’s intelligence chief pick puts surveillance program renewal in doubt”,”elementId”:”ba69eac9-18da-469f-b53c-fdef0bfd137e”,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/03/trump-intelligence-chief-fisa-surveillance-program”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1780503047000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”12.10 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1780503280000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”12.14 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1780503280000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”12.14 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”12.14″,”title”:”Trump’s intelligence chief pick puts Fisa surveillance program renewal in doubt”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Joseph Gedeon”}],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 3 Jun 2026 18.34 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 3 Jun 2026 05.49 EDT”},{“id”:”6a2050278f086468566b4b9a”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Jacobs then asked Rubio who won the 2020 presidential election.

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Rubio declined to answer, insisting that he was “not here to answer” questions about that because “this is a foreign affairs committee”.

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“I don’t answer the question because as secretary of state, I do not participate in domestic political issues,” he said.

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Jacobs replied that the question wasn’t about a political issue but about democracy.

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Donald Trump has threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labour failures, in the latest attempt to revive his signature trade policy.

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The European Union immediately hit back, saying it expected the US to respect the tariff deal it entered into last July and arguing that stealth tariffs breached the spirit of that agreement.

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The proposed levies on partners accused of allowing imports of goods produced by workers under coercion come after the US supreme court ruled in February that the president’s “liberation day” tariffs were illegal.

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Trump responded by imposing 10% across-the-board tariffs, but last month the US trade court found those were also unlawful, although they remain in place during the appeal process.

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The latest proposal for tariffs on the grounds of forced labour, which would affect major partners including Canada, Japan, Norway, Taiwan and China, would enable Trump to skirt those previous court-imposed limits on his protectionist agenda. They come as the US threatens to impose fresh levies of 25% on Brazil.

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The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said: “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field. We will no longer tolerate this disparity.”

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Here’s Lisa’s full report:

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The secretary of state then claimed that changing the government of Iran was not a goal of the operation.

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“Look, we would love to see a change in Iran … but that was not the goal of our mission,” Rubio said.

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As you might remember, that is contrary to Donald Trump stating regime change as an objective in the early days of the war and repeatedly (and dangerously) urging Iranians to overthrow their government.

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In a heated exchange with Democratic ranking member Gregory Meeks, Marco Rubio initially skirted a question on whether he had warned Donald Trump that launching a war on Iran would drive up costs on gas, food, travel and shipments.

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Rubio then refused to give a yes or no answer on whether or not he warned the president that starting a war against Iran “could result in the regime placing a chokehold on the strait of Hormuz”.

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But he added: “The president and the administration was aware there would be consequences to action, but the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon were worse.”

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He added: “All the risk factors were understood, but the important risk factor was Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

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Asked again if he warned Trump of the potential consequences, Rubio said: “Everyone was aware of what Iran might do in retaliation … but they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

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And asked if he warned the president that Iran would launch retaliatory attacks against US partners, allies and Americans living or working in the region, Rubio said: “Everyone knew what Iran would do in response, we were prepared for any response … but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

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That the administration knew that attacking Iran would place the US’s regional allies in the line of fire and drive up costs but went to war anyway is quite an admission from the secretary of state.

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I wonder what Gulf allies who have come under attack and lost residents during this war, such as Kuwait today, will make of that, not to mention everyone else around the world who has been affected by the crisis in the strait, among them Americans who will be voting in the midterms in a few short months.

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Rubio testifies before the House Foreign affairs committee.”,”caption”:”Marco Rubio testifies before the House Foreign affairs committee.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters”}}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1780496293000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”10.18 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1780499469000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”11.11 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1780497150000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”10.32 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”10.32″,”title”:”‘Everyone knew what Iran would do in response,’ says Rubio”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 3 Jun 2026 18.34 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 3 Jun 2026 05.49 EDT”},{“id”:”6a202fcd8f08d10bbf391631″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Also last night, Karen Bass came out ahead in the heated primary for Los Angeles mayor, but with less than 50% of the vote will have to defend her seat in November’s general election.

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She will face either former reality TV star Spencer Pratt or city council member Nithya Raman, in November. As of yesterday evening, it was still unclear who would move on.

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In remarks to voters yesterday evening, Bass said she would spend the next four years addressing homelessness and building more housing units.

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She described LA as a rebounding city, and vowed to build on the progress made over the last three and a half years. Invoking the “dark day” a year ago when Donald Trump sent immigration troops into the city, Bass declared: “We are a city that is unified.”

