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Several measure's in Donald Trump's legislation 'cannot be included in current form', says Senate parliamentarian
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
We start with news that several key provisions in Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” must be reworked or dropped, a Senate parliamentarian has said.
The New York Times reports that Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the Senate’s rules, has rejected a slew of major provisions, sending GOP leaders into a frenzy to try to salvage the legislation before next week’s 4 July deadline.
The publication reports that MacDonough has said several of the measures in the legislation that would “provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form”.
They include one that would “crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers,” the NYT reports.
The report added that MacDonough “has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill” and that the tax changes at the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda “are still under review”.
In his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump also made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
Meanwhile, Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing specific preservative thimerosal – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability. About two weeks ago, Kennedy fired all 17 experts on the panel and went on to appoint eight new members, at least half of whom have expressed scepticism about some vaccines, the New York Times reports. Separately, the panel also recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.
In other developments:
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Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over the outlets’ reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment on the US strikes in Iran that found the operation did less damage to nuclear sites than the administration has claimed.
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NBC News is reporting that the White House plans to limit intelligence sharing with members of Congress after an early assessment of damage caused by US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were leaked this week, a senior White House official confirmed to the network.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy he said was aimed at stopping the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States.
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US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy leaves Moscow, the US embassy in Russia says, according to Reuters.
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The White House has recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including in Myanmar, Syria and on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to three US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.
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Donald Trump has not decided on a replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and a decision isn’t imminent, a person familiar with the White House’s deliberations said on Thursday, as one central bank policymaker said any move to name a “shadow” chair would be ineffective.
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Donald Trump’s administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Abrego for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday. The deportation will not happen until after Abrego is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said.
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Briefing on Iran strikes leaves senators divided as Trump threatens new row
by Joseph Gedeon and Robert Tait in Washington
Republican and Democratic senators have offered starkly contrasting interpretations of Donald Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities after a delayed behind-closed-doors intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed amid accusations of leaks.
Thursday’s session with senior national security officials came after the White House moved back its briefing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, fueling Democratic complaints that Trump was stonewalling Congress over military action the president authorised without congressional approval.
“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said following the initial postponement, which he termed “outrageous”.
Even as senators were being briefed, Trump reignited the row with a Truth Social post accusing Democrats of leaking a draft Pentagon report that suggested last weekend’s strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months – contradicting the president’s insistence that it was “obliterated”.
“The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!” he wrote.
Read the full report here:
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule on Friday in a bid by Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read, Reuters reports.
Parents with children in public schools in Montgomery County, located just outside of Washington, appealed after lower courts declined to order the local school district to let children opt out when these books are read.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has expanded the rights of religious people in several cases in recent years.
The school board in Montgomery County approved in 2022 a handful of storybooks that feature LGBT characters as part of its English language-arts curriculum in order to better represent the diversity of families living in the county.
The storybooks are available for teachers to use “alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles,” the district said in a filing.
The district said it ended the opt-outs in 2023 when the mounting number of requests to excuse students from these classes became logistically unworkable and raised concerns of “social stigma and isolation” among students who believe the books represent them and their families.
Japan and the United States are arranging for US secretary of state Marco Rubio to visit Japan for the first time in early July, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday.
Rubio is also planning to visit South Korea alongside attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meetings in Malaysia in July, Kyodo reported, without mentioning sources, Reuters reports.
Several measure's in Donald Trump's legislation 'cannot be included in current form', says Senate parliamentarian
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
We start with news that several key provisions in Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” must be reworked or dropped, a Senate parliamentarian has said.
The New York Times reports that Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the Senate’s rules, has rejected a slew of major provisions, sending GOP leaders into a frenzy to try to salvage the legislation before next week’s 4 July deadline.
The publication reports that MacDonough has said several of the measures in the legislation that would “provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form”.
They include one that would “crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers,” the NYT reports.
The report added that MacDonough “has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill” and that the tax changes at the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda “are still under review”.
In his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, Donald Trump also made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
Meanwhile, Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing specific preservative thimerosal – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability. About two weeks ago, Kennedy fired all 17 experts on the panel and went on to appoint eight new members, at least half of whom have expressed scepticism about some vaccines, the New York Times reports. Separately, the panel also recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.
In other developments:
-
Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over the outlets’ reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment on the US strikes in Iran that found the operation did less damage to nuclear sites than the administration has claimed.
-
NBC News is reporting that the White House plans to limit intelligence sharing with members of Congress after an early assessment of damage caused by US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were leaked this week, a senior White House official confirmed to the network.
-
Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced a new visa restriction policy he said was aimed at stopping the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States.
-
US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy leaves Moscow, the US embassy in Russia says, according to Reuters.
-
The White House has recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including in Myanmar, Syria and on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to three US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.
-
Donald Trump has not decided on a replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and a decision isn’t imminent, a person familiar with the White House’s deliberations said on Thursday, as one central bank policymaker said any move to name a “shadow” chair would be ineffective.
-
Donald Trump’s administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Abrego for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday. The deportation will not happen until after Abrego is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said.
