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The foreign minister of Denmark said that member states found Trump’s threat to hit European imports with 30% sanctions “absolutely unacceptable and unjustified.”
“The E.U. remains ready to react, and that includes robust and proportionate countermeasures if required,” Lars Rasmussen said, adding later that Europe does “not want a trade war” with the U.S.
“The clear impression was that we were very, very close in agreement in principle,” he said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible due to this presidential letter, but it is still our major vision that we should reach an agreement, but we also want to send it here signal that it must be a fair deal for everybody.”
Maros Šefčovič, European Commission trade chief, also called the 30% rate “absolutely unacceptable,” arguing that the level “is absolutely prohibitive to any trade.”
Šefčovič said that the European Council would share a list of potential retaliatory tariffs with members.
It’s hot election summer — at least according to young Democrats who are organizing behind youthful and progressive candidates in a series of off-year, summertime primaries.
First was Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state legislator who won New York’s Democratic mayoral primary over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Now, a special election for a vacant congressional seat in southern Arizona is grabbing attention in part because of a young Democrat’s campaign.
Read the full story here.
As Trump weighed U.S. involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran last month, some influential members of his online MAGA army began to question what he was doing.
But few were prominent enough to face a direct response from the president.
“Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question at the Group of Seven summit the same day. “Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.”
In the course of a few weeks, Trump has faced a surprising level of pushback from prominent supporters as he moved to strike nuclear facilities in Iran, floated a new policy to allow undocumented farmworkers to remain in the United States and castigated allies for demanding more information related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Even in that environment, Carlson, regarded as a MAGA standard-bearer, stood out.
Read the full story here.
Immigrants being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least seven states are complaining of hunger, food shortages and spoiled food, detainees and immigration advocates say. They say some detainees have gotten sick; others say they have lost weight. In one facility, an incident involving detainees reportedly broke out in part because of food.
The food problems come amid overcrowding at ICE facilities tied to the Trump administration’s push to quickly ramp up immigration arrests. While capacity data isn’t publicly available for every ICE detention facility, nationwide figures on the availability of beds show a system beyond its overall capacity. As of mid-June, ICE was detaining nearly 60,000 people, almost 45% above the capacity provided for by Congress.
Read the full story here.
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, is continuing to express openness to exploring a 2028 bid, telling journalist Chuck Todd, “I got one office left in me.”
“When I got nervous about running for Congress or mayor, I’d think back at things my dad and mom had said. You never want to look back and say, ‘I woulda, coulda, shoulda,'” he said.
Emanuel added that he feels he has “something to offer that others don’t.”
Emanuel previously told NBC News that if he decides to run, “the only interest group I would focus on is the middle class and their American dream, and their children’s shot at it.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a “productive conversation” with retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who serves as the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
“We discussed the path to peace and what we can practically do together to bring it closer,” Zelenskyy said today in a post on X. “This includes strengthening Ukraine’s air defense, joint production, and procurement of defense weapons in collaboration with Europe. And of course, sanctions against Russia and those who help it.”
“We hope for U.S. leadership, as it is clear that Moscow will not stop unless its unreasonable ambitions are curbed through strength,” Zelenskyy added, going on to express gratitude for U.S. support.
Trump said last night that the U.S. would be sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine to aid in its defense and has teased a “major statement” on Russia today.
Trump will meet with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House today after teasing in an NBC News interview last week that he would make a “major statement” on Russia.
Asked yesterday whether he would be announcing new sanctions on Russia, Trump did not say, but criticized Putin.
“He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night,” Trump said of Russia’s president. “We don’t like that.”
Trump told NBC News last week that the U.S. would send weapons to NATO, which would pay for and distribute them.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said yesterday that the president’s authority to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was “being looked into.”
Asked in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” whether he believes Trump has the authority to fire Powell, whom the president has repeatedly bashed over interest rates, Hassett said, “That’s a thing that’s being looked into.”
“But certainly if there’s cause, he does,” Hassett added.
Read the full story here.
King Charles III will host Trump and first lady Melania Trump at Windsor Castle, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace yesterday.
The Trumps accepted an invitation from Charles to make a state visit to the United Kingdom from Sept. 17-19. The first couple paid an official visit to the UK and met the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office.
Former President Joe Biden said he was behind the decision to commute the sentences of more than 4,000 people and issue dozens of pardons toward the end of his term, pushing back on Republican claims that his aides used an autopen to issue the reprieves, in an interview with The New York Times.
“They’re liars. They know it,” Biden told the Times. “They’ve lied so consistently about almost everything they’re doing. The best thing they can do is try to change the focus and focus on something else. And this is a — I think that’s what this is about.”
In the final weeks of his presidency, Biden set the record for most presidential pardons and commutations after reducing the sentences of roughly 1,500 people convicted of nonviolent crimes in December, and around 2,500 additional people in January as part of an effort to help “equalize” sentencing disparities.
He also issued pre–emptive pardons to people he felt would be targeted by Trump’s administration, including members of the House panel that investigated the January 6 Capitol attack, Dr. Anthony Fauci and several members of the former president’s family, including his son Hunter Biden.
In his interview with the Times, Biden said he “made every single one” of the clemency decisions and asserted that his use of an autopen was due to the volume of commutations he granted. While he did not individually approve each name on the list, the Times reported, Biden determined the criteria that would be used to assess eligibility for the reduced sentences.
“I laid out a strategy how I want to go about these, dealing with pardons and commutations. I was — and I pulled the team in to say this is how I want to get it done generically and then specifically. And so, you know, that’s just — this is how it worked,” Biden said.
Trump and congressional Republicans have asserted that Biden’s aides used an autopen, a tool which replicates a signature, to sign presidential orders and appointments and conceal what they’ve described as Biden’s cognitive impairment, allegations that the former president previously called “ridiculous and false.”
Despite the Justice Department permitting the use of an autopen to sign legislation in its official guidelines, and an Appeals Court ruling last year that presidents don’t have to issue written or signed pardons for them to be implemented, Trump has suggested that Biden’s use of an autopen could be used to challenge the legitimacy of his executive actions, including his grants of clemency.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, though he does not have the ability to formally “void” the pardons.
Last month, Trump ordered an investigation into the Biden administration’s use of an autopen, calling it “one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.”
Trump said yesterday that the U.S. is sending Ukraine badly needed Patriot air defense missiles to help it fend off Russia’s intensifying aerial attacks.
Trump did not give a number of Patriots he plans to send to Kyiv but said the European Union was “going to pay us 100% for that, and that’s the way we want it.”
Read the full story here.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, today announced that she raised over $4 million for her campaign and over $7 million for the state Democratic Party in the first half of 2025 ahead of her re-election bid.
In a statement, Hochul’s campaign manager, Preston Elliott, said that donations in the first six months of the year came from every county in the state “as she fights back against Donald Trump and delivers real progress toward a safer, more affordable New York.”
The fundraising haul comes as Hochul gears up for a competitive election in what is normally a deep-blue state. Republicans are eyeing New York as a potential flip opportunity, hoping that one of two GOP House lawmakers — Reps. Mike Lawler or Elise Stefanik — run for governor. Both have publicly confirmed that they are exploring campaigns for that office.
But before she reaches the general election, Hochul must first face a Democratic challenger in the primary: Her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, has launched a campaign.
Hochul is seeking a second full term. She became governor in 2021 after then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned following allegations of sexual harassment. In her first gubernatorial campaign, in 2022, Hochul beat former GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin by more than 6 percentage points.
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