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Here’s Uwa’s full report:

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Iowa voters cast their ballots in yesterday’s heated primaries, setting up for months of fervent campaigning ahead of the November midterms in contests that could determine the balance of power in Congress.

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A red state that the GOP has dominated for the past decade, Democrats believe they can be competitive in three of its four House races, its Senate election, and the contest to replace Kim Reynolds, the retiring Republican governor.

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Last night, Josh Turek, the state house representative who benefited from millions of dollars in outside spending and the endorsement of a slew of top Democrats, won the Democratic primary in a race to replace retiring Republican senator Joni Ernst.

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In a proxy battle for which direction the party would take, he defeated Zach Wahls, the state senator who pitched himself to voters as an outsider who would stand up to party elites including Chuck Schumer, the US Senate minority leader whom he blamed for weakening the party.

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Turek will face Ashley Hinson, a Republican US representative who Donald Trump endorsed to replace Ernst.

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In the gubernatorial race, Democrats believe they have a historically strong candidate in Rob Sand, the auditor who is the last member of the party holding statewide elected office. Sand ran unopposed in the primary.

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Five candidates vied for the Republican nomination, with Zach Lahn emerging as the winner. Representative Randy Feenstra, who came in second, had been endorsed by Trump. His loss marks an end to Trump’s streak of winning endorsements – until yesterday, every candidate Trump backed since March had won their primary.

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Read Chris’s full report here:

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More now from Donald Trump’s interview with the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast.

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The president confirmed Axios’s report that he yelled and cursed at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s threats to resume airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier this week.

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Israel’s continued assault on Lebanon had threatened to derail talks on ending the president’s war against Iran.

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Axios reported, citing two US officials and a third source briefed on the call, that Trump told Netanyahu he was “fucking crazy” and “you’d be in prison if it weren’t for me”.

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Asked if he said what Axios reported, Trump told the podcast: “I did.”

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I don’t want to say ‘angry’. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know, at some point I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this, we gotta stop it.’

n

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Trump then insisted that they have “worked very well together”. “I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” he added.

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In his interview with the ‘Pod Force One’ podcast, Trump said that vice-president JD Vance and US secretary of state Marco Rubio running together in 2028 would be “unbeatable”.

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Both men are seen as contenders for the 2028 Republican nomination, and Rubio’s recent turn at the White House podium drew praise from Republicans and even some Democrats who noted his smooth performance, which included quips and a 1990s hip-hop reference to describe Iran’s negotiating position.

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“I would think that JD and Marco as a team would be very hard to beat,” Trump told Miranda Devine in a podcast aired on Wednesday.

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“It’s interesting, human thing, the human equation. So I watch them together, they get along great,” he added.

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Trump has continued to fuel the succession talk even as both Vance and Rubio downplay their 2028 ambitions.

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Donald Trump said he believed he would make acting attorney general Todd Blanche permanent the top US law enforcement officer.

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Asked in an interview broadcast on Wednesday on ‘Pod Force One’ if Blanche would be US attorney general, Trump replied: “I think he will.”

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US federal workers laid off by the Trump administration said they are experiencing mental health effects, including PTSD-like symptoms, from losing their jobs, according to a new survey.

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More than 300 fired probationary employees were surveyed, with 95% reporting ongoing mental health effects, according to 27UNIHTED, a network of former National Institute of Health (NIH) employees. Nearly half said they are experiencing PTSD-like symptoms, and a quarter are taking new medications to manage symptoms.

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Survey respondents were located across 43 states and the US Virgin Islands and had worked in 12 different departments across 15 agencies, bureaus and subgroups.

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The employees are a tiny fraction of the more than 300,000 federal workers who were laid off or pushed to resign or retire since the start of Donald Trump’s second term. More than 25,000 workers were laid off in the middle of their probationary period, meaning they had started their positions within a year or two when they were abruptly fired.

“,”elementId”:”e4e6fea2-7622-41c6-9315-03a759c51203″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:” Federal workers experiencing ‘PTSD-like symptoms’ after unlawful firings by Trump administration”,”elementId”:”79a7e7f0-0ade-4072-8340-dc8c7557e5bf”,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/03/federal-workers-ptsd-like-symptoms-trump-firings”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1780482299000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”06.24 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1780482594000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”06.29 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1780482594000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”06.29 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”06.29″,”title”:”Federal workers experiencing ‘PTSD-like symptoms’ after unlawful firings by Trump administration”,”contributors”:[{“name”:”Michael Sainato”}],”primaryDateLine”:”Wed 3 Jun 2026 18.34 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Wed 3 Jun 2026 05.49 EDT”},{“id”:”6a1ff2488f086c62388c255f”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

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California’s crowded primary for governor remains up in the air after three leading candidates tested voters’ appetites for an experienced politician or promises of sweeping change.

