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At Iowa rally, Trump uses antisemitic slur about bankers
During a speech to supporters at the Iowa Fair Grounds, Donald Trump just used an antisemitic slur to refer to bankers who exploit their clients.
Early in his remarks, which are ongoing, Trump railed against estate taxes, which he said sometimes force people who inherit farms to have to borrow money from banks to pay the tax. The tax-and-spending bill passed by the House on Thursday slightly raises the estate tax exemption.
The president then envisioned a brighter future in which there would be no such tax and so “no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases a fine banker, and in some cases shylocks and bad people”.
In 2014, after then vice-president Joe Biden described those who take financial advantage of American service members as “shylocks”, he called the Anti-Defamation League’s national director to apologize for his “a poor choice of words” by making reference to a stereotypical Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
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EPA suspends 144 employees who signed letter of dissent
The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed on Thursday that it has suspended 144 employees who signed a “declaration of dissent” this week in which they said they were “opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment”.
In the declaration made public on Monday, the employees wrote that the agency has been politicized by the Trump administration and protested against the weakening of funding and federal support for climate, environmental and health science.
In a statement Thursday, the EPA said it has a “zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging and undercutting” the Trump administration’s agenda.
Employees were notified that they had been placed in a “temporary, non-duty, paid status” for the next two weeks, pending an “administrative investigation”, according to a copy of the email obtained by multiple news outlets. “It is important that you understand that this is not a disciplinary action,” the email read.
More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who is not an EPA employee but was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign.
Lee Zeldin, the former congressman now leading the agency despite a lack of experience in environmental regulation, accused the scientists of signing a declaration that was “riddled with misinformation”.
Los Angeles school district demands investigation of Ice agents caught on camera urinating on school grounds in broad daylight
A school district in Los Angeles county has written to homeland security secretary Kristi Noem to demand an investigation of an incident last month, during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents gathered at a local high school before a raid and were seen publicly urinating on school grounds, not far from elementary school students attending summer classes.
According to a statement from El Rancho Unified School District, which also released video evidence in the form of surveillance-camera footage, the incident took place on the morning of 17 June at Ruben Salazar high school in Pico Rivera, in south-eastern LA county.
After school staff observed eight to 10 marked and unmarked Ice vehicles arrive on the high school campus, which is adjacent to an elementary school, a park and a pre-school playground, they asked the federal agents to leave.
“At no time was a legal or legitimate reason offered or provided as to why Ice agents entered and remained on school grounds, nor did they provide any judicial warrant,” the school district said in the statement.
Later the same day, federal immigration agents were caught on video roughly arresting a 20-year-old US citizen, Adrian Martinez, during an immigration raid at a nearby Pico Rivera shopping center. Martinez had verbally objected to the arrest of a co-worker but now faces a felony charge of interfering with or impeding a federal agent.
After the Ice agents agreed to leave the high school campus, school district staff told managers that they had seen the federal agents “urinating at Salazar in public view”. A review of surveillance camera video, posted on YouTube by the school district, appears to show 10 federal agents urinating near storage containers in the high school parking lot, between 8.54am and 9.04am.
Not only did Ice agents “unlawfully trespass” on school grounds, the district complained, “but they also did not exercise sound and respectful judgment with the risk of exposing themselves to minors and committing a public offense under California law.”
According to the law firm Eisner Gorin, whose partners have previously worked in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, when an act of public urination “occurs near a school or park where children are present, it might be classified as lewd conduct” under state law.
Anyone convicted of this offense, the firm notes on its website, faces up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000 and being required to register as a sex offender.
Los Angeles county supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents Pico Rivera, issued the following statement: “It’s not enough that they’ve spent weeks violently ambushing people, now Ice and CBP agents are allegedly entering school campuses, pulling down their pants, and urinating on playgrounds,” Los Angeles county supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement.
“It’s a slap in the face to our communities – especially to our children. I join the El Rancho Unified School District in demanding a full federal investigation into this incident.”
A homeland security spokesperson told local news outlets that the incident is now under investigation.
Trump making US national parks more expensive for foreign tourists
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to increase entry fees for foreign tourists visiting US national parks.
The order says that the higher fees on foreigners will be used “to improve the infrastructure of, or otherwise enhance enjoyment of or access to, America’s federal recreational areas”.
The White House said in a statement that the increased revenue from jacking up fees on foreign tourists could raise hundreds of millions for conservation projects to improve the parks.
