House rejects short-term extension of Fisa spy powers
The House has rejected a short-term extension of Fisa section 702, a key surveillance program, to 2 July by a vote of 198-218, leaving one of Washington’s most powerful intelligence tools on course to expire at midnight.
The GOP attempting to pass the bill using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed.
But Democrats said they would block the move to renew the spying authority in protest over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a close ally with no national intelligence experience, as acting director of national intelligence. Some Republicans have also expressed scepticism over the appointment.
Democrats also cited an absence of reforms that are also being sought by dozens of Republicans.
Key events
Although CNN is reporting that the hazardous materials incident that triggered a lockdown at the Pentagon was a false alarm, a shelter-in-place order in the affected areas still remains in place and will continue to remain in place “until all clear is given”.
Schumer: Trump is ‘incapable of ending the war’ in Iran
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer took to the floor on Thursday to accuse the Trump administration of lying to the public about the war in Iran and urge Senate Republicans to support the war powers resolution and “end this war for real”.
“It doesn’t take a military genius to see that Trump’s fiasco of a war with Iran never ended – not with American helicopters being shot down, not when American bases are being attacked, and American troops are coming under fire,” Schumer said.
“Saying this war is over is an insult, an insult to the brave American servicemen who are risking their lives every day to fight it.”
Trump is “incapable, given his way, his lack of concern for facts, his only concern being his own ego. He is incapable of ending the war, incapable of cleaning up his own mess”, Schumer said.
“Republicans need to stop buying the BS, show some spine, and help us bring our servicemembers home,” Schumer said.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to attack Iran “very hard tonight” and seize the country’s Kharg Island and “other infrastructure”. For our live coverage on the Middle East, follow along here.
Man pleads guilty to fatal shooting attack on two Minnesota lawmakers and their families
A man has pleaded guilty to politicaly assassinating a prominent Minnesota state representative and her husband and seriously wounding a state senator and his wife, the Associated Press reports.
Vance Boelter pleaded guilty on Thursday to fatally shooting Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, while disguised as a police officer last year. He also pleaded guilty to shooting and seriously wounding the Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, about 90 minutes earlier.
Law enforcement had found a “hitlist” of individuals inside what they believed was Boelter’s vehicle that included Hortman, Hoffman and several other Democratic lawmakers, as well as reproductive rights advocates.
CNN is reporting that the hazardous materials incident that triggered a lockdown at the Pentagon was a false alarm.
Stay tuned for more details.
Pentagon in lockdown due to ‘hazardous materials incident’
A hazardous materials incident put the Pentagon into lockdown today as fire officials investigated “an air quality issue”.
“The Pentagon has sophisticated systems to ensure the safety of the building and its occupants. Those systems have detected an air quality issue necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in an email to Reuters.
“The Department is executing standard protection protocols, including a shelter-in-place order for the affected area. Response teams are in place and ready to support building occupants.”
The building was under lockdown, with people evacuated from several floors, CNN reported, citing unidentified sources, and floors two through five in corridors four through seven locked down.
Another source reported seeing emergency responders were wearing full gas masks and chemical protection suits, CNN said.
A message sent by the Pentagon’s security team to employees said additional testing was needed to determine the source of the problem and “could take one to two hours”.
At a press conference earlier this morning, a reporter began asking a question to Trump’s homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin about the referee from Somali and the Iraqi team staff member who were denied entry at US airports in recent days, and the dozens of fawho ns have also been denied entry.
Mullin interrupted before she could finish her question, to say that, “We’re not going to allow people that are perceived to have criminal ties to come into this country. I don’t care what your situation is.”
He went on to claim that “there was a reason” that multiple individuals have been denied entry but he would not be going into the specifics of those decisions.
Somalia is one of a number of countries whose citizens have been the subject of a complete ban on travel into the United States implemented by the Trump administration last June.
Mullin said that while the administration had done a “phenomenal job on getting as many people cleared [to enter the US] as we could, but some people just can’t clear, and that’s just the way it works with getting a visa to come to this great country.”
After being prevented from officiating at the World Cup despite apparently having a valid travel visa, the Somali referee, Omar Artan, considered one of the best in Africa, will take charge of the Super Cup in August, Uefa announced today. Here’s our story on that.
In response, a vexxed Mike Johnson has called the vote “shameful and very, very dangerous”.
The House speaker told reporters after the vote that Democrats had voted “to jeopardize the safety and security of the American people to make a cheap political point”.
Johnson said Trump has made clear that Bill Pulte’s appointment as DNI is “very temporary in nature” and claimed the president is “very close to a decision” on who to nominate for the permanent position.
House rejects short-term extension of Fisa spy powers
The House has rejected a short-term extension of Fisa section 702, a key surveillance program, to 2 July by a vote of 198-218, leaving one of Washington’s most powerful intelligence tools on course to expire at midnight.
The GOP attempting to pass the bill using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority vote to succeed.
