Trump orders Pentagon to cut back military exercises with South Korea
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
US president Donald Trump said he ordered the Pentagon to scale back “inappropriate and hostile” military drills with South Korea, hours before the exercises began on Monday.
The drills under Ulchi Freedom Shield, one of two major annual exercises held by South Korea and the US, start on Monday and run until 27 August.
They were expected to involve about 18,000 South Korean troops, alongside US forces and personnel from 11 of the 18 member states of the United Nations Command (UNC), the multinational body that oversees the 1953 armistice that halted hostilities of the Korean war.
However, on Sunday evening, the US president said he was “not happy” with US participation “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un”. He added that they were costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a country that, as long as Donald J Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful”.
Trump added that it was too late to cancel the drills so he had ordered the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to “substantially reduce” them. He also said South Korea had refused to help in the “denuclearisation of the Islamic republic of Iran”.
Cheong Seong-chang, vice-president of the Seoul-based Sejong Institute thinktank, said Trump could go further if he meets Kim again, potentially deciding to suspend the exercises altogether or reduce US troop levels without consulting South Korea.
However, Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, cautioned that downsizing the exercise would “slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defence, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia”.
“The cost savings from downsizing drills are marginal, while the diplomatic benefits for relations with North Korea are doubtful,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, added that Pyongyang was unlikely to be moved by Trump’s announcement. “The North will only view it as meaningful if the joint exercises are cancelled in their entirety rather than scaled back. It has little reason to see this as meaningful.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone impersonating Donald Trump’s chief of staff, the Guardian understands. The UK prime minister was in contact with an unknown individual pretending to be the senior White House aide Susie Wiles before concerns were raised about the incident. No messages of significance were sent and the suspicious activity was quickly reported to the appropriate authorities, it is understood.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire. Kushner will meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy – a medical doctor who voted to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy as federal health secretary in early 2025 – on Sunday denounced Donald Trump’s “crazy, stupid” claims about the safety of the combined MMR vaccine for undermining faith in immunization.
Democrats on Sunday intensified their demands for answers from the Trump administration over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as the aircraft carrier’s nearly nine-month deployment continued fueling concern over crew morale, mental health and living conditions.
US attorney general Todd Blanche on Sunday declined to assure that the federal justice department he helms would always act independently of the White House and Donald Trump. “No, I’m not going to pledge that,” he said when asked about the topic by NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker. “And no attorney general should ever pledge that.”
Key events
Katie McQue
New Mexico’s attorney general is mounting a full-court press against technology companies to improve their child safety measures, capitalizing on a landmark win in court against Meta earlier this year.
Raúl Torrez is working with state lawmakers to draft two new bills he says will strengthen consumer protections and child safety online. The legislation, expected to be announced in the coming weeks, will build on the state’s case against the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. A jury found in March that the company misled its users about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation. The social media giant was fined nearly $1bn as a result of the case.
The trial was the first to hold Meta liable for harmful acts committed on its platforms. It followed a 2023 Guardian investigation that exposed how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking.
Torrez is pursuing additional lawsuits, including a second case against Meta and one against an AI company whose chatbot has become a source of emotional attachment for children.
In an interview with the Guardian, the state’s top legal official said the proposed laws would go beyond social media, creating a broader consumer protection framework for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and chatbots. He has also had preliminary discussions about the legislation with Deb Haaland, the former US interior secretary and Democratic nominee for New Mexico governor, who expressed support for his efforts.
“I think there’s a lot of momentum coming out of our victory in court, and the idea is to build on that momentum,” said Torrez, who is running for re-election this year.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire.
Kushner will meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.
The talks aim to salvage the plan for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territory shattered by war.
At stake are the lives of 2 million people in Gaza and reconstruction of the crowded territory now largely controlled by Israeli forces, more than 10 months since the ceasefire ended major military operations. A meeting between Kushner, fellow envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas leaders in Egypt last year helped clinch the ceasefire, whose progress until now had been stalled over the key issue of Hamas’s disarmament.
The over two-hour meeting in Egypt with Hamas’s political chief, Khalil al-Hayya, was confirmed by a regional official and a Hamas official, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Kushner was one of a trio of envoys meeting with al-Hayya, with officials from mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also there.
Hamas in a statement later called on mediators and the US-created Board of Peace overseeing the ceasefire to “compel” Israel to approve the road map for next steps.
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, last week rejected the 15-point plan in a rare public show of defiance against the Trump administration, Israel’s closest ally.
Robert Mackey
Republican senator Bill Cassidy – a medical doctor who voted to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy as federal health secretary in early 2025 – on Sunday denounced Donald Trump’s “crazy, stupid” claims about the safety of the combined MMR vaccine for undermining faith in immunization.