Then again, the disparate treatment of foreigners, following a spate of recent horror stories of tourists who were detained, interrogated and denied entry at US airports, could discourage many would-be tourists from visiting at all.
Lauren Gambino
Several organizations representing Latino Americans and immigrants accused House Republicans of “betraying” hard-working American families and vulnerable communities.
“This bill sends one message loud and clear — if you are Latino, working-class, or undocumented, you are not welcome here,” Juan Proaño, chief executive of LULAC, said in a statement. “It guts our nation’s moral fabric by placing walls, weapons, and fines where there should be help, hope, and humanity.”
United We Dream, an immigrant rights organization that advocates for Dreamers, warned that the provisions in the bill would have “deadly” consequences, particularly for immigrants and other vulnerable people.
“The monstrous reconciliation bill is glaring proof that the ultra-rich’s greed will stop at nothing to amass wealth and power,” the group said in a statement. “Their violent assaults on our lives as working people have delivered a bill that will leave 17 million people without healthcare, 3 million without access to food, and millions more families under threat of being abducted and disappeared by ICE. Hospitals will be forced to shut their doors and families nationwide will foot the bill of higher food prices and skyrocketing utility costs while our taxpayer dollars go to massive for-profit ICE detention camps and torture prisons abroad.”
UnidosUS chief executive Janet Murguía said House Republicans were stripping away healthcare and nutritional assistance in order to “supercharge a cruel and ineffective deportation machine that is sowing chaos across our nation”.
“Members of Congress who passed this bill have once again betrayed the trust of their constituents — including the Latino community — and chosen cruelty over common sense,” she said in a statement.
Voto Latino president Maria Teresa Kumar said her group would work to ensure voters were aware of the “harmful” bill’s impact before next year’s midterms.
“Make no mistake: we will hold lawmakers accountable where it matters most: at the ballot box,” she said. “And we will continue to inform voters, especially every Latino voter, of what they just did. Actions have consequences.”
US military deploys 200 marines to Florida to bolster immigration enforcement
The US military’s Northern Command announced on Thursday that it is moving 200 active-duty marines to Florida “to augment US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (Ice) interior immigration enforcement mission”.
“These marines are the first wave of US Northern Command’s support of this Ice mission,” the military press released said. “Other support locations will include Louisiana and Texas. Service members participating in this mission will perform strictly non-law enforcement duties within Ice facilities. Their roles will focus on administrative and logistical tasks, and they are specifically prohibited from direct contact with individuals in Ice custody or involvement in any aspect of the custody chain.”
Last month, the Pentagon authorized the mobilization of up to 700 active-duty personnel to support Ice’s deportation push in Florida, Louisiana and Texas.
The same number of marines have already been deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.
Trump plans to use US air force to celebrate signing of his tax and spending bill
Donald Trump, who is on his way to Iowa for a rally, told reporters that, just weeks after staging a military parade on his birthday, he is planning an air show above the White House on Friday to celebrate his signing of the massive tax-and-spending package that passed the House today.
“We’re going to have B-2s and F-22s and F-35s flying right over the White House,” Trump said. “So we’ll be signing with those beautiful planes flying right over our heads.”
The Fourth of July air show comes on the sixth anniversary of Trump’s 2019 independence day speech, in which the president claimed, according to the official transcript, that the US army during the war of 1812 “took over the airports; it did everything it had to do”.
Trump 'has the supreme court on speed dial' – Sotomayor
The US supreme court on Thursday granted a Trump administration request to pause a lower court’s order that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from deporting eight migrants to politically unstable South Sudan, clearing the way for the men with no ties to that nation to be moved from a military base in Djibouti where they have been held for weeks.
Last month, the court had put on hold an injunction issued in April by a US district court judge in Boston, Brian Murphy, which requiring migrants set for removal to so-called “third countries” where they have no ties to get a chance to argue that they are at risk of torture there, while a legal challenge plays out.
By a vote of 7-2, with the liberal justice Elena Kagan joining the court’s six conservatives, the court granted the administration’s request to clarify that its decision also extended to Murphy’s separate ruling in May that the administration had violated his injunction in attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan.
The US state department has urged Americans to avoid South Sudan “due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict”.
In her concurring opinion, Kagan wrote: “I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court’s April 18 order enjoining the Government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard.”
