Trump attacks his own party members as ‘unpatriotic’ after war powers resolution vote in House – live | Donald Trump

Further to the last post, ahead of the vote this morning, Republican senator Bill Cassidy and Democrat Cory Booker filed an amicus brief calling the “anti-weaponization” fund an “immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress”.

Urging a federal judge to block the fund in court, the lawmakers laid out their argument that the fund violates the constitution and is “designed to compensate the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th”.

“The existence of the fund strikes at the core of congressional authority and our Ccnstitutional order,” they wrote.

Though Cassidy ultimately voted no on Chuck Schumer’s motion (see my last post), he quickly filed his own amendment to prohibit payments from the fund.

Earlier, Senate Republicans voted to kill Chuck Schumer’s motion to ban the DOJ from creating an “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate the president’s allies – though other efforts are expected later today that could get their support.

The initial Democratic effort was defeated by 49-50 votes, with three Republicans facing tough re-election races in November – Susan Collins, Jon Husted and Dan Sullivan – joining Democrats to vote in favor.

Acting attorney general Todd Blanche told lawmakers under oath earlier this week that the department was “not moving forward with the fund”, but he refused to put it in writing. Donald Trump also admitted yesterday that he didn’t know if the fund was dead or just on hold, and called it “a beautiful thing”.

Senate business was at a standstill for hours this morning as Republican senators deliberated over possible amendments to put into the bill that would kill the fund for good. Bill Cassidy, Husted and Sullivan held out for ours in an effort to “optimize chances for success”, as Cassidy later told reporters.

But ultimately, he and even retiring Thom Tillis voted no, with Tillis telling reporters that he and other Republicans were working on a range of ideas that would “get the fund out” without imperiling the underlying immigration bill.

Donald Trump has two things to say about his war with Iran. The first is that it’s already over. And second, a symbolic congressional vote to end it – carried by four members of his own party – is a stab in the back that could derail the peace talks he’s conducting for the war that’s already over.

By a 215-208 margin yesterday, the House voted to direct the president to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, the first time either chamber has passed such a measure in the little over three months since “Operation Epic Fury” began on 28 February. By this morning, Trump was on Truth Social calling the vote “unpatriotic” and blaming it on “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

The four Republicans who crossed the aisle, each with different ideologies, don’t exactly fit the bill for such a diagnosis.

Thomas Massie is a libertarian-leaning constitutionalist who has opposed the war from day one, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, and has, in Trump’s estimation, nothing left to lose. Warren Davidson is a West Point graduate, former army ranger, and ex-Freedom Caucus member who voted against the war alongside Massie in March, but flipped back until recently.

Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent representing Philadelphia’s suburbs, is well known as a moderate who framed his vote in the plainest possible terms. “You either follow the law, or you change the law,” he said. “You can’t violate the law. That’s not an option.”

Tom Barrett voted in March against a war powers resolution, saying Trump had “earned the opportunity to resolve this conflict quickly”. By May, however, he had changed his mind, citing the economic pain hitting his constituents. All four lawmakers coalesced for last night’s vote.

But none of this has stopped the administration from declaring, with some confidence, that the war is already over. The Trump administration insists the US is now only conducting “completely defensive” strikes.

And yet gas prices are averaging close to $4.24 per gallon nationwide, per AAA, and nearly $6 in California. The strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, remains effectively closed, three months after the first strikes on Iran.

Trump’s own Truth Social post – in which he condemned yesterday’s vote as unpatriotic – describes active “final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran”. The war that has concluded is, apparently, still being negotiated to a conclusion.

The absurdity of calling anyone out for noticing the contradiction as disloyal does not appear to be winning over most Americans. A May Economist/YouGov survey found 59% disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, while only 31% approved. About two-thirds of Americans told Reuters/Ipsos that rising gas prices had hurt their household finances, and Moody’s Analytics estimates the conflict has cost US households roughly $100bn in aggregate through higher energy costs.

