Elon Musk criticizes Trump’s tax bill
Good morning and welcome to the US politics blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Elon Musk has been critical Donald Trump’s flagship tax reform, arguing that it undermines efforts by the government’s own efficiency team (Doge).
His comments risk deepening the divide between the billionaire entrepreneur and the president he financially supported during the last election cycle.
In a CBS Sunday Morning interview preview released on Tuesday evening, the Tesla CEO expressed frustration over what he called a “massive spending bill” that adds to the federal deficit and, in his view, negates the achievements of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he once headed up.
The legislation – hailed by Trump as his “big beautiful bill” – narrowly passed the House of Representatives last week by a single vote, marking a key legislative win in his second term. The bill is now awaiting a Senate vote.
President Trump, who had to pressure several hesitant Republican lawmakers to secure support, hailed the bill as “arguably the most significant piece of legislation that will ever be signed in the history of our country.”
To read our full story, see here:
In other news:
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The Trump administration ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants. The state department has also halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students hoping to study in the US. Here’s an explainer on the latest move against foreign students.
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President Donald Trump is set to pardon reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley of fraud and tax evasion convictions. Margo Martin, special assistant to Trump, posted a video on X, of the president calling Savannah Chrisley to announce his pardon of her parents. In 2019, the Chrisleys were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, all of which they have denied.
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A judge in Washington struck down an executive order targeting law firm WilmerHale, marking the third ruling to overwhelmingly reject President Donald Trump‘s efforts to punish firms he perceives as enemies of his administration. WilmerHale is the former home of Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who led a probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Trump campaign ties to Moscow. Trump has derided the investigation as a political “witch hunt.”
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Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville announced he is running for Alabama governor in 2026. In 2016, he was still working as the University of Cincinnati’s head football coach, and he previously coached at Auburn University in Alabama. In 2020, he won a seat representing Alabama in the United States Senate, his first stint into elected office. Tuberville is looking to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Kay Ivey.
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt an order allowing migrants to challenge their deportations to South Sudan, an appeal that came hours after the judge suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric.” Judge Brian Murphy in Boston found the White House violated a court order with a deportation flight to the chaotic African nation carrying people from other countries who had been convicted of crimes in the US. He said those migrants must get a real chance to be heard if they fear being sent there could put them in danger, he said.
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Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, responding to Donald Trump’s warning that Vladimir Putin is “playing with fire”, said that the only truly bad thing to worry about was World War Three. “Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.
Key events
JD Vance to give keynote address to Las Vegas bitcoin conference
The vice-president, JD Vance, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Vegas, which will set out the Trump administration’s turbocharged approach to the US crypto industry.
If you cast your minds back, it’s the same conference Trump spoke at last year in Nashville calling for America to become a “bitcoin superpower” and the “crypto capital of the planet” under his leadership.
Politico notes that at this year’s conference “the astonishing overlap between Trump’s political and personal interests will again be on display”.
At 4:30pm ET, Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr will speak at the very same conference in Vegas. It’s presumably an industry they feel invested in, given they back a major Bitcoin venture themselves, per Reuters. And it comes just a day after a separate family-linked business, the Trump Media & Technology Group, announced its intention to raise $2.5bn to invest in bitcoin, as the Wall Street Journal reports. And that in turn came after Trump offered out exclusive VIP dinner invites to the 220 top buyers of his personal $Trump memecoin, as an incentive to buy more stock. It’s all head-spinning stuff for a president of the United States.
What’s more, last night Vance headlined a Vegas fundraiser for Trump’s Maga Inc Super Pac that required a donation of $1m per attendee, reports the Washington Post.
Today he’s due to speak at noon ET – I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
White House cuts aid for states to modernize their unemployment insurance systems – Axios
The White House is terminating $400m in funds for states meant to modernize their unemployment insurance systems, Axios reports.
When unemployment soared during the Covid pandemic years, those systems fell apart, giving way to rampant fraud and delays for beneficiaries, Axios notes. “Without updates, similar problems could be on tap for the next recession.”
Congress authorized the funds in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill passed in 2021, allocating $2bn for the efforts, later cutting that funding in half.