When Trump recently ordered changes to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule, with Kennedy by his side, the president called for two shots of the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine to be scrapped in favor of two doses of three separate vaccines, claiming that the MMR shots are “sort of like a nuclear weapon” that could be “quite lethal”.
Cassidy, whose re-election bid ended in defeat to a Trump-backed challenger in a Republican primary in Louisiana, has been on the president’s enemies list since 2021, when the senator voted to convict him of “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the US Capitol attack carried out by Trump supporters toward the end of his first presidency.
Asked about Trump’s comment that “nothing bad can happen” from advising parents to get six separate shots for their children, instead of two, Cassidy told CNN on Sunday: “If it wasn’t so potentially tragic, you would break out laughing at a comment like that.
“Let’s just take it from the perspective of the parent: now instead of going to the doctor twice to get their child vaccinated, they have to go six times. Instead of the child getting two jabs, they get six jabs,” he continued. “Instead of the insurance company paying for two doctor’s visits, they’re paying for six, which is going to ultimately drive up premiums …
“So the president is wrong; there’s a lot of bad things that will come out of this.”
Cassidy’s critics have lambasted the outgoing senator for expressing misgivings about Trump’s actions, including a recent shouting match over the ongoing Iran war – but continuing to cast crucial votes to confirm the president’s nominees.
British PM exchanged messages with individual impersonating Trump chief of staff
Kevin Rawlinson
Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone impersonating Donald Trump’s chief of staff, the Guardian understands.
The UK prime minister was in contact with an unknown individual pretending to be the senior White House aide Susie Wiles before concerns were raised about the incident. No messages of significance were sent and the suspicious activity was quickly reported to the appropriate authorities, it is understood.
The British embassy in Washington was so concerned it raised the matter with the White House, according to Politico, which first reported the exchange. A UK government spokesperson said: “We do not comment on national security matters.”
Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI had launched an investigation into efforts to access Wiles’s phone after an unknown person pretending to be her contacted prominent Republicans and business chiefs.
It is unclear when the messages were sent and what was discussed between Burnham, who succeeded Keir Starmer in Downing Street on 20 July, and the impersonator.
Trump orders Pentagon to cut back military exercises with South Korea
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
US president Donald Trump said he ordered the Pentagon to scale back “inappropriate and hostile” military drills with South Korea, hours before the exercises began on Monday.
The drills under Ulchi Freedom Shield, one of two major annual exercises held by South Korea and the US, start on Monday and run until 27 August.
They were expected to involve about 18,000 South Korean troops, alongside US forces and personnel from 11 of the 18 member states of the United Nations Command (UNC), the multinational body that oversees the 1953 armistice that halted hostilities of the Korean war.
However, on Sunday evening, the US president said he was “not happy” with US participation “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un”. He added that they were costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a country that, as long as Donald J Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful”.
Trump added that it was too late to cancel the drills so he had ordered the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to “substantially reduce” them. He also said South Korea had refused to help in the “denuclearisation of the Islamic republic of Iran”.
Cheong Seong-chang, vice-president of the Seoul-based Sejong Institute thinktank, said Trump could go further if he meets Kim again, potentially deciding to suspend the exercises altogether or reduce US troop levels without consulting South Korea.
However, Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, cautioned that downsizing the exercise would “slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defence, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia”.
“The cost savings from downsizing drills are marginal, while the diplomatic benefits for relations with North Korea are doubtful,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, added that Pyongyang was unlikely to be moved by Trump’s announcement. “The North will only view it as meaningful if the joint exercises are cancelled in their entirety rather than scaled back. It has little reason to see this as meaningful.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone impersonating Donald Trump’s chief of staff, the Guardian understands. The UK prime minister was in contact with an unknown individual pretending to be the senior White House aide Susie Wiles before concerns were raised about the incident. No messages of significance were sent and the suspicious activity was quickly reported to the appropriate authorities, it is understood.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire. Kushner will meet on Monday with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed road map.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy – a medical doctor who voted to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy as federal health secretary in early 2025 – on Sunday denounced Donald Trump’s “crazy, stupid” claims about the safety of the combined MMR vaccine for undermining faith in immunization.
Democrats on Sunday intensified their demands for answers from the Trump administration over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as the aircraft carrier’s nearly nine-month deployment continued fueling concern over crew morale, mental health and living conditions.
US attorney general Todd Blanche on Sunday declined to assure that the federal justice department he helms would always act independently of the White House and Donald Trump. “No, I’m not going to pledge that,” he said when asked about the topic by NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker. “And no attorney general should ever pledge that.”