Yesterday’s House vote is, as the White House correctly notes, largely symbolic. But symbols have a way of accumulating. In the Senate, the math is moving. The war remains unpopular. The strait of Hormuz is still closed.

Trump is insisting the conflict is over and, in the same breath, that talking about it is unpatriotic. For a growing number of Americans, and their representatives on Capitol Hill, this is not a winning message.

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to implement a ceasefire to end hostilities as the US attempts to overcome one of the largest barriers to reaching a broader deal to end the war with Iran.

But the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is dependent on a complete halt of fire from Hezbollah, and the evacuation of all its fighters in southern Lebanon.

The California governor’s race remained unsettled Thursday, as state election officials continued to sift through uncounted primary ballots – a process that could take days or even weeks as voters eagerly await the results.

Polls indicated that British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton was narrowly leading the race, followed by former US health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra. Billionaire Tom Steyer trailed behind the pair. Under California’s primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election.

The question of which two will face off in November may be unanswered for weeks, according to election officials. Per state law, California counties must finish counting ballots by 15 June, but certain ballots are exempt from that deadline. For example, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and received by 9 June are valid and can be processed beyond the deadline.

An estimate of the number of remaining unprocessed ballots is expected on Thursday. Faced with a crowded slate of gubernatorial contenders, many Democratic voters held on to their mail-in ballots until election day as they weighed which candidate had the best chance of reaching one of the top two slots.

Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman

Democratic-led states are eroding their climate policies, as red states are scaling up their clean energy deployment.

California on Friday scaled back its cap-and-invest program, offering more than $3bn in free pollution allowances to polluting companies. Earlier the same week, New York weakened its groundbreaking climate law, delaying a plan to regulate carbon from 2024 until 2028 and reducing emissions-slashing targets. Rhode Island’s governor, meanwhile, is attempting to roll back aggressive clean-energy programs.

The moves come as Donald Trump’s administration withdraws clean energy incentives and energy savings programs, and as energy prices spike across the country amid trade disruptions stemming from the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Proponents have said the changes are necessary to suppress electricity costs, but climate advocates say that view is short-sighted and misguided.

“Using affordability as a cudgel to weaken climate policy is a major error that will not solve either crisis, ultimately amplifying both,” said Johanna Bozuwa, executive director of the Climate and Community Institute, a left-leaning thinktank.

For the full story, click here:

The Senate is voting on a motion to ban the creation of the DOJ’s so-called “anti-weaponization” fund and also send the underlying immigration enforcement bill back to committee.

Despite a number of Republicans being fiercely opposed to the fund, they might not vote yes because doing so could tank the immigration bill.

Introducing the motion on the Senate floor, minority leader Chuck Schumer said:

America has never seen a more clear-cut case of corruption than Donald Trump’s slush fund.

“Republicans are trusting the word of Todd Blanche, who built a career on lying, that the administration will just drop this slush fund,” he added. Blanche assured lawmakers earlier this week that the fund had been abandoned, though he declined to put it in writing.

Trump also said yesterday he’d have to ask his lawyers whether it was dead or just on hold. “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know,” he said in the Oval Office.

Schumer’s amendment needs just 50 votes to pass.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is testifying at another congressional hearing this morning, this time before the House ways and means committee.

Once again he dodged questions about whether the IRS has recommended “any taxpayer be granted immunity from an audit for their taxes” during his tenure.

Bessent told Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett he was unable to answer due to the matter being “under litigation”.

Doggett replied that, “it isn’t a question of being ‘not able’ – it’s being ‘not want to’.” He repeated the question, and Bessent once again said he was “unable” to answer.

“You can answer it, you refuse to answer,” Doggett said. “Your appearance here today, and yesterday, defines deception, and that’s what you’re doing to the American people.”

He later added:

I think we can assume from your deception today that nothing’s being done, and this president is being treated in a way that no other president – no other American citizen – has been treated in an incredibly corrupt deal.

As we reported yesterday, Bessent refused to be drawn on questions about the status of the contentious provision that provides Donald Trump, his family and his businesses with immunity from IRS audits and repeatedly deferred to the justice department.