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Though votes were still being counted, Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton started looking to November, laying out their visions for leading the nation’s most populous state and one of the world’s largest economies.

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It followed Tuesday’s primary votes, that could see critical districts flip in both the House and Senate, setting up a series of high-stakes general election contests in a midterm year expected to favor Democrats.

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Among the most watched races are: a New Jersey Democrat who could oust a Republican incumbent absent with a mystery medical issue for months, several Iowa Democrats hoping to flip their red-leaning state, as well as California’s redrawn maps that have given Democrats an advantage in the heavily blue state.

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In the golden state’s governor race, only two will advance to the general election, however, and the Associated Press has not yet called the primary for any candidate but Hilton and Becerra were leading so far, with Steyer running slightly further back.

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“Change is coming to California, and it’s long overdue,” Hilton told supporters after polls closed, reflecting his campaign message that the state needs a dramatic reset after more than 15 years of Democratic rule.

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Steyer also campaigned on change and declared Tuesday that he would prevail over monied interests that strived to defeat him.

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Becerra pitched himself as the steady hand who can lead the state against intrusions from the Trump administration. “The underdog stayed in the fight,” Becerra said to applause.

“,”elementId”:”1cc91671-cf83-4143-8e70-4ebfef74b0fe”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”US primary voters choose midterm candidates as Democrats look to flip key seats”,”elementId”:”4c0b1e30-0415-4995-b673-3f9ba9b1fe43″,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/03/primary-elections-midterms-november”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

In other developments:

“,”elementId”:”7e644725-4a51-4b0d-908e-1f699c24e198″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

n
Karen Bass came out ahead in Tuesday’s heated primary for Los Angeles mayor, but with less than 50% of the vote will have to defend her seat in November’s general election. She’ll likely run against either Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star, or city council member Nithya Raman.

n
Iowa state representative Josh Turek won the Democratic nomination for the state’s open US Senate seat – setting him up to face off against Ashley Hinson in the November general election. A former television anchor turned state senator, Hinson was endorsed by Donald Trump and retiring senator Joni Ernst.

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Adam Hamawy won the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s 12th congressional district, teeing the army doctor and political newcomer up to face off against Republican Gregg Mele in November’s general election. Hamawy decided to run for office after returning from a medical mission in Gaza in 2024 and meeting congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who announced her retirement in November 2025.

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Deb Haaland won the Democratic nomination for governor in New Mexico. If elected in the November general election, Haaland would become the first Native American woman governor elected in the country.

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Christina Bohannan won the Democratic nomination for Iowa’s 1st congressional district. She will compete against incumbent Republican congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the November general election

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Zach Lahn narrowly won the Republican nomination for governor, and will face off against Democrat Rob Sand in Iowa’s general election this November. Five Republicans competed for the nomination to replace retiring Republican governor Kim Reynolds.

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Former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Benett won the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district, and will challenge Republican congressman Tom Kean Jr. in the general election. Kean, who’s been absent from Congress, citing a health issue, since March shared a statement on social media saying he’s “more energized than ever” and will “be completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition” when he returns to work in “a matter of weeks”.

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Key events

After passing Iran war powers resolution, House Democrats call on Senate Republicans to ‘do the right thing’

After the House voted 215 to 208 to approve the resolution, the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar said in a statement:

More than three months ago, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth plunged America into a reckless and costly war of choice in the Middle East without clear objectives, an exit strategy, public support or the authorization required by the United States Congress. Republicans have since spent billions in taxpayer dollars and carelessly put our brave men and women in uniform into harm’s way while causing gas prices at home to skyrocket out of control.

Following repeated attempts to get sycophants in the Republican-controlled House to join us, House Democrats successfully passed our War Powers Resolution today to stand up for the American people and hold Donald Trump accountable. It is now time for Senate Republicans to do the right thing.

‘Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers,’ Trump assures an anxious nation

The pool, he added, is extremely long.

Before signing an executive order on Wednesday, Donald Trump asked an aide to hand him a poster he said he had commissioned to show that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would be a very tall building, if it was a building instead of a pool, and was vertical instead of horizontal. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

To date, the only person to call it “the reflecting pond” appears to be the current president.

“I just had this done,” the president told reporters as he held up the poster he apparently commissioned.

The pool, the president insisted without explanation, is “actually much more than 2,000, close to, including everything its about 2,500ft, in length, to the end”.

The president did not explain what the “everything” was that he was including to reach the higher figure.

US House passes war powers resolution to curb Trump’s authority in Iran

Robert Tait

The House voted 215 to 208 in favor of the war powers resolution, as four Republicans voted with Democrats.

Wednesday’s vote came nearly two weeks after House Republicans cancelled an earlier scheduled vote, on the grounds that they lacked the votes to defeat it.

The Senate voted last month to advance a resolution forcing Trump to seek congressional approval after four Republican senators rebelled and voted with the Democrats.

Trump tells blatant lies about Iran nuclear deal struck during Obama administration, claiming it ‘gave them a nuclear weapon’

While bragging about how great his deal with Iran will be, once he manages to close it, Donald Trump just told reporters a blatant lie about the 2015 Iran nuclear deal he withdrew from in 2018.

His deal, Trump said, will be “the exact opposite of the Obama deal. The Obama deal was a disgrace, it gave them a nuclear weapon.”

In fact, the very first paragraph of the deal sealed in July 2015 said the exact opposite.

Then US secretary of state John Kerry during final talks over Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna on 14 July 2015. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Here is the full text of the agreement’s first words, negotiated by the US, the EU and five other nations:

The E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the Islamic Republic of Iran welcome this historic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which will ensure that Iran’s nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful, and mark a fundamental shift in their approach to this issue. They anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.

Trump makes light of exchange of fire with Iran that led to death in Kuwait

The president played down the significance of the Iranianattack that killed at least one person and wounded 63 in the first deadly attack in the Gulf since a ceasefire came into effect on 8 April.

He went on to suggest that talks on a peace deal are continuing. “I hear the negotiation is going well, very well.”

“If it happens, might not happen, but it if happens it could happen over the weekend,” the president said, of a deal to end the fighting he has been promising is imminent for months now.

Asked how he defined ‘ceasefire’, the president joked: “I’d say, in that part of the world, ‘ceasefire’ is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

As some of his aides laughed, Trump turned to them and praised his own quip about an exchange of fire in which at least one person died and dozens were wounded. “That’s not bad,” he said.

Sam Levine

The supreme court’s decision allowing Alabama to use a redrawn congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in this year’s midterm elections “cuts off most escape routes from Callais and sends a clear signal that plaintiffs should just lose all claims involving race and redistricting”, said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard who studies elections.

“The district court meticulously explained why it found discriminatory intent and why the revised Section 2 framework was still satisfied. The court reversed all that in a cursory paragraph, which faulted the district court for not applying a presumption of good faith even though it clearly did, and which gullibly accepted Alabama’s purported redistricting goals even though they were just post hoc concoctions,” Stephanopoulos said.

He added: “I think it’s now pretty obvious that, in all but the most exceptional circumstances, like legislators saying they’re drawing lines to harm minority voters, the supreme court will not tolerate any federal judicial regulation of race and redistricting.”

Travis Crum, an election law professor at Washington University in St Louis, said the court had now offered states “a blueprint for identifying certain priorities – incumbent protection or a particular partisan makeup of the congressional delegation – that make it virtually impossible for Section 2 plaintiffs” to win cases.

“There might still be Section 2 litigation at the local level – where many races are non-partisan – or in states that ban partisan gerrymandering. But statewide Section 2 claims are basically non-starters across the south after Callais,” he said.

Richard Hasen, an election law scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the decision “not only reinforces the virtually impossible standard plaintiffs must face now to bring a Section 2 claim, they’ve practically closed the door on constitutional vote dilution claims as well. The court did so by using a nearly irrebuttable presumption that states are acting in good faith, which a state can meet by coming up with only pretextual reasons for drawing the map as it did.”

Supreme court approves Alabama map that erases majority-Black district

Sam Levine

But in its Tuesday order, the supreme court said that didn’t matter.

Donald Trump has also said in a post on Truth Social that he will travel to a G7 leaders’ summit in France later this month.

The president said in the post he would travel after the UFC fight at the White House on 14 June.