“But,” she added, “a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”
Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision.
“What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Jackson.
“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” she added.
'This is Project 2025 in action' Harris says of Republican cuts to health and food assistance
Among the Democrats expressing dismay at the passage of Trump’s tax-and-spending bill are the party’s two previous nominees who ran against him for president, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.
“Republicans in Congress have voted to devastate millions of people across our nation – kicking Americans off their health care, shuttering hospitals, eliminating food assistance, and raising costs,” Harris said in a social media post on Thursday.
“This is Project 2025 in action,” she added, reminding voters that cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits were both part of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for Trump’s second term that she had railed against during her abbreviated campaign for the presidency last year.
“The Republican budget bill is not only reckless – it’s cruel,” Biden posted about 30 minutes before Harris. “It slashes Medicaid and takes away health care from millions of Americans. It closes rural hospitals and cuts food assistance for our veterans and seniors. It jacks up energy bills. And it could trigger deep cuts to Medicare while driving up the deficit by $4tn. All of this to give a massive tax break to billionaires. Working people deserve better.”
Summary
House Republicans passed Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” in a 218-214 vote that was almost entirely along party lines on Thursday. The bill next goes to the president for his signature. The White House has said Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday at 5pm EST.
The Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, prolonged the vote with a record-setting speech in which he decried provisions in the bill that would slash social safety net programs in order to offset the cost of making Trump’s tax cuts permanent.
Only two House Republicans voted against the measure, for different reasons that showed the ideological span of the party’s wafer-thin majority. Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning fiscal hawk who has drawn Trump’s wrath for opposing his agenda, and Pennsylvania congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who was opposed to the Medicaid cuts.
Democrats led by Jeffries assailed the bill as “an all-out assault on the American people”. Meanwhile, Democratic groups were vowing to hammer Republicans for their support of a bill that projections say would lead millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.
Maryland congressman Andy Harris, chair of the far-right House Freedom caucus, told reporters on Capitol Hill: “If winning is caving, then I guess we caved.”
Harris repeatedly cited unspecified “agreements” with the Trump administration for persuading himself and other hardliners to drop their objections to the bill. He declined to divulge any details about the “agreement” brokered at the White House, telling reporters to “ask the president”.
“This is a very good Republican product,” he added. “It’s going to move the president’s agenda forward. It’s going to actually seriously deal with spending and, of course, not provide a tax increase to middle-class America.”
The bill is projected to add trillions to the national debt.
Democrats and liberal activists have assailed the bill, warning that they will hold Republicans who voted for it accountable in next year’s midterm elections.
“This budget is as cruel as it is corrupt. House Republicans just voted to gut Medicaid, kick millions off Snap, rip free school lunches from kids, and pour billions into Ice – all so their donors can rake in more tax breaks,” said Indivisible’s co-founder and co-executive director Ezra Levin. “Trump just made every single Republican more vulnerable – and while they’ll try to spin this disastrous bill, they know exactly how deep the hole they’ve dug is. But when Trump snaps his fingers, they fall in line – no matter how many families they throw under the bus. That spineless loyalty will be their downfall.”
Congressman Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who was one of the conservative holdouts, told reporters on Capitol Hill that Trump understands the art of a deadline.
“I believe that’s why they called the vote last night, because that put everybody at the table, and they said, ‘This is the deadline,’” he said, explaining how the president and leaders eventually quelled their short-lived revolt.
Major changes to the bill, which they had demanded, would have required Senate approval, which Burchett did not believe they would get again. “It would have died, it would have never it would have never passed. If it went back to the Senate, [Alaska senator Lisa] Murkowski – we would never get her vote again.”
Trump to sign tax and spending bill on Friday
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has told reporters that Donald Trump plans to sign the colossal tax and spending bill at 5pm EST on Friday, the Independence Day holiday. It will come as the White House is preparing to hold a Fourth of July picnic to mark the nation’s 249th birthday.
At a signing ceremony on Thursday afternoon, Mike Johnson joked that he was operating on such little sleep after marathon days of voting that “I’m a danger to myself and others”.
“We knew that if we won, and we believed we would, we knew that if we got unified government, we’d have to quite literally fix every area of public policy,” Johnson said. “Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden-Harris, radical, woke, progressive Democrat regime, and we took the best effort that we could, in one big, beautiful bill, to fix as much of it as we could.”
Johnson then signed the legislation that will be sent to the White House.
