Networks halt TV pool coverage of Trump after CNN White House ban – live

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Lauren Boebert slams ethics complaint alleging sexual relationships with three staffers as 'politically motivated'

Richard Luscombe

Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Colorado Republican congresswoman, is the subject of a House ethics complaint that she had sex with three staff members, and paid one to keep quiet. She said the allegations are untrue, and part of a “politically motivated” campaign against her.

Boebert’s denials came through a formal statement from her office, which said “the congresswoman rejects the claims as utterly false”, and a verbose video rant on social media in which she accused the person who filed the document as a “sloppy, desperate, obsessive hack”, and journalists who reported the story as falling victim to a “scam”.

According to the complaint, filed last week by David Wheeler, an independent journalist, activist, and founder of the American Muckrakers political action committee, Boebert committed at least seven violations of House ethics rules.

Among the most prominent allegations are that Boebert conducted a four-year “romantic and sexual relationship” with a senior female staffer, named as Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, then paid her $200,000 when Ratzlaff broke off the affair and threatened to file an ethics complaint of her own.

Additionally, Wheeler alleges, Boebert had a sexual relationships around the same time with Raven Finegan, a congressional employee and the congresswoman’s district chief of staff, and Jeffrey Small, who was her chief of staff from 2021 to 2025.

The code of official conduct prohibits House members from engaging in sexual relationships with employees under their supervision, or the committees on which they serve, unless a couple is married. Consent, the rules state, is not a defense.

Boebert frequently promotes her own Christian values and has previously been publicly critical of same-sex relationships.

JB Pritzker – the governor of Illinois, an expected contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, and one of the country’s heftier political figures – revealed to CBS on Monday that he’s been using GLP-1s to shed weight.

Pritzker told CBS Mornings that he began taking GLP-1s after receiving a diabetes diagnosis two years ago. Since then, he said he’s lost 80 pounds.

Pritzker’s weight has been a source of jabs by political opponents, including President Trump, with whom he has sparred repeatedly during Trump’s second term.

(When pressed by an interviewer on whether he lost weight in part to reshape his image ahead of a presidential run, Pritzker equivocated.)

CNN, MS Now and Politico file lawsuit against Trump over White House ban

The three news outlets President Trump banned from the White House last Friday have filed their anticipated lawsuit against his administration to restore their access.

In the new complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, CNN, MS Now and Politico alleged that Trump had violated the First Amendment and due process by stripping the outlets of their White House access in a blatant act of retaliation for coverage he disliked.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” CNN, MS Now and Politico wrote in the complaint.

In his Friday social media post announcing the ban, Trump attributed his decision to no specific issue with the outlets’ coverage, but rather to their pattern of producing “fake news” – his usual label for news coverage that is not favorable to him or his policies. He threatened bans against other outlets could follow.

The move, the outlets alleged in their lawsuit, was a deliberate attempt to unlawfully pressure them and other outlets to avoid critical reporting on his administration.

“The Constitution does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting,” the outlets’ complaint continued. “The ban is unconstitutional and should be immediately restrained.”

Networks halt TV pool coverage of Trump following CNN ban

After President Trump’s snap decision to ban CNN from the White House, the four other networks that comprise the White House’s TV pool decided they would cease their pooled coverage of the president, Politico and other outlets are reporting.

Alongside CNN, those four networks – NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News – have provided rotating video coverage of the president both in the White House and around the country, broadly sharing the footage they gather. They are a near-permanent fixture of the presidency.

But they won’t be for the time being, it seems.

In an email to TV pool subscribers obtained by several outlets, the Washington bureau chief for Fox News said that the decision to ax pool coverage “follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”

The five networks that comprise the standard pool rotation published a statement Monday afternoon: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Jared Golden, an outgoing Democratic congressman from Maine not running for reelection this year, published an op-ed Monday endorsing a Republican in a closely-contested House race several states away.

Golden came out in support of Mike Lawler, the GOP incumbent in New York’s 17th congressional district, located in the Hudson Valley just north of New York City.

In the pages of Lawler’s local newspaper, Golden extolled his Republican colleague for his bipartisanship, citing their work together on several pieces of aisle-crossing legislation. One of them, particularly crucial for Golden, is a bill to shield Maine’s lobstermen from what he describes as burdensome regulation aimed at saving a critically endangered whale.

Lawler is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley, a former Army officer and national security official in the Biden administration. (Golden’s op-ed makes no mention of her.)

A cryptocurrency industry super PAC is planning a sizable ad blitz to try to tip the scales against the Democratic candidate in a key midterm Senate race, according to a new report by The New York Times.

The group, Fairshake, told the Times that it’s launching $30 million in advertising money at the Ohio Senate race in a bid to help sink Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for the seat. Brown, a critic of crypto, was once the ranking Democrat of the Senate Banking Committee, which handles crypto legislation, before losing his seat in 2024 – when the industry previously wielded its money against him.

(Brown has, since then, taken a somewhat softer stance on crypto, the Times reported.)

The spending comes after Senate Democrats took down the Clarity Act, a piece of legislation that the crypto industry was desperate to see passed. If successful, it would’ve carved into law many aspects of the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly regulatory environment. (The Biden administration, by contrast, had cracked down on the industry.)

Democrats’ objections to that legislation stemmed, in large part, from Trump himself. They wanted to see stricter provisions barring lawmakers from leveraging their offices to get rich off crypto – like Trump has done in his second term to the tune of $1.4 billion.

Trump set to begin busy week of diplomacy – with a Mamdani meeting along the way

President Donald Trump is set to depart for New York later today ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, kicking off a busy week of international diplomacy.

Trump is expected to meet with several key figures on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders. Among them will be Delcy Rodriguez, the interim president of Venezuela, who took charge after the US raided her country and arrested her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, in January. Since then, Rodriguez has been pliant in response to the Trump administration’s interests, helping broker an oil deal that would see a large share of Venezuelan oil revenues diverted into US coffers.

Trump is also planning to hold discussions with the leaders of countries around the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have increasingly been drawn into Trump’s war on Iran.

And Trump signaled over the weekend that he’s open to meeting with the leadership of Iran itself, as both countries continue to trade strikes.

That’s all on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Trump is planning to host a visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during which the two are expected to discuss trade, AI, and the war in Iran.

Trump will also meet today with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist whose insurgent campaign to run Trump’s home city rattled his MAGA allies, but with whom he has maintained a strangely cordial relationship. Afterwards, he’s scheduled to talk with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Trump responds to CNN, Politico, MS Now lawsuit over stripped White House access

Hours after the three news outlets he summarily barred from the White House announced their intentions to file a lawsuit, Trump took to social media to defend himself.

“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in response to the pending challenge from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, the three outlets he banned.

Trump continued: “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

Trump banned the three news organizations from the White House on Friday via a surprise social media post. He cited no specific grievance against the outlets’ coverage when announcing the decision, saying only that they were “fake news” and that similar sanctions may follow for other outlets down the line.

Since then, reporters and camera crews for the three organizations have been barred from entering the building. A CNN crew slated to accompany Trump to New York today was reportedly nixed.

Earlier this morning, the three organizations (as widely predicted) announced their intentions to sue the administration to restore their access.

The lawsuit, the three outlets said in a joint statement, will aim “to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

The United States has refused to issue visas for members of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian’s delegation, including his communications team, for this week’s trip to the UN General Assembly, Iranian state media reported.

Pezeshkian will be the highest-ranking Iranian official to enter the United States since the Middle East war began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

“In an unprecedented hostile move by the US government, Trump has denied US visas to certain members of the president’s high-level delegation, including members of his communications team,” state news agency IRNA reported.

The Mehr news agency also carried the story, citing a spokesperson for the Iranian presidency, and added that Pezeshkian will address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

ICE agent shoots and wounds Venezuelan man at traffic stop in Austin, Texas

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and wounded a Venezuelan man on Sunday afternoon in Texas’s capital city, Austin, prompting demonstrations at the scene against the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration campaign.

The man, identified by relatives and his lawyer as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, was taken to a hospital in Austin in a serious but stable condition, officials said, before being taken into custody.

He was shot once in the torso on the city’s north side, Austin’s police chief, Lisa Davis, said at a news conference with the mayor and other city officials.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it was leading an investigation into the officer involved in the shooting, with the help of the FBI.

Austin police officers were not involved in the operation or the shooting, which occurred after a traffic stop, Davis told reporters.

The city’s police arrived on the scene after the shooting and could be seen on bystander video asking the federal officers what had happened and then rushing back to their squad car to get surgical gloves and a medical kit and administering first aid to the man.

The federal officers could be heard saying they had called an ambulance, but they did not appear to attempt to give first aid.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico to sue over White House ban

MS NOW, CNN and Politico said they were suing the Trump administration ⁠to protect their First Amendment ​rights after ‌president Donald Trump’s ‌announcement that he would ban ‌them from the White House’s building grounds.

The three news outlets said they had notified the government that they were ‌filing their lawsuit in the US District Court for ​the District of Columbia and could see emergency hearings in the case as soon ⁠as this week, according to ​CNN.

All three news outlets had hinted at legal action, saying they would vigorously defend their First Amendment rights.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the outlets said in a joint statement posted on X. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

Representatives ​for the White ​House did not immediately respond ​to ‌a request from Reuters ​for ​comment outside normal business hours.

Trump accused of 'manufacturing a national security justification' to push arch plan

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump was accused of “manufacturing a national security justification” to push forward his plans for a triumphal arch.

The president said yesterday that the planned structure near Washington would double as a “military complex” housing drones and snipers, making it ⁠the second major construction project he ⁠has sought to justify on national security ​grounds.

“The president’s belated efforts to manufacture a national security justification for this project do nothing to cure its fundamental illegality,” Nicolas Sansone, one of the attorneys representing litigants suing to stop the plan, said on Sunday. “Congress has not authorized the arch and unless and until Congress does so, the project should not be permitted to move forward.”

The ⁠arch and plans for the White House ballroom are part of Trump’s broader effort to remake the nation’s capital, including the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the redevelopment of a golf course in East Potomac Park and a push to add his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The ⁠initiatives have drawn criticism from preservationists and others who argue they would alter some of Washington’s most prominent historic landmarks.

US representative Don Beyer, a Democrat whose Virginia district includes Arlington Cemetery, posted on Sunday that operating drones so close to the airport would be dangerous and impractical, and suggested the move was aimed at bolstering the administration’s legal position.

“Trump clearly expects to lose a lawsuit and therefore wants to set up a pretext to argue that the arch is tied to national security,” Beyer, who has introduced legislation to block the arch’s construction, wrote in a social media post.

In a social media post, Trump said that at the “strong request” of the military he ​had agreed to turn the planned 250 ft (76m) arch “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, ‌store, and have the rapid ability to use large ‌numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.”

In other developments:

Trump refused to ​say whether he would attempt to demolish the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the iconic facility on Washington’s Potomac River. Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump ​repeated his belief that the center should append ‌his name to the building ​in exchange for his work to raise money to ​renovate the facility.

Trump will meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani when Trump travels to the city for the upcoming UN General Assembly. The meeting is scheduled for later today and at Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence, according to Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s communications director.

Trump on Saturday said he would appoint an artificial intelligence czar and create an “AI Force” to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan. As global fears over AI have grown, especially in the past week in the face of multiple industry figures sounding the alarm about its dangers, the president has been critical of calls to slow down development of the fast-moving industry.

China’s leader Xi Jinping will visit the United States this week for talks with Trump, Beijing confirmed today, expressing hope they will strengthen “strategic stability” between the world’s two largest economies. Washington had already made clear that the leaders would meet in a bid to find common ground on trade disputes, artificial intelligence and broader strategic issues including Trump’s war in the Middle East.

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and wounded a man on Sunday afternoon in Texas’s capital city of Austin, local authorities said, as protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration’s hardline anti-immigration campaign quickly gathered at the scene.