But Democrats said they would block the move to renew the spying authority in protest over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte, a close ally with no national intelligence experience, as acting director of national intelligence. Some Republicans have also expressed scepticism over the appointment.
Democrats also cited an absence of reforms that are also being sought by dozens of Republicans.
Joseph Gedeon
The Trump administration and the UFC unveiled the nearly completed arena for the fights on the White House south lawn for the president’s birthday extravaganza this Sunday to the press corps.
The fully outdoor cage and seating area can fit a few thousand, and is built like a mini Roman coliseum, in full view of the White House. The arena takes up the entirety of the south lawn, which is typically where the president takes off in a helipad.
The US supreme court has published its opinions, but none of the cases we’ve been watching for were part of the decisions today.
In comments reported by NBC News, House speaker Mike Johnson has said it is “stunning” to him that “House Democrat leadership has put out a statement saying that they’re willing to allow the number one national security tool to go dark over some political disagreement over a very short-term temporary appointment”.
“Republicans are doing everything we can this morning to make sure that that statute does not go dark,” Johnson said.
But as my colleague Chris Stein notes in his report, failure to reauthorize Fisa section 702 does not mean the surveillance program itself will go dark.
The Fisa court issued a year-long certification authorizing section 702 collection through approximately March 2027, and the statute contains a provision allowing collection to continue under that order even if the law lapses.
Democrats set to block short-term extension of key Fisa spy power amid furor over Bill Pulte
The House will vote at 10am ET on a short-term extension of the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (Fisa) Section 702 at Donald Trump’s request.
The key surveillance program allows for warrantless surveillance of foreign sources. House speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday that the bill, which would push back the expiration of the spying program’s powers to 2 July, would need a two-thirds majority to pass.
But the measure is widely expected to fail, with Democrats in uproar over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte – a close ally with no national intelligence experience – as acting national intelligence director. Democrats are also demanding an overhaul of the authority “to protect both national security and the constitutional privacy rights of Americans”.
It risks an unprecedented lapse of the program if the House leaves for recess as planned after today’s votes until 23 June.
In a statement this morning, Democratic leaders said:
Section 702 is a critical foreign intelligence authority, but we cannot in good conscience vote for reauthorization without significant reforms to protect both national security and the constitutional privacy rights of Americans.
Bill Pulte has no relevant national security experience. Consequently, his appointment is in defiance of the law that requires the Director of National Intelligence to have ‘extensive’ national security experience.
The apparent motivation for his elevation is the demonstrated willingness of Bill Pulte to search government databases for alleged dirt on President Trump’s chosen political enemies.
There is a path to reauthorizing FISA, but it will require enacting meaningful reforms. We oppose this bill to kick the can further down the road.
Johnson met with Trump at the White House yesterday as pressure mounts on the president to nominate a permanent director of national intelligence.
Trump has indicated he is looking for someone to serve as DNI but hasn’t made a pick yet, and is pressing on with his plan to install Pulte in the acting role.
Taz Ali
In further comments to Fox News this morning, Donald Trump said the US “dropped $250m worth of bombs on them [Iran] last night”.
He said the US was “not hitting them hard enough” but also claimed Iran was “in submission, they just don’t know it yet”.
He added: “My preference has always been take Kharg Island … I don’t know that America has the stomach for it.”
Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran “very hard tonight” and seize the country’s Kharg Island and “other infrastructure” in his latest warning to Tehran.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he wrote:
The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America.
Kharg Island in the Gulf is an economic lifeline for Iran, handling about 90% of its oil exports.
It comes after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the renewed US strikes against Iran “have rendered the ceasefire ineffective”, per a statement on his Telegram channel.
For more, my colleagues on the Middle East live blog have the latest:
Supreme court to release opinions with major cases still to be decided before end of term
With the final weeks of the US supreme court’s term approaching, the justices are due to release another round of opinions today at 10am ET.
Among the most prominent cases we’ve been waiting for decisions on are Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, his firings of members of independent federal agencies without cause, whether states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by but arrive after election day, state laws banning transgender athletes from girls’ and womens’ sports, and Trump’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 356,000 immigrants from Syria and Haiti.
US and Iran exchange strikes for second day, as ceasefire appears close to collapse
Andrew Roth in Washington and William Christou in Beirut
The US launched a new round of airstrikes on Iran into this morning after Donald Trump warned Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations, prompting Iran to respond with strikes targeting Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
The new US assault across a range of Iranian cities came as efforts to negotiate an end to the war again appeared stuck, with Iran insisting it would maintain its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz. The US attack appeared more intense and wider than the day before, but Iran released no information about what was hit.
Explosions were reported around Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as the port city of Bandar Abbas and other southern areas along the strait of Hormuz.
Before the strikes, Trump had promised to “hit them hard again” as a two-month-old ceasefire appears close to collapse.
The third back-and-forth strikes this week have tested a shaky two-month ceasefire. The first were attacks between Iran and Israel on Sunday into Monday, followed by the two rounds of fire between the US and Tehran.