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-foe John Bolton is expected to plead guilty over mishandling classified documents, multiple outlets are reporting.

According to CNN, which first reported the news citing three sources, Bolton intends to plead guilty to one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents, and has also agreed to pay a more than $2m fine. The New York Times hears the same, adding that he could face anywhere from no prison time to up to five years behind bars when he is sentenced.

The plea deal comes after Bolton was charged by prosecutors in Maryland last year for allegedly keeping diary entries from the first Trump White House in his home.

Indeed, the original indictment accused him of using a personal email and a messaging app to share more than 1,000 pages of notes, including national defense information, with two family members who did not have security clearances, as part of efforts to write a memoir of his one year in the first Trump administration. Multiple outlets have reported that those family members were Bolton’s wife and daughter.

Trump has long called for Bolton to be arrested over his 2020 memoir that was highly critical of him, claiming Bolton should have gone to jail because classified information was contained in the book.

The hearing is set for 26 June.

New York Democrats have taken the first step toward redrawing the state’s congressional map for the 2028 election cycle, a move that could eventually yield a handful of US House of Representatives seats for the party, Reuters reports.

The state Senate and state Assembly, both controlled by Democrats, advanced a proposed constitutional amendment late yesterday that would allow lawmakers to sidestep an independent redistricting commission and draw new, more favorable lines.

Under state law, the legislature must pass the amendment again in 2027, and then voters would have to approve the measure in a referendum ahead of 2028. Among other changes, the amendment would eliminate New York’s current ban on partisan gerrymandering, the process of drawing maps to benefit one party over another.

Democrats currently hold 19 of the state’s 26 US House seats. A new map could provide Democrats with up to four additional seats, analysts say. Democratic governor Kathy Hochul and US House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a district in Brooklyn, have both called on state lawmakers to act aggressively to counter Republican efforts to redraw maps, part of a national redistricting war that has reshaped dozens of districts around the country.

Republicans have opened up a significant advantage in recent weeks, thanks to a US supreme Court decision in April that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act. Several GOP-led southern states have promptly rushed to eliminate Democratic-held districts with significant Black populations that no longer enjoy robust legal protections.

New York is expected to be among several states, both Democratic- and Republican-controlled, that attempt to draw new maps ahead of the 2028 elections, ensuring the redistricting fight extends into another electoral cycle.

Despite Donald Trump asserting that this will happen “very quickly”, after two months in the acting role Todd Blanche will face a bruising battle to get his nomination to be attorney general through the Senate.

Since taking over from Pam Bondi in April, he has no doubt bent over backwards to demonstrate his loyalty to the president, intensifying the drive to prosecute Trump’s perceived political foes that started under Bondi (including his securing a second indictment of former FBI director James Comey, after the first was thrown out by a judge), and signing off on the $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund” (promptly scrapped following a mini GOP revolt) and the highly contentious provision granting Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from IRS audits.

Retiring Republican senator Thom Tillis, who sits on the Senate judiciary committee, which will make the decision on Blanche’s nomination, told Politico last month that the fund was “an embarrassment” and would “absolutely” be “in the mix” when he came to consider a new permanent attorney general.

“I want to know whose fingerprints were on it,” Tillis went on, referring to what he called “bogus” lawsuits, including against Comey. “Anything where they were in the decision loop, yeah, they got a lot of questions to answer to get my support.”

The key question will be how many Republicans agree. Democrats, meanwhile, are unequivocal. “There is no world in which Todd Blanche could earn my vote,” senator Jon Ossoff told Politico last night. “Todd Blanche is a crony. Todd Blanche is a loyalist. He has no business as the nation’s top law enforcement official.”

At a private White House event last night, Donald Trump confirmed that he will move to nominate his acting attorney general and former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer today.

White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino posted a video of Trump announcing the nomination as he spoke in the Rose Garden.

“He’s acting attorney general,” Trump said. “Tomorrow I’m instructing Dan and everybody else that’s involved in that very complicated process, which is going to be, I think, very quickly, that we are going to make him permanent attorney general.”