The day so far

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, refused to say whether Donald Trump, his family and his businesses would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration yesterday abandoned plans for a $1.8bn fund that would have benefited the president’s allies. Bessent declined to answer when pressed repeatedly by lawmakers, citing the unresolved legal dispute, after the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, indicated yesterday that the provision remained unchanged.
The Republican senator Mitch McConnell put out a scathing statement suggesting that Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, is not qualified to serve in the role. “Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote,” McConnell said. More on Pulte’s appointment here.
The US secretary of state, Mario Rubio, told the House foreign affairs committee that Trump will be attending the Nato meeting of heads of state in Turkey next month. “I think the next meeting of Nato and Turkey in July is probably the most important meeting in Nato’s history, because there are some things here that need to be cleared up and fixed,” Rubio said.
Rubio also admitted that the Trump administration “understood the risk factors” when it launched war on Iran, including that Tehran would retaliate against US allies in the region and close the strait of Hormuz, driving up costs globally. “Everyone knew what Iran would do in response … but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” the secretary of state said.
Donald Trump confirmed Axios’s report that he shouted and cursed at the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over Israel’s threats to resume airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier this week. “I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know, at some point I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this, we gotta stop it,’” he told the New York Post’s Pod Force One podcast.
Trump also told the podcast that the vice-president, JD Vance, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, running together in 2028 would be “unbeatable”. “I would think that JD and Marco as a team would be very hard to beat,” Trump said. He has continued to fuel the succession talk even as both Vance and Rubio downplay their 2028 ambitions.
Trump threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labour failures, in the latest attempt to revive his signature trade policy. The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said: “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field. We will no longer tolerate this disparity.” Here’s our story.
And finally, Senate Republicans officially dropped language providing up to $1bn for security upgrades to Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom from the updated text for their immigration enforcement bill released today. They unveiled the revised bill shortly before the first procedural vote on a motion to proceed with the measure.

Donald Trump is planning to attend game 3 of the Knicks-Spurs series, the first NBA finals game in New York in 27 years, on 8 June at Madison Square Garden, sources have told the New York Post, with the caveat that “there’s always the chance plans change”.

MSG performed security walk-throughs in preparation for the president’s potential visit, according to the Post’s sources.

Mitch McConnell statement suggests Bill Pulte unqualified for DNI role

“Very few Senate-confirmable positions come with statutory eligibility requirements,” McConnell said. “There are good reasons why the director of national intelligence is one of them.”

Though he did not name Pulte in his statement, McConnell made clear that he would not vote for him to serve as DNI in a permanent capacity.

McConnell was the only Republican to join with Democrats to vote against the confirmation of former DNI Tulsi Gabbard to the role, citing her “alarming lapses of judgment”.

Senate Republicans formally drop Trump’s $1bn ballroom funding from immigration bill

Some Republican senators were concerned about the optics of funding the ballroom with taxpayer dollars amid a cost-of-living crisis in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.

Republicans unveiled the revised bill shortly before the first procedural vote on a motion to proceed with the measure at about 2.30pm ET.

Bessent dodges questions on Trump’s tax audit immunity

Bessent declined to comment on whether the provision that provides Trump and his family with immunity from IRS audits is still in place. Blanche said yesterday that it was.

“Treasury does not give any of that,” Bessent said. “We are represented by the justice department.”

Pressed again, he said only: “We will follow the instructions and the settlement.”

An older man gestures with his hands in front of a microphone. — Scott Bessent testifies at a hearing of the Senate committee on finance. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Rubio: Trump will attend Nato meeting in July

Mario Rubio, the US secretary of state, told the House foreign affairs committee today that Donald Trump will be attending the Nato meeting of heads of state in Turkey next month.

“The president himself will be attending,” Rubio said.

For anyone who needs a reminder on section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – due to expire next week – here’s an explainer:

Trump’s intelligence chief pick puts Fisa surveillance program renewal in doubt

Joseph Gedeon

Senior Democrats immediately said the move could doom a fragile bipartisan agreement to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is due to expire next week.

Section 702 permits US intelligence agencies to collect communications of foreign targets operating outside the country without a warrant. Congress is working toward a deadline of 12 June.

More here:

Rubio refuses to say who won the 2020 election

Jacobs then asked Rubio who won the 2020 presidential election.

Rubio declined to answer, insisting that he was “not here to answer” questions about that because “this is a foreign affairs committee”.

“I don’t answer the question because as secretary of state, I do not participate in domestic political issues,” he said.

Jacobs replied that the question wasn’t about a political issue but about democracy.

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