The two days of strikes followed the downing of a US Apache helicopter over the strait of Hormuz, which Trump has blamed on Iran.
Trump also accused negotiators in Tehran of “playing us for suckers” – a day after repeating claims that a peace deal was imminent. He told reporters at the White House yesterday:
We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.
We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.
Talks to turn the ceasefire into a durable peace have been stalling for weeks, with periodic flare-ups as both sides continued to launch limited strikes and trade blame for violating the truce.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baqaei, has said the US strikes had jeopardized the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
Few Americans, including only a third of Republicans, approve of president Donald Trump’s plan to hold mixed martial arts cage matches at the White House on Sunday to celebrate US history, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Just 16% of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the Ultimate Fighting Championship event, scheduled for his 80th birthday, while 46% said it was inappropriate and the rest didn’t offer an opinion.
Only 31% of Republicans considered it appropriate, a small share considering that eight in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s overall performance in the White House, according to the six-day poll, which concluded on Monday.
Trump has planned a slew of public celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence from Britain on 4 July, 1776. The events have stirred controversy, with several musical performers pulling out of the opening ceremony over concerns about its association with Trump.
Trump’s administration asked a judge on Tuesday to reject an effort to halt the UFC event after local residents argued that sporting events are barred on the White House’s South Lawn and the large metal arena being constructed for the fight lacks required approval.
Sam Levine
As the 2024 election approached, advertisements began popping up in key swing states suggesting local officials had discretion not to certify elections.
The advertisements, reported at the time by ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch, were misleading. Certification is not optional, and officials are required to certify the vote once the proper process for any election challenges are complete and an official challenge is complete. The warnings, nonetheless, arrived at a moment when Donald Trump and allies seemed to be gearing up to contest the election results if he lost.
New documents reviewed by the Guardian show that the group behind the advertisements received financial support from a non-profit linked to prominent election deniers with ties to Trump. The same non-profit, the Foundation For Accountability Integrity & Research In Elections Fund (Fair Elections Fund), also paid influencers to promote an anti-voting bill in 2024.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer and longtime ally of Trump who assisted his efforts to overturn the 2020 race, and Heather Honey, a researcher known for misleading election analyses who now works in the Department of Homeland Security, are both listed as directors of the fund, which was incorporated in Delaware in 2023.
Honey’s appointment to an elections role at the DHS last year has caused considerable alarm among voting rights groups, who say it places an election denier in a powerful government role. Before she was in government, Honey produced misleading research that Trump has cited to undermine confidence in the 2020 election. She has falsely claimed, for example, that there were more votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 than there were voters.
Her appointment comes as Trump and his administration continue to sow doubt about the integrity of American elections, making baseless accusations of fraud without offering substantial evidence. There is still concern that Trump could deploy the powerful machinery of his justice department and other government resources to contest the result of the midterm elections this year.
Mitchell and Honey did not respond to a request for comment.
Democratic senators meet to plan response to any potential election interference in midterms
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The Democrats are considering messaging strategies and considering legal action amid fears that Donald Trump, or malign foreign actors, will try to influence the midterm elections.
Ten Democratic senators, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, met with the party’s top election officials last week to run through a series of extreme scenarios that could play out, Politico reported.
The war-gaming included how to respond to federal agents at polling locations, ballot seizures in key battlegrounds and dealing with a foreign interference operation.
Schumer said:
Trump has talked about stealing the election, violating the election, perverting the election, over and over again.
And woe be us, and woe be anyone who believes in free elections, who doesn’t take that seriously.
We are going to be prepared for anything that he throws at us.
This year’s midterms will serve as an example of how the president will wield the federal government’s power at cities and states in a crusade to ensure his party maintains power.
Experts warned on Tuesday that president Trump was “inventing fraud” in California’s primary elections, a narrative likely to ramp up unfounded allegations when more races go against him.
“California’s election is not the problem here,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice-president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a pro-democracy watchdog group.
“The problem is that we have a president in the Oval Office who continues to lie and sow doubt over elections instead of facing accountability from voters.”
In other developments:
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Donald Trump demanded that Republicans in Congress provide an additional $350bn in funding for the Pentagon, by passing a third reconciliation bill.
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Trump brushed off concerns about new data showing that inflation jumped to an annual rate of 4.2% in May by saying “I love the inflation”, but US House speaker Mike Johnson, accused a CNN journalist of taking the president’s comment “totally out of context”. “What he was saying is: ‘It’s going to be great to have that number and compare it to what comes next, when we get these situations resolved, that’ll be a fun thing to consider.’”
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As Trump appeared unwilling to back off his plan to install as acting director of national intelligence an unqualified political “attack dog”, federal mortgage director Bill Pulte, Senate Democrats said they would not vote to reauthorize a warrantless surveillance law that expires on Friday.
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Trump told Fox News the US had fired 49 Tomahawk missiles at Iran on Wednesday, and would “bomb the shit out of them again on Thursday” if Iran’s leaders do not sign a peace agreement.
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