The Labor Department sent a notification letter to Congress last week to tell lawmakers “these grants are being terminated”. It claims that the money was being “wasted” on equity – ie per Axios, “efforts to make the unemployment insurance system easier for people to use and access, perhaps not what is typically considered DEI”, on which about $219m was used specifically.
Efforts to promote equitable access to unemployment insurance “include eliminating administrative barriers to benefit applications, reducing state workload backlogs, improving the timeliness of UC payments to eligible individuals, and ensuring equity in fraud prevention, detection, and recovery activities,” according to the labor department’s report.
$204m was awarded for IT modernization, $134m for fraud detection and $93m for system integrity, such as combating fraud and strengthening ID verification. Andrew Stettner, who led the modernization efforts during the Biden administration, told Axios that 18 states are working on updates to their systems and have barely begun to spend the funds allocated for IT.
Pulling this aid will be devastating for the states just getting started on these projects. “States were in the middle of all the planning and procurement. Now they’re really holding the bag for finishing,” Stettner said.
“The bottom line,” writes Axios, is that “in an effort to combat fraud, the Labor Department has pulled back money from states meant to help combat fraud”.
Rachel Leingang
A 43-year-old woman and mother of two with advanced cancer is experiencing life-or-death delays in treatment because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health.
Natalie Phelps, who has stage 4 colorectal cancer, has spoken publicly, raising the alarm about a setback in care for herself and others who are part of clinical trials run by the agency. Her story has made it into congressional hearings and spurred a spat between a Democratic senator and the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. Behind the scenes, she and others are advocating to get her treatment started sooner.
So far, Phelps has been told that her treatment, which should have started around mid-June, will not begin until after mid-July.
“I’ve done everything I can do,” Phelps, who lives in Washington state, told the Guardian. “There’s nothing else I can do. I’m really just out of options. There’s very limited treatments approved for colorectal cancer.”
Phelps is one of many Americans whose lives have been disrupted or altered by the ongoing cuts to government services made by the Trump administration’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge. Some NIH scientists have lost their jobs, and others have seen their grants ended. Researchers told the Associated Press that cuts to the agency and its programs would end treatment for cancer patients and delay cures and treatment discoveries.
The Kremlin believes that Donald Trump was not fully informed about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday.
He was commenting on remarks by Trump that Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire” by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv.
Trump asks supreme court to expand deportation powers
President Donald Trump asked the supreme court on Tuesday to make it easier for his administration to deport people to countries that aren’t their homeland or where they have legal status, such as South Sudan.
The request is part of a wider push to uphold controversial immigration policies before the conservative-majority court, CNN reported.
The challenged policy, enacted early in Trump’s term, allows the Department of Homeland Security to deport individuals to third countries without prior notice or the chance to argue they’d face persecution or harm there.
The appeal comes shortly after backlash over the attempted transfer of detainees to war-torn South Sudan without meaningful opportunity to contest their removal.
President Donald Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, on Wednesday scolded a top Russian official for stoking fears of World War Three after Trump warned president Vladimir Putin was “playing with fire” over Ukraine.
As Russian forces advanced in Ukraine, Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that Putin was playing with fire and cautioned that “REALLY BAD” things would have happened already to Russia if it was not for Trump himself.
“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.
Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, a former president, dismissed Trump’s criticism.
President Donald Trump’s administration is raising scrutiny over the social media posts of South Korean students in the United States or who plan to study there, the students and agencies that support them said.
That has triggered concerns for parents of students studying or planning to study in the United States. South Korean students are the third-largest among international students in the US, behind those from India and China.
The US administration ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants as the state department prepared to expand social media vetting of foreign students, according to an internal cable seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of wide-ranging efforts to meet its hardline immigration agenda.
“My clients, parents are calling me constantly today to figure out what is going on,” said Park Hyuntae, head of Worldnet US Overseas Edu Center, an agency in Seoul that assists South Korean students.
“Those who already scheduled those interviews and will apply for interviews both are worried, nervous, but cancellations of existing interviews haven’t happened yet as far as I know.”
Park said the visa interview pause could cause delays in starting the school year, and that he was advising clients to be cautious over what they post online.
Trump says it will cost $61bn for Canada to join Golden Dome scheