Paxton hails Trump’s endorsement as ‘most powerful force in politics’ after Texas runoff win – US politics live

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Trump went on to talk about his administration’s fight against fraud in the US, saying: “The White House task force to eliminate fraud is waging war on waste, fraud, theft, and abuse like nobody’s ever seen before.”

“They’re finding billions and billions and billions of dollars,” he said, also pointing to authorities last week filing additional charges against others in a sprawling investigation into federal social service spending in Minnesota.

“Everybody was getting rich, and I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it, by just the numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security,” Trump continued.

He then went on to talk about Iran, saying: “They want very much to make a deal… Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, everything’s gone and they’re negotiating on fumes.”

“Maybe we have to go back and finish it. Maybe we don’t right now,” he added.

Trump then said: “Their whole economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to outweigh me. ‘You know, we’ll outweigh him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms. I don’t care about the midterms,” explaining that his actions on Iran is “for the world, I’m not just doing it for us.”

While listing his achievements, Trump mentioned tax refunds, success in the “conflict” with Iran (Trump said he would describe it as a “conflict” and not a “war”) and the reduction of drug prices.

Trump said that the amount of fentanyl coming into the US has dropped drastically – 61% drop by the border and 97% decrease by ocean.

Trump’s cabinet meeting at the White House has started.

He has begun by talking about his administration’s achievements, starting with “zero illegal aliens” entering the country in the last 12 months and a drop in murder rates across the country.

Pool reporters have gathered at the briefing room doors to view the cabinet meeting that will also be live streamed.

We will be bringing you updates from the meeting that is expected to start shortly.

Joseph Gedeon

Republican leaders rushed to throw their weight behind Ken Paxton following his big primary victory in Texas over the four-term US senator, John Cornyn, amid anxiety within the party over his prospects in November’s general election.

Hours after the race was called, Trump who backed Paxton, despite intense concern among establishment Republicans – took to Truth Social to attack his Democratic rival in the midterm elections.

James Talarico “may be the worst Texas candidate I have ever seen”, said the US president, claiming the Austin state representative and Democratic nominee for Texas senator was weak on crime and an advocate for open borders.

Reaching for a favored Republican attack line against Talarico, Trump claimed he was a vegan who “dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas”.

While Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, Republican operatives have privately worried that Paxton’s long trail of legal troubles would make him a riskier standard-bearer than the incumbent.

Of the outgoing Cornyn, a veteran US senator who enjoyed the support of many of his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill, Trump was more measured. “John will remain my friend for a long time to come,” he said.

President Trump is set to hold the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term at 11am EST on Wednesday.

Michael Sainato

Three Democratic state attorneys general said their deputies were turned away from a roundtable hosted by JD Vance on Tuesday, sowing confusion about what the White House has billed as a bipartisan crackdown on fraud.

After attorneys general – including New York’s Letitia James, California’s Rob Bonta and New Jersey’s Jennifer Davenport – declined a last-minute invitation to participate in the event alongside their Republican counterparts, they said representatives from their offices travelled to Washington to attend, but were shut out.

“My deputy attorney general went to Washington DC today, and unfortunately was not allowed access to the meeting,” James told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, after Vance convened more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general as part of the White House’s campaign to root out fraud in government programs.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. In his remarks at the roundtable on Tuesday, Vance, chair of the White House taskforce to eliminate fraud, said representatives from the Democratic state attorneys general offices in Oregon and Connecticut were present.

Biden sues justice department to block release of Hur interview audio

Richard Luscombe

Joe Biden, the former president, has filed a lawsuit to try to prevent the justice department (DoJ) from releasing transcripts and audio of interviews that exposed his frequent memory lapses and helped derail his 2024 re-election campaign.

The decade-old conversations with the author of his biography ended up in the hands of Robert Hur, the special counsel who was appointed to look into allegations Biden improperly handled classified documents.

Hur evaluated the files, and also spent five hours interviewing Biden himself, concluding in a 2024 report to Congress that there was no criminal wrongdoing, but portraying the then 81-year-old president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

Biden withdrew from the 2024 election following repeated questioning of his age and mental competence, and endorsed Kamala Harris as the ultimately unsuccessful Democratic nominee.

His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington DC, accuses the DoJ of an “unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy”.

It seeks to halt the department, which once fought to keep the transcripts and recordings secret, from handing them over to the Republican-controlled House judiciary committee and conservative Heritage Foundation.

Today’s cabinet meeting will focus on “recent successes of the administration including economy and small business wins, Task Force to Eliminate Fraud highlights, and foreign policy updates”, a White House spokesperson told the New York Post.

The gathering comes as Trump’s approval ratings sink and economic pessimism rises amid the war with Iran.

Trump announced at the weekend that a deal to end hostilities was close at hand, although the US on Monday struck Iranian targets, reportedly killing four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Negotiations, nevertheless, were said to be continuing.

Participants in the meeting are expected to include Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her forthcoming resignation as director of national intelligence last week. Gabbard attracted Trump’s ire last year after testifying to Congress that she believed Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons, just months before US forces bombed the country’s uranium enrichment facilities.

Protest outside ICE detention center in New Jersey over poor conditions

Lawmakers, families and advocates continued their days-long protest on Wednesday morning against poor conditions and the denial of medical care at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall detention center.

Inside the facility, a hunger strike is under way, the Guardian has reported.

Earlier, protestors alleged that US immigration agents deployed pepper spray and batons against them during a demonstration. US senator Andy Kim said he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents on Monday.

Video posted on social media showed Kim, a Democrat representing New Jersey, receiving help from a volunteer on Monday, who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark.

Donald Trump congratulates Ken Paxton in social media post

Donald Trump has congratulated Ken Paxton in a social media post, while also praising his defeated runoff opponent John Cornyn.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

Congratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win, and to John Cornyn for having run a strong and powerful race but, more importantly, having had a truly great career.

John will remain my friend for a long time to come, as we both watch Ken become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.

Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention.

If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.

But the president was not quite so complimentary of him, likening him to the cartoon character Alfred E Neuman. He added:

His opponent, Alfred E. Neuman, may be the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen. A strong Open Borders advocate, he is WEAK ON CRIME, believes there are 6 genders, is insulting to Jesus Christ, will never support the Military, was a big Mask Wearer until recently, and is a Vegan who dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas.

Jasmine Crockett, a very low IQ individual, who is no relation to the legendary frontiersman, Davy Crockett, would have been a far better choice for the Dumocrats. I will do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken. Texas, this will be FUN!

The mayor of Minneapolis says the police chief hired to oversee reforms after George Floyd’s killing has chosen to resign rather than face discipline for interfering with an investigation into his conduct.

Mayor Jacob Frey announced Brian O’Hara’s resignation Tuesday. He says he had told O’Hara he might be fired.

O’Hara was under investigation on accusations that he’d had intimate relationships with city employees. Those allegations were never substantiated but investigators said they found that O’Hara had interfered with the investigation.

O’Hara became the chief in 2022 as the department was at the center of a nationwide reckoning over racism in policing after Floyd’s death.

Trump moves Camp David cabinet meeting to White House as Iran talks continue

Donald Trump will host the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday as talks on ending the nearly three-month war with Iran reach a crucial stage amid conflicting signals over whether an agreement is close.

The gathering had originally been scheduled to take place in the bucolic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat that had previously been the site of sensitive Middle East negotiations, including the historic Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.

But Trump switched it back to its more accustomed White House setting, citing adverse weather forecasts.

“Based on the possible bad weather conditions tomorrow, we will be having our Cabinet Meeting in the White House, and will be postponing the Cabinet trip to Camp David,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Heavy rain is expected in the area on Wednesday.

The initial decision to stage it at Camp David had raised eyebrows, given that Trump had visited the presidential retreat deep in the Maryland countryside, 62 miles north-west of Washington, much less frequently than most of his predecessors.

Veteran Texas congressman Al Green beaten in Democratic primary runoff

Uwa Ede-Osifo

Christian Menefee, a freshman Democratic US representative, beat veteran congressman Al Green on Tuesday in a fierce runoff that was the product of Republican gerrymandering.

Last year, the Republican-dominated Texas legislature unveiled a congressional map designed to flip seats in the GOP’s favor. Donald Trump had urged the state’s lawmakers to safeguard the party’s congressional majority.

Under the new map, Green, a congressional fixture for over two decades and a staunch Trump critic, saw his reliably Democratic ninth district effectively eliminated. He announced a bid for the 18th district in November.

Menefee was sworn into the seat in January, after winning a special election to replace the late US representative Sylvester Turner.

On the campaign trail, Green sought to link Menefee with big-money politics, accusing his challenger of being aligned with “Trump crypto cronies”, Houston Public Media reported.

Green’s protests of the Trump administration have garnered national attention in recent years.

In February, he was ejected from the president’s State of the Union address after holding a sign that read “Black people aren’t apes!” It was a counter to Trump sharing a racist AI-generated video where Barack and Michelle Obama were depicted as the simians.

Trump endorsement 'most powerful force in politics', says Paxton after runoff victory

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.

Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.

Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him a “true MAGA warrior”, with Paxton’s victory in the runoff making Cornyn – who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.

“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

Cornyn’s loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.

“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”

The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.

In other developments:

Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.

Two Republican-led efforts to redraw congressional maps in Alabama and South Carolina hit setbacks. In Alabama, a federal court said the proposed map could not be used because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters. The South Carolina Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map due to political and administrative reasons.

Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.

Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.

The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.