Holdouts for Trump’s attorney general pick say they will advance his nomination to the full Senate – US politics live | US justice system
Holdouts for Trump’s attorney general pick say they will vote in favor of his nomination
Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, two key holdouts on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination – now say they will vote to advance him to the full Senate.
The outgoing lawmakers, who have repeatedly clashed with Trump over the past year, said their concerns were resolved after “successful negotiation of a legally enforceable document” that formally ends the $1.8bn “anti‑weaponization fund” and makes clear that Trump and his family will not receive indefinite protection from audits of future tax filings. Both issues had been deal‑breakers for Cornyn and Tillis. In the document Blanche released on Sunday, the acting attorney general did say that the sweeping immunity offered to the president and his family for their past conduct does not change.
“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” the pair wrote in a statement. “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate judiciary committee soon.”
The panel is set to vote on Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday.
Key events
Murray said the bill blocks the administration from shifting funds toward border patrol, stops a White House plan to let officials cancel federal grants at will and “rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wishlist”.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee, both praised the agreement. But by backing a “clean” stopgap at existing funding levels, the Democrats now hand Republicans continuity without a fight – a trade-off critics in similar stand offs since Trump’s second term began have argued squanders the leverage a shutdown standoff could bring.
Collins, facing a tough Maine re-election race, is casting the deal as proof of her bipartisan dealmaking.
“This measure gives Congress the time we need to continue our work on bipartisan appropriations bills, which are always my strong preference for handling annual government funding,” she said in a statement.
Senate leaders reach bipartisan deal to fund the government
Senate leaders have reached a bipartisan agreement to fund the government through 11 December, avoiding a shutdown that would otherwise begin 1 October.
The deal, announced by appropriations committee chair Susan Collins, a Republican, and vice-chair Patty Murray, a Democrat, buys Congress time to negotiate a longer-term funding package after the midterm elections. A Senate procedural vote is scheduled today, with leaders aiming to pass the bill before the August recess.
Something to note: the house has already passed its own version funding the government through 4 December, leaving the two chambers to reconcile the difference when they return in September.
Donald Trump calls Iran’s leadership ‘unbelievably duplicitious’
After Iran’s leaders insisted that Tehran was not planning any talks with Washington – contradicting Trump’s own comments on Sunday – the US president has said that the country’s leadership is “unbelievably duplicitous”.
“They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He went on to reject Iran’s claims that the country is ultimately in control of the strait of Hormuz. “Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a deal, or total surrender, is accomplished,” Trump added.
My colleague Lucy Campbell has more here.
Melody Schreiber
US federal employees and their families are joining a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration for blocking insurance coverage of gender-affirming healthcare.
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) and the DC-based law firm Correia & Puth filed the lawsuit on Monday morning against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), arguing that the prohibition violates Title VII, which protects against sex discrimination.
The Trump administration has been “fixated” on ending gender-affirming care, said Cynthia Cheng-Wun Weaver, HRCF’s senior director of litigation.
“A lot of the criticism and attack on this care is for treating minors, but this exclusion is for all ages,” she said.
Federal insurance plans cover about 8.3 million people in America – not just employees and retirees themselves but also their partners and other family members.
Health insurance coverage for gender-affirming care is no longer covered by federal insurance plans as of January, with the exception of mental health counseling, including faith-based counseling.
There was also an exception for those who are in “mid-treatment”, though it didn’t detail which treatments exactly qualified. And a subsequent letter in March eliminated this exception beginning in 2027.
At least 39,400 enrollees will be affected by the prohibition on gender-affirming care coverage, according to a recent estimate from the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute.
“Healthcare access should never be weaponized to advance discrimination – and the denial of coverage for critical healthcare based simply on who you are blatantly violates the rights of all of us,” said Kelley Robinson, the HRCF president, in a statement.
On Truth Social today, Donald Trump has railed against polling which shows his approval rating stuck in the low end. According to a recent survey by AP-Norc, only 33% of Americans said they approved of the president’s job performance – slightly below where he stood at this point in his first term.
“My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been,” he wrote.
“Why wouldn’t they be with the biggest tax cuts and employment numbers EVER, the biggest outside Investment in America in World history, a totally secure Border, a giant Victory in Venezuela, the Denuclearization of Iran, unparalleled respect and success throughout the World, and much more? Don’t believe the Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers.”
Holdouts for Trump’s attorney general pick say they will vote in favor of his nomination
Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, two key holdouts on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination – now say they will vote to advance him to the full Senate.
