White House

• President Donald J. Trump delivered a primetime address to release newly declassified documents regarding foreign election interference and alleged "Deep State" suppression. • The released intelligence reports specifically highlight that the Venezuelan government developed capabilities to manipulate electronic voting systems. • This disclosure is framed as a critical step in protecting U.S. democratic integrity and exposing foreign influence operations targeting American elections.

• The White House hosted a closed-door briefing for election denial activists, organized by Cleta Mitchell and requiring attendees to sign nondisclosure agreements. • The session featured materials reportedly recycled from conservative media, serving as a precursor to a primetime speech by Donald Trump. • Lauren Groh-Wargo of Fair Fight Action warned that the Election Integrity Network is linking debunked 2020 claims to potential government actions.

• The White House is addressing critical concerns regarding election integrity and the security of voter registration data following the 2020 presidential election. • Reports indicate a massive loss of sensitive information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and political party preferences, which could be used for nefarious activities. • Intelligence reveals that China has specifically assigned a data exploitation unit to target and utilize this compromised voter information.

• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt provided a preview of President Trump's upcoming speech on election security scheduled for Thursday night. • Leavitt stated that the President intends to demonstrate that current election processes are not as secure as the public believes. • The White House is urging news networks to broadcast the address, signaling a high-priority effort to challenge existing election security narratives.

Karoline Leavitt calls apparent bets on Kalshi prediction platform ‘deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace’Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave, the White House said on Thursday, after reports that he used his position to win $100,000 by placing bets on the president’s speeches using the online prediction market Kalshi.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had been informed about the situation, which she described as “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”. Continue reading...

President will meet new Republican senator who has taken over the seat following the death of her brother Lindsey GrahamSign up for the Breaking News US emailHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Donald Trump is due to meet Darline Graham - the sister of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, was sworn in to temporarily fill his Senate seat – later today.103 House Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as accusations that Israel’s government carried out a genocide in Gaza are gaining more traction in the party.Two of Donald Trump’s nominees for powerful positions, Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton, buckled under pressure during their confirmations hearings. Blanche, the acting attorney general, described himself as Trump’s lawyer, before correcting himself. Clayton, the would-be national intelligence director, refused to say who won the 2020 election when asked by senator Jon Ossoff.Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law requiring the release of investigative files on the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, introduced a sequel that would allow state officials, victims and members of Congress to sue the attorney general over withheld records.In an interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, US vice-president JD Vance discounted the conspiracy theory that Trump’s long association with Epstein had been used by Israel to blackmail the president into attacking Iran.The treasury department announced Wednesday that the US Mint has started producing a new commemorative $1 coin featuring Donald Trump as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Continue reading...

• The Trump administration has launched a new industry clearinghouse designed to strengthen coordination on artificial intelligence cybersecurity. • The initiative focuses on improving the detection and patching of network vulnerabilities, with a specific emphasis on securing open-source software. • This move matters as it aims to create a centralized hub for sharing risk data to protect critical infrastructure from AI-driven threats.

• The White House has launched "Gold Eagle," a cybersecurity clearinghouse designed to help federal agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and AI developers patch security flaws identified by advanced AI models. • The initiative will utilize leading frontier models, including Mythos, and is the result of several months of collaborative design and conversation between the administration and industry leaders. • This effort matters as it leverages the power of AI to proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by malicious actors.

Kathryn Ruemmler welcomes closed-door interview and says she had no knowledge of ongoing criminal activityKathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under Barack Obama, is set to testify on Wednesday before the House committee on oversight and reform about her ties to Jeffrey Epstein as part of the panel’s investigation into the convicted sex offender.Ruemmler came under scrutiny earlier this year after her name appeared thousands of times in the records related to Epstein that were released by the justice department under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. She announced in February that she would be resigning from her role at Goldman Sachs as chief legal officer effective on 30 June. Continue reading...

• Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and nine colleagues sent a formal letter to OMB Director Russ Vought demanding the reversal of a proposed federal regulation. • The lawmakers argue that the proposed rule change would negatively impact American science, research, and innovation by creating restrictive political barriers. • This action matters because the senators believe the rule could lead to the loss of American jobs and the exportation of domestic innovation due to "partisan games."

• The White House has appointed Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb to lead a new government study group focused on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), commonly known as UFOs. • Loeb intends to apply the same scientific rigor and unbiased analysis to the study of UAPs as he does in his established field of astrophysics. • This appointment signals a shift toward a more formal, academic approach to investigating unexplained aerial phenomena within the U.S. government.

Staggered release of ChatGPT 5.6 follows similar restrictions on rival firm Anthropic’s latest AI modelsOpenAI released its latest advanced AI model, called ChatGPT 5.6, on Thursday after earlier delaying the public rollout over US government concerns about cybersecurity. The Trump administration had requested last month that OpenAI limit the release to a small group of government-approved users.OpenAI complied with the White House’s request last month. The company stated in a blogpost that it had briefed government officials on ChatGPT 5.6’s capabilities and restricted the model to trusted partners at their behest. The product’s wider release came after additional testing by the government’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation agency, according to Axios. Continue reading...

Andrew Giuliani claims actions of referee Raphael Claus over US player Folarin Balogun ‘very, very highly suspicious’Andrew Giuliani, head of the White House’s World Cup taskforce, has defended Donald Trump’s lobbying of Fifa to lift the suspension of US player Folarin Balogun for Monday’s game against Belgium.The US president claimed that Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, who showed Balogun a red card in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was “a little bit suspect, if you check his past”. This was apparently a reference to a match-fixing investigation by Brazil’s senate in 2024 that examined how referees were assigned to games but did not accuse Claus of wrongdoing. Continue reading...

• The Trump administration has initiated a regulatory crackdown on leading U.S. AI developers, specifically targeting Anthropic's advanced models. • This shift reverses previous government efforts to accelerate AI development by limiting regulatory hurdles for companies like Anthropic and Google. • Experts warn that these restrictions may inadvertently benefit Chinese model makers, allowing them to close the technological gap with the U.S.

Spokesperson says president has ‘proudly made the US the crypto capital of the world’Sign up for US breaking news alerts emailHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.The White House said that Donald Trump has “proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world” after the president recorded around $1.2bn in income from his family’s cryptocurrency activities.The US supreme court upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution. More here.Meanwhile, the court upheld laws in two conservative states excluding transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in a far-reaching ruling likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US and handing Trump a key “culture war” victory. More here.The supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional. The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term. The high court’s announcement comes on the heels of two recent victories for second amendment attorneys and advocates. More here.Trump announced that Republicans will stage their first ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections, a move aimed at energizing voters as the party fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities in November. The two-day gathering will take place in Dallas on 9 and 10 September, marking a break from the longstanding tradition of holding national conventions only during presidential election years. More here. Continue reading...

• The White House, under President Donald Trump's administration, has requested that OpenAI restrict the immediate public release of its latest model, GPT 5.6. • According to a TechCrunch report on June 26, the administration is concerned that the model's advanced capabilities could be misused in the field of cybersecurity. • The restriction is driven by the risk that large language models (LLMs) can be leveraged to create sophisticated malware designed to infiltrate or damage computer systems.

Democrats called plans for commemorative passports and gold coin with Trump portrait ‘more befitting a monarchy’Donald Trump’s efforts to brand the US government with his name and image advanced on Friday when the White House unveiled new images of a passport watermarked with his portrait to mark America’s 250th.The White House called it simply the “patriot passport”, while on Truth Social Trump introduced it as “The U.S.A.’s New Passport, which says, “Welcome, but be good!”. Continue reading...

• House Committee Chairmen Jim Jordan, Bryan Steil, and James Comer sent a formal letter to former Biden White House Counsel Dana Remus demanding documents and communications. • The request focuses on ActBlue's fraud prevention policies following New York Times reporting that Remus possesses direct, firsthand information regarding the matter. • This action is part of a broader oversight effort by House Republicans to investigate potential fraud and misleading statements made to Congress.

Experts say move signals greater political interference into public health and will exacerbate opioid overdose crisisHealth programs receiving federal funding must agree within days to new priorities from the Trump administration, including a focus on “parental authority” in education and a move away from proven overdose-prevention methods like harm reduction, suggesting greater political control over public health.The new priorities will likely affect progress against the opioid crisis, and they could signal an attack on vaccination requirements at schools, which are set at the state and local level. The priorities may also weaponize public health to quash “public disorder.” Continue reading...

Top Democrat signals party will not back paying for unpopular conflict never authorized by CongressThe White House has requested Congress approve $87.6bn in new funding, much of which would go towards the costs of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, but a top Democrat has signaled the party will not support paying for an unpopular conflict that lawmakers never authorized.The Trump administration’s supplemental funding request released on Wednesday comes amid a logjam in US Congress sparked by the president’s demand that the Senate pass a measure to impose sweeping new restrictions on voting nationwide. Continue reading...

• White House deputy assistant for domestic policy Heidi Overton is reportedly among the final candidates being considered to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). • Overton is a medical doctor who holds a doctorate in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins University, bringing significant medical and policy expertise to the role. • This potential appointment is critical as the FDA head oversees the safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals and food products across the United States.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the reporters behind Regime Change, were up against an administration that is ‘very good at keeping secrets’They cracked the White House situation room, unearthing secrets from the heart of a secretive administration. But the reporters behind Regime Change, a blockbuster new book on Donald Trump’s second term, ran up against a wall when reporting on one issue surrounding the 80-year-old US president: his fitness for office.“His health has always been a very specific lockbox for him, going back decades,” Maggie Haberman, co-author with Jonathan Swan, said in an interview. “Illness freaks him out; he perceives illness as weakness, usually, and he certainly perceives any sense that he is having an issue as a projection of weakness, and his advisers are very, very attuned to that. Continue reading...

• The White House delayed the release of a federal report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) regarding voting machine security. • The ODNI report concludes that U.S. voting machines may possess software vulnerabilities that require urgent protections and updates. • This security gap is particularly critical as the United States prepares for the upcoming midterm elections in November.

• The White House delayed the release of a federal government report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) regarding voting machine security. • The report concludes that U.S. voting machines may have software vulnerabilities and require additional protections, such as updated software, to ensure security. • This delay is significant as it concerns the integrity of the electoral process ahead of the upcoming November midterm elections.

• The White House has delayed the release of a U.S. government report detailing significant vulnerabilities in the nation's voting machines. • The report has been withheld for several months, coinciding with the approach of the November midterm elections. • This delay is critical as it obscures known security flaws in the infrastructure used to conduct national elections.

Funds meant for Secret Service were transferred to project president promised would be financed by private donationsUS politics live – latest updatesDonald Trump’s administration has quietly redirected $352m in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the president’s controversial White House ballroom project, despite repeated promises by Trump that the construction would be financed by private donationsThe funds were drawn from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s signature tax legislation passed last summer on Republican-only votes. The law stipulates the money may only be spent on Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction. Continue reading...

Details of potential threat were not immediately disclosed, after event was held on Donald Trump’s 80th birthdaySign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailLaw enforcement officials disrupted “planned attacks” meant to target the UFC cage fighting show staged at the White House this past weekend, and multiple people were in custody, said Kash Patel, the FBI director.The nature of the potential threat was not immediately disclosed, with additional details expected to be released once charges are unsealed later Tuesday. Continue reading...

President’s son says screenshots that appeared to show him asking analyst Daniel Cormier for information were ‘fake’Eric Trump has denied cheating allegations after screenshots shared online appeared to show UFC commentator Daniel Cormier receiving a message from an account under Trump’s name asking whether any of the White House’s UFC fights on Sunday would be rigged.Several screenshots posted – and then later deleted – on Cormier’s X account showed alleged messages from Donald Trump’s 42-year old son that said: “Anything you can tell me about the fighters tomorrow? Who you got winning?” Continue reading...