Blanche assumed leadership of the justice department after Trump fired Pam Bondi in April amid tension over the department’s handling of the Epstein files and frustration that it was not moving forcefully enough against his supposed political enemies.

He has faced backlash from Republican senators over the DOJ’s now-scuttled plan to create a $1.8bn fund for victims of alleged government “weaponization”. He told lawmakers on Tuesday that the DOJ would not be moving forward with the fund, which had sparked fierce bipartisan opposition and threatened to derail a $72bn funding package for Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Blanche would need near-unanimous Republican support in the Senate, which the party controls by a narrow 53-47 margin.

Trump’s announcement comes after he said in a podcast interview broadcast yesterday that he was likely to nominate Blanche to the permanent position.

Donald Trump has claimed – without evidence – that there is cheating going on in California’s elections as the “votes are all tied up” and “may not be in for weeks”, and that the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles is investigating.

He wrote on his Truth Social platform:

There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY???

It isn’t clear why the president is alleging that there’s cheating going on, as he seems to be referring to the fact that the votes are still … being counted. He could also be referring to the number of mail-in votes still to be counted. We all know how he feels about that (though he himself is not above a postal vote), and Democrats tend to vote by mail in greater numbers than Republicans.

As my colleague Uwa Ede-Osifo reports this morning, the California governor’s race remains unsettled, as state election officials continue to sift through uncounted primary ballots – a process that could take days or even weeks as voters eagerly await the results.

Polls indicated that British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton was narrowly leading the race, followed by former US human services and health secretary Xavier Becerra. Billionaire Tom Steyer trailed behind the pair. Under California’s primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election.

The question of which two will face off in November may be unanswered for weeks, according to election officials. Per state law, California counties must finish counting ballots by 15 June, but certain ballots are exempt from that deadline. For example, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and received by 9 June are valid and can be processed beyond the deadline.

The ongoing tabulation also did not stop Trump from declaring victory for his favored candidate yesterday.

“Congratulations to Steve Hilton on coming in first, last night, in the California Vote for Governor,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “If Californians are smart, which I know they are, they will put Steve into the Governor’s Mansion, and watch their State get better at a rate that has probably never been seen before.”

Donald Trump has said “four bad Republicans” joined forces with the Democrats to pass a “meaningless” resolution limiting his war powers.

The Republican-led US House of Representatives voted to block the president from continuing the war against Iran, reflecting growing concern among members of his party about the three-month-old conflict.

The House voted 215 to 208, as four Republicans voted with Democrats in favor of the war powers resolution, which directs Trump to withdraw US troops from Iran unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of military force.

In his latest Truth Social outburst, Trump said:

Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Who would do such an unpatriotic thing. They know where the negotiations stand.

The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome. They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story – They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!! President DJT

American consumers are angry. Nearly 80% of Americans had a service or product problem in 2025, and about two-thirds of those felt “rage” about it, according to the “National Consumer Rage” survey.

Many consumers feel they are constantly fighting against an onslaught of overcharges, customer service hassles, shoddy products and billing mistakes that always seem to go in the company’s favor. All of this comes against a background of soaring prices and rising inflation.

There’s a stew of factors at work behind the rise in consumer rage: company consolidation, regulatory rollbacks, years of court decisions that limit consumer power, tech-enabled cost cuts, private equity takeovers, Covid-era business model changes, a moribund media and the rise of AI customer service, to name a few. But there is hope, too.

In the coming weeks, the Guardian plans to examine some of the causes behind this rising epidemic of consumer frustration, the impact on Americans’ lives, the watchdogs on the beat, and potential solutions:

Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to US vaccine policies have over the last two months been removed, retracted or placed under investigation by the journals that published them.

In some cases, the actions occurred years after scientists first raised alarms about the studies’ scientific merits.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary who has been a leader in the anti-vaccine movement for decades, relied on two of the studies that are now facing scrutiny for a 2023 book he co-wrote that argued unvaccinated children were healthier than children who had been vaccinated. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited one of the papers when it changed its long-held position that vaccines do not cause autism, cutting against the scientific consensus. And all three papers were cited by an anti-vaccine lawyer who called for changes to the childhood immunization schedule before an influential federal vaccine advisory panel.

It was not clear why the journals have not acted until now. Scientists who previously criticized the papers said the actions are a positive step, as public health officials and physicians across the US are reporting a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases such as whooping cough and measles. They argue that the three studies have been used by the anti-vaccine movement to plant seeds of doubt with parents, eroding confidence in the safety of life-saving vaccines.

“People and organizations intent on spreading vaccine misinformation have been very savvy in their misuse of scientific terms, such as ‘gold-standard science’”, and publishing flawed studies to give their claims the appearance of credibility and confuse the public, said Dr Karina Top, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. “These papers are poor science, it appears the authors are making the data fit their hypothesis that vaccines are harmful.”

A leftwing US political commentator has described the UK government’s decision to ban him from entering the country as “haunting and hilarious” and “Kafkaesque”.

Cenk Uygur, the founder and a host on Young Turks, a well-established progressive media outlet, was banned earlier this week from entering the UK to attend a speaking engagement alongside Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who has become a popular figure on the US political left.

The decision by the Home Office to cancel their electronic travel authorisations (ETA) because their presence in the UK “may not be conducive to the public good” has led to questions over government censorship of free speech, been criticised by the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, as “grim”, and described by the free speech advocates Index on Censorship as a “worrying escalation”.

When asked about the government’s decision on Thursday morning by Sky News, Uygur said: “It’s both a little bit haunting and hilarious at the same time.

“I don’t really know what I’m being charged with here,” he added. “Am I really not going to be allowed in Britain from now on? And how is someone who is almost religiously for nonviolence a threat to the public order?”

The government has not commented on the specific reasons for the ban against Uygur, who travelled to the UK in 2025. Both Uygur and his nephew, Piker, were due to appear at SXSW London and will now speak virtually at an event run by the Oxford Union Society which they were due to attend.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

The race to become California’s next governor in the Senate remains up in the air, with voters potentially waiting weeks until the results are known.

State election officials continue to work through the uncounted primary ballots, a process that could take days or weeks, as the polls give British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton a narrow lead.

He is followed by former US human services and health secretary Xavier Becerra, while billionaire Tom Steyer continues to trail behind the pair. Under California’s primary system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election as they bid to replace incumbent Gavin Newsom.

The question of which two will face off in November may be unanswered for weeks, according to election officials. Per state law, California counties must finish counting ballots by 15 June, but certain ballots are exempt from that deadline. For example, mail-in ballots postmarked by election day and received by 9 June are valid and can be processed beyond the deadline.

An estimate of the number of remaining unprocessed ballots is expected on Thursday. Faced with a crowded slate of gubernatorial contenders, many Democratic voters held on to their mail-in ballots up until election day as they weighed which candidate had the best chance of reaching one of the top two slots.

The ongoing tabulation also did not stop Donald Trump from declaring victory for his favored candidate.

“Congratulations to Steve Hilton on coming in first, last night, in the California Vote for Governor,” he wrote in a Wednesday Truth Social post. “If Californians are smart, which I know they are, they will put Steve into the Governor’s Mansion, and watch their State get better at a rate that has probably never been seen before.”

Read the full story here:

In other developments:

• A leftwing US political commentator has described the UK government’s decision to ban him from entering the country as “haunting and hilarious” and “Kafkaesque”. Cenk Uygur, the founder and a host on Young Turks, a well-established progressive media outlet, was banned earlier this week from entering the UK to attend a speaking engagement alongside Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who has become a popular figure on the US political left.

• 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.

• Before signing an executive order related to customs in the Oval Office on Wednesday, 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.

• The president also took time to once again attack the CNN host Kaitlan Collins for not smiling in his presence and blamed her network for the suicides of four January 6 defendants.

• The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, refused to say whether 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 did confirm that he threatened to beat up a fellow administration member, Bill Pulte, last summer.