Trump’s ex-national security adviser defends use of Signal months after group chat leak – live updates | Trump administration
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Waltz says he faced no disciplinary action over Signalgate
Finally, Mike Waltz is asked by Democratic senator Chris Coons whether he was investigated for his disclosure of sensitive operational information on Signal and his expansion of the group chat to (mistakenly) include a journalist.
Waltz says that use of Signal was “not only authorized, it was recommended” for government and personal devices.
Pressed to clarify whether Signal was recommended for disclosure of sensitive military information, Waltz says there was no classified information disclosed.
Pressed again on whether or not he was investigated, Waltz says the White House conducted an investigation and, to his understanding, the Department of Defense was still conducting one.
Asked if any disciplinary action was taken, Waltz says no.
Asked if he spoke to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, about his decision to share details of an imminent military strike, Waltz says they only spoke about the “highly successful mission”.
Coons says he was hoping to hear some level of regret from Waltz about sharing sensitive information on a commercially available app, to which Waltz insists again that no classified information was shared.
Key events
Just an observation that we’re an hour into this hearing and the Signal group chat leak hasn’t come up yet.
If confirmed as ambassador, Mike Waltz would arrive at the United Nations at a moment of great change, writes the Associated Press. The world body is reeling from Trump’s decision to slash foreign assistance – affecting its humanitarian aid agencies – and it anticipates US funding cuts to the UN annual budget.
Under an “America first” foreign policy realignment, the White House – in line with the remarks we’ve just heard from Waltz at the hearing – has asserted that “some of the UN’s agencies and bodies have drifted” from their founding mission and “act contrary to the interests of the United States while attacking our allies and propagating antisemitism”.
With the US being the largest UN donor, cutting American funding to the UN budget would greatly impair operations.
Facing financial instability, the UN has spent months shedding jobs and consolidating projects while beginning to tackle long-delayed reforms. It is also facing growing frustration over what critics describe as a lack of efficiency and power in delivering on its mandate to end conflict and prevent wars.
John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN who was also national security adviser during Trump’s first term, was critical of the current state of the UN. “It’s probably in the worst shape it’s been in since it was founded,” Bolton, now an outspoken Trump critic, recently told the AP.
In his opening remarks, Mike Waltz was critical of the UnitedNations’ approach to China and what he called “antisemitism” at the organization.
He said the UN had drifted from its original peacemaking goals and should return to its founding principles – “peacemaking, not nation-building”. Waltz added:
I’m confident under this president’s leadership, we can continue to spread peace and prosperity, and I’m confident we can make the UN great again.
“Countering China, absolutely, Senator Shaheen, is critical,” Waltz said. If confirmed, he said, he would work with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio (who also replaced him as national security adviser), to challenge China’s growing influence at the UN.
He also highlighted the large number of UN resolutions against Israel compared with other countries, without offering any context as to why that might be.
Mike Waltz testifies before the Senate foreign relations committee at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/Reuters
True to her comments in my last post, the ranking member on the Senate foreign relations committee, Jeanne Shaheen, focused her opening remarks at Mike Waltz’s confirmation hearing on critiquing the US’s retreat from its role on the global stage, highlighting the Trump administration’s slashing of budget and staff related to international relations. When the US pulls back, China benefits, she said.
They continue making long-term investments at the United Nations and international organizations, not only through contributions, but by placing more Chinese nationals in key roles. Mr Waltz, I urge you to take this threat seriously. I know you do.
Mike Waltz testifies at Senate confirmation hearing on nomination as UN ambassador
Former national security adviser Mike Waltz (remember him?) is due to have his confirmation hearing before the Senate foreign relations committee shortly, giving lawmakers their first opportunity to publicly question him over the Signalgate controversy – which saw him inadvertently add a journalist to a high-level Signal group chat about US military strikes in Yemen.
Trump removed Waltz from his role as national security adviser in May, weeks after the scandal, and nominated him to the position of United Nations ambassador. Waltz had actually been on thin ice for weeks before Signalgate in large part due to strained working relationships in the White House, but he had also found himself under pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda.
The demoted Waltz, who has been meeting with senators on Capitol Hill in recent days, will appear before the committee today alongside John Arrigo and Christine Toretti, two other Trump nominees for ambassadorships to Portugal and Sweden respectively. He is largely expected to be confirmed unless anything major comes up – and get a second go in the Trump administration.
The top Democrat on the committee, Jeanne Shaheen, told NBC News she is “sure” Signalgate will come up, “but what I want to know from Mr Waltz is whether he supports the UN, continued American presence at the United Nations, how he intends to make that case, and what he sees as the role of our UN ambassador”.
I’ll bring you any key lines from the hearing here.
Mike Waltz takes his seat at the start of a Senate foreign relations committee hearing on his nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump has said that Democratic senator Adam Schiff “has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible mortgage fraud” and “needs to be brought to justice”.
In a post on Truth Social this morning, Trump said Schiff, who holds a seat in California, had listed his primary address in Maryland “to get a cheaper mortgage” from 2009 until 2020, when he listed the property as his second address.
US inflation rose in June as Trump’s tariffs start to show in prices
Lauren Aratani
Inflation shot up in June as the impacts of Donald Trump’s tariffs slowly started to show in US prices.
Business leaders have said for months that the high, volatile rates of Trump’s tariffs will force companies to raise consumer prices. Prices remained stable in the spring, particularly as many of Trump’s highest tariffs were paused; however, they started increasing in May and have continued to rise in June.
Annual inflation rose to 2.7%in June, up from 2.4% in May, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks the prices of a basket of goods and services each month. Core CPI, which leaves out energy and food prices, ticked up slightly to 2.9%, compared with 2.8% in May.
Inflation remains far below the price peaks seen three years ago, when price increases reached as high as 9%, and even a year ago, when increases were closer to 3%. But tariffs have appeared to halt inflation’s downward path.
According to the Yale Budget Lab, Americans now face an average tariff rate of 18.7% – the highest rate since 1933. That includes 30% tariffs on China, a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum, 25% on auto parts and a universal 10% tariff on all imports.
The levies currently in effect do not include those Trump is threatening to impose on other large US trading partners. Over the weekend, Trump threatened the EU and Mexico with 30% tariffs and Canada with a 35% tariff. Brazil is set to face 50% tariffs as punishment for the trial of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, who is facing charges of attempting a coup.
Prices will likely be pushed up much higher should these tariff rates go into effect, but it’s unclear if and when that could happen. Trump initially set negotiation deadlines to 9 July, but pushed it forward to 1 August as the date approached. Trump’s trade advisers have said they aim to end negotiations by Labor Day at the beginning of September.
As prices remain volatile, the Federal Reserve appears unlikely to adjust interest rates anytime soon, despite cutting rates three times in the fall. Fed officials, including the central bank’s chair, Jerome Powell, have said that price increases are expected to continue in the summer, drawing away from the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
Luke Harding in Kyiv andArtem Mazhulin
Ukrainians are celebrating Melania Trump on social media in a series of memes, after Donald Trump suggested the first lady played a part in his apparent change of heart over Russia.
Speaking at a meeting in the White House on Monday with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, Trump said his wife had played a key role in pointing out Vladimir Putin’s duplicity.
“My conversations with him [Putin] are always very pleasant. I say, ‘Isn’t that a very lovely conversation?’ And then the missiles go off that night,” Trump said.
“I go home, I tell the first lady: ‘I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said: ‘Really? Another city was just hit.’”
Slovenian-born Melania, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, has previously appeared to be a bigger supporter of Ukraine than the sceptical US president, who in February this year called Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Shortly after the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion, she appealed to her social media followers to donate to the Red Cross, saying it was “heartbreaking and horrific to see innocent people suffering”.
After Trump’s Oval Office comments on Monday, one social media user posted a photo of “Agent Melania Trumpenko” wearing a blazer with a Ukrainian trident insignia. Her face is half-shaded with a big hat, giving the impression she is working undercover inside the White House, to Kyiv’s benefit.
The magazine Business in Ukraine observed that “there is a lot of love on social media tonight for Melania Trump” after the announcement that the US would send Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine.
It reproduced a longstanding meme featuring three creatures wearing an army helmet and military caps. The image is used to denote a western politician or celebrity who supports or is friendly to Ukraine. The creatures give Melania a hat decorated with a Ukrainian flag.
Another meme shows the first lady standing behind her husband in the Oval Office, while he signs a presidential decree.
The caption reads: “Sisters Melania of the Bene Gesserit” – a reference to the powerful, secret and politically influential sisterhood from Frank Herbert’s science fiction book Dune.
Republicans complain to Canada over wildfire smoke despite supporting planet-heating bill
Oliver Milman
A group of Republican lawmakers has complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.
In a letter sent to Canada’s ambassador to the US, six Republican members of Congress wrote that wildfire smoke from Canada has been an issue for several years and recently their voters “have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer”.
“Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created,” the group of House of Representative members from Wisconsin and Minnesota wrote on 7 July.
“In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.”
The lawmakers urged Canada to take “proper action” to reduce the smoke and noted the historic friendship between Canada and America, without mentioning Donald Trump’s repeated demands for Canada to be annexed and become the 51st state of the US. “Our communities shouldn’t suffer because of poor decisions made across the border,” Tom Tiffany, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin and one of the letter’s authors, wrote on X.
Trump administration dashes hopes of anti-pollution plan for JD Vance’s home town
Stephen Starr
A Biden-era plan to implement a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Ohio, which would have eliminated tons of greenhouse gases from the local environment year over year and created more than a thousand jobs, has been put on hold indefinitely by the Trump administration.
The Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works in Middletown, Ohio, last year. Photograph: Madeleine Hordinski for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Experts and locals say the setback could greatly affect the health and financial state of those living around the mill.
For 13 years, Donna Ballinger has been dealing with blasting noises and layers of dust from coal and heavy metals on her vehicles and house, situated a few hundred yards from the Cleveland-Cliffs-owned Middletown Works steel mill in south-west Ohio.
“I’ve had sinus infections near constantly. I have COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease],” she says. “When they’ve got the big booms going, your whole house is shaking.”
So when two years ago, the steel mill successfully trialed a hydrogen gas-powered blast furnace, the first time the fuel had been deployed in this fashion anywhere in the Americas, she was delighted. It cost an estimated $1.6bn, and the Biden administration, through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), coughed up $500m to help cover the cost of installing the technology.
Replacing a coal-powered furnace would have eliminated 1m tons of greenhouse gases from the local environment every year, according to Cleveland-Cliffs. It would also have saved the company $450m every year through “efficiency gains and reduced scrap dependency”, and created 1,200 construction and 150 permanent jobs in the town of 50,000 residents who have struggled for decades with manufacturing losses.
The US Senate will begin voting as soon as Tuesday on president Donald Trump’s request to slash $9.4 billion in spending on foreign aid and public broadcasting previously approved by Congress, the latest test of Trump’s control over his fellow Republicans.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chamber’s Republican majority leader, said he hoped the first procedural votes would take place on Tuesday, but he did not know whether he had enough votes for the measure to pass without amendments.
“I don’t know the answer to that at this point. We got a lot of feedback. And I know there are folks who would like to see at least some modest changes to it,” Thune told reporters.
The Senate has until Friday to act on the rescessions package - a request to claw back $8.3 billion in foreign aid funding and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting - or the request will expire and the White House will be required to adhere to the spending plans passed by Congress.
The amounts at stake are small in the context of the sprawling federal budget, which totaled $6.8 trillion in the fiscal year ended 30 September. Yet they have raised the hackles of Democrats and a handful of Republicans who see an attempt to erode Congress’s authority over spending.
Democrats say the programs in Trump’s crosshairs are foreign aid initiatives. These include support for women and children’s health and the fight against HIV/AIDS, programs that have long had strong bipartisan support. Democrats also oppose cutting funds supporting broadcasting they view as essential communications in rural areas.
Trump ‘disappointed, but not done’ with Putin as he backs Nato on Ukraine
Trump said he was “disappointed, but not done” with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hours after he announced a military deal with Nato countries to arm Ukraine.
His announcement, alongside the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office, has been viewed in Europe as an important shift from Washington.
When asked if he was done with Putin, the president replied: “I’m disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him. But I’m disappointed in him.
“We had a deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attacked a nursing home in Kyiv. And so what the hell was that all about?” Asked if he trusted him, he said: “I trust almost nobody, to be honest with you.”
He also said he believed there was a newfound respect for him among world leaders – now he had twice won the presidency.
“When you do it twice, it’s the big difference. I also think that over the years, they’ve gotten to know me, this is not an easy crowd to break into,” he said. “These are smart people heading up very, very successful … countries, you know, they’re Germany and France, Spain and, yeah, big.”
Asked if he felt world leaders were being too obsequious and deferential, Trump said: “Well, I think they’re just trying to be nice.”
Trump says he thinks about assassination attempt 'as little as possible'
Donald Trump also reflected on the attempted assassination of him, which the BBC journalist Gary O’Donoghue witnessed at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July.
Speaking to BBC News, he said:
We had 55,000 people, and it was dead silence. And so, you know, I assumed that they expected the worst.
And so I had to let them know I was OK, which is what I did. That’s why I tried to get up as quick as possible. They had a stretcher ready to go. I said: ‘No, thank you.’
I actually had a big argument with them. They wanted me on a stretcher. And I said: ‘Nope, I’m not doing that.’
Trump said he did not like to spend time thinking about that day – but acknowledged it could affect him deeply if he started to dwell on it.
He said:
I like to think about it as little as possible.
I don’t like dwelling on it, because if I did, it might be life changing. I don’t want it to be that.
In that BBC interview, president Donald Trump said that he was convinced the UK would come to the US’s aid if it were at war.
He said:
I think they would be, I don’t think a lot of the other countries would be.
It’s a special relationship. Look, that’s why I made a deal with them … for the most part in terms of your competitors and in terms of the European Union, I haven’t made a deal.
Now the UK is very special … they have been a really true ally.
Trump, who has previously been a key advocate of Brexit, also suggested he did not think the potential had been fulfilled – but said Starmer was making progress:
No, I think, I think it’s been on the sloppy side, but I think it’s getting straightened out. I really like the prime minister a lot even though he’s a liberal, I think he’s, you know, he did a good trade deal with us.
US supreme court allows Trump to resume gutting education department
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics amid the news that “America’s students will be the best, brightest, and most highly educated anywhere in the world,” according to Donald Trump as he welcomed the supreme court’s decision to allow him to resume dismantling the Department of Education.
In a late night post on Truth Social, the president said:
The United States Supreme Court has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country, by declaring the Trump Administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education BACK TO THE STATES.
Now, with this GREAT Supreme Court Decision, our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, may begin this very important process. The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE.
America’s Students will be the best, brightest, and most Highly Educated anywhere in the World. Thank you to the United States Supreme Court!
The three liberal justices on the court dissented over the decision which will allow McMahon – a founder of World Wrestling Entertainment – to lay off nearly 1,400 staff.
McMahon said it’s a “shame” it took the supreme court’s intervention to let Trump’s plan move ahead.
“Today, the supreme court again confirmed the obvious: the president of the United States, as the head of the executive branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement.
A lawyer for the Massachusetts cities and education groups that sued over the plan said the lawsuit will continue, adding no court has yet ruled that what the administration wants to do is legal.
“Without explaining to the American people its reasoning, a majority of justices on the US supreme court have dealt a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children. On its shadow docket, the Court has yet again ruled to overturn the decision of two lower courts without argument,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement.
Read the full story here:
Also overnight, Trump said he was “disappointed but not done” with Vladimir Putin in comments to the BBC’s journalist Gary O’Donoghue. It followed yesterday’s Oval Office meeting with Nato’s chief, Mark Rutte, in which Trump promised a new weapons deal for Ukraine and threatened to impose “severe” sanctions on Russia if the war does not end within 50 days.
The interview also touched on the assassination attempt against him, how he is looking forward to his state visit to the UK and his immigration and tax policies and we will bring you some major lines shortly.
In other news:
Mike Waltz will face questioning from lawmakers for the first time since he was ousted as national security adviser. Trump has nominated him to be US ambassador to the United Nations, and he’s set to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing today.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, thanked Trump for saying that European nations, led by Germany and Norway, could purchase US-made Patriot missile air-defense systems on Ukraine’s behalf, to help defend the country against aerial bombardment by Russia.
Trump continued his attacks on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, calling the central banker a “stupid guy” and a “knucklehead” as the president called for interest rates to be lowered to 1% or less.
As Trump faced blowback from supporters over his administration’s decision to not release more information about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, more attention was being paid to the president’s evasive answer on the subject during a portion of an interview with Fox News last year that was not broadcast.