The outgoing lawmakers, who have repeatedly clashed with Trump over the past year, said their concerns were resolved after “successful negotiation of a legally enforceable document” that formally ends the $1.8bn “anti‑weaponization fund” and makes clear that Trump and his family will not receive indefinite protection from audits of future tax filings. Both issues had been deal‑breakers for Cornyn and Tillis. In the document Blanche released on Sunday, the acting attorney general did say that the sweeping immunity offered to the president and his family for their past conduct does not change.
“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” the pair wrote in a statement. “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate judiciary committee soon.”
The panel is set to vote on Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday.
Michigan voters prepare for closely watched primaries
On Tuesday, we’ll bring you the latest from Michigan where voters will head to the polls for competitive primaries in Senate and House races.
The most closely watched competition is the Democratic primary for the US Senate, where congresswoman Haley Stevens is up against former public health official Abdul El-Sayed. They’re vying to ultimately win the seat of outgoing senator Gary Peters in November. The race has now turned into a proxy battle for the future of the Democratic party. Establishment-backed Stevens has received support from party leaders and her race has been buoyed by millions from the pro-Israel lobby. Meanwhile the insurgent El-Sayed has built a strong grassroots movement and is endorsed by progressives lawmakers in the Democratic caucus.
There are also several competitive House primaries tomorrow –mirroring the same choice in the Senate race – where more moderate Democratic candidates will face off against progressives who reflect the changing face of the party.
Kay Granger, first Republican congresswoman from Texas, dies at age 83
Kay Granger, a former Republican representative, who was the first woman to win a US House seat from Texas, has died at age 83.
Granger served in the house from 1997-2025, and was the first female chair of the House appropriations committee. Before her role in federal office, she was the first woman elected mayor of Fort Worth, Texas.
In a tribute on social media, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said that Granger “broke barriers for women in public service”.
My colleague Ramon Antonio Vargas previously reported that Granger largely disappeared from the public eye after she announced her plans to retire when her term ended in early 2025.
Granger’s son later reportedly told the Dallas Morning News that Granger was “having some dementia issues” and had moved into an independent senior living center with a memory care community on the same property. However, he disputed that she was being treated at the memory care community and said she was a resident of the independent living side of the property.
José Olivares
Homeland security officials under the Trump administration have quietly attempted to subject at least 10 hunger strikers in US immigrant detention to involuntary medical procedures, including force-feeding, a Guardian investigation has found.
In 2025 and 2026, officials had definitely performed the procedures on at least three detained immigrants and probably subjected two more to the forced treatment – widely considered torture by human rights groups. The other five people gave in and broke their hunger strike at the last minute as force-feeding procedures loomed.
The government has not publicly acknowledged the practice of involuntary medical procedures on striking detainees, as the number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increases nationwide.
More people have gone on hunger strike in ICE detention centers to protest against conditions and demand resolutions to legal cases.
The investigation, based on hundreds of pages of court records and interviews with multiple sources, reveals a clearer picture of the federal government’s response to hunger strikes within secretive ICE facilities.
In the cases reviewed by the Guardian, the involuntary procedures included force-feeding, where medical staff coercively insert a tube through a hunger striker’s nose and down their throat then pump in nutritional shakes – an agonizing and traumatizing procedure that experts say can cause significant harm to the nose, esophagus and body organs. Other procedures included intravenous forced hydration, involuntary blood draws and the collection of urine samples.
Read the breakdown of the Guardian’s investigation here:
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog. This includes the latest drop in oil prices, since Trump walked back his threats to strike Iran on Sunday.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading 5% lower at $83.50 a barrel by mid-morning, after falling as low as $81.55 a barrel.
As we reported earlier, Republican senator Bernie Moreno has now publicly called for Representative Max Miller, his ex-son-in-law, to step down from Congress amid allegations of domestic and child abuse.
Trump, when asked about the allegations on Sunday on Air Force One, said he was “looking at” the claims against Miller.
“I’m gonna look at it. I mean, so far, it’s accusations,” the president added.
Miller and Emily Moreno, were in the middle of an acrimonious custody battle this year, when Miller filed a defamation against his former wife earlier this year.
On Sunday, Miller posted a video on social media, and continued to deny the allegations.
“I categorically deny abusing my former wife,” the Republican congressman said.
Donald Trump will be in Washington today. He’ll spend most of the day in meetings, but we’ll hear from him at 1.30pm ET when he signs an executive order in the Oval Office.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.
President Donald Trump said new talks to wind down the war in Iran will start Monday afternoon, after announcing he is holding off on new massive strikes he had threatened to unleash on the country.
The talks will seek to end the conflict and revive stalled cargo traffic through the strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway through which about a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed before the war.
Iranian state media quoted the country’s foreign ministry as saying Tehran was not currently holding negotiations with the United States.
RFK Jr tells US families to vaccinate children against measles amid outbreak
Ed Pilkington
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years.
Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
His remark came as the incidence of measles crossed a milestone – the US has now officially recorded 2,371 confirmed infections so far this year, surpassing the total tally in 2025 of 2,289.
Taken together, the past two years have seen more measles infections in the US than the rest of the 21st century combined. The last time a greater number of measles cases were recorded in a single year was in 1991.
Kennedy’s statement was extracted from him by Dana Bash, CNN’s host, who invited him to use his “bully pulpit” to talk directly to parents as the new school year approached. She urged him to tell families that they should vaccinate for measles “because it is safe and it will help them save their children’s lives”.
Chris Stein
The pastor of a historically Black church on St Louis’s north side, Rodrick Burton has watched with bewilderment as the congressional race in his district has drawn national attention not about the bloodshed in his community, but rather in Gaza.
“As a pastor who’s had eight members murdered, violence over there is terrible,” Burton said of the conflict in the Middle East.
“We have to deal with the problems right in our metropolitan area,” Burton added. “While there’s kinship and stuff … you’re talking about blood overseas, blood on the TV. We got blood right here in our metropolitan area.”
In Tuesday’s Democratic congressional primary, voters in Missouri’s deep-blue first congressional district will decide whether to give pro-Israel incumbent Wesley Bell a second term, or replace him with Cori Bush, a former progressive congresswoman who accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Along with a heated primary in Michigan, the contest has become a proxy battle over the Democratic party’s role in supporting Israel’s military before the November midterm elections, which will determine which party holds the majority in both chambers of Congress.
After losing to Bell two years ago, Bush is vying for her seat back, and a Super Pac linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has so far spent more than $3m to try to keep her out.
In recent weeks, Democratic voters in New York City and Denver ousted incumbents in favor of candidates who promised they would take a hard line against support for Israel. In Congress, large shares of Democrats have voted for unsuccessful efforts to block arms sales to the country’s security forces, and progressives hope that a win by Bush will underscore their movement’s momentum.
Trump attorney general pick says has reached deal with senators after standoff
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Acting US attorney general Todd Blanche issued a formal order late on Sunday terminating Donald Trump’s $1.8bn “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate his political allies.
The move follows weeks of negotiations with two Republican senators who were blocking his nomination to become attorney general.
While Blanche has repeatedly said publicly that the fund was dead, the justice department had resisted formally confirming that in writing. That had drawn concern from lawmakers that it could be revived in some form, especially after Trump expressed continued support for the idea.
A spokesperson for Texas Senator John Cornyn, one of the senators holding up Blanche’s nomination, confirmed the agreement. The other GOP senator, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, did not have immediate comment.
The announcement comes ahead of a Senate judiciary committee vote on Blanche, which is scheduled for Tuesday.
“My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,” Blanche said in a post on X. “We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order.”
The order says that “although the acting attorney general has repeatedly advised Congress through testimony, including under oath, as well as in written responses, that the Fund is not moving forward, and the Department has repeatedly represented to district courts that the Fund is not moving forward, today’s Order officially rescinds the May 18, 2026 Order.”
The document released by Blanche on Sunday night also limits the scope of another provision of the settlement that provided broad immunity for Trump and members of his family from tax audits. It clarifies that the tax audit immunity agreement “applies only retroactively” to claims open at the time of the settlement and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, on Sunday told American parents that they should get their children vaccinated against measles, as the surge in infections has reached numbers not seen in the past 35 years. Kennedy, a leading vaccination skeptic who has spent years amplifying misinformation about vaccines, including the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), made his call in the course of a contentious interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning.
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Donald Trump has said he cancelled planned military strikes against Iran on the basis of “rapidly” reaching a deal on its nuclear programme and the full reopening of the strait of Hormuz. The president paused the strikes in expectation of a breakthrough and in response to requests from Iran and other countries in the region, he claimed on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
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Marcy Kaptur is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries after a car crash in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday, the Democratic US representative’s office said. Kaptur, 80, was a passenger in the vehicle and on her way to church, her office said. Toledo police did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
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Republican senator Bernie Moreno on Sunday publicly called for Representative Max Miller, his ex son-in-law, to step down from Congress amid allegations of domestic and child abuse. As recently as Friday, the Ohio senator had avoided giving his opinion directly on accusations made by his daughter, Emily Moreno, against the congressman.
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The family of a Haitian immigrant who froze to death in early March at a bus shelter in Pittsburgh after she was dropped off in the city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is poised to file a lawsuit this month against the United States and “multiple other governmental and non-governmental entities”, the Guardian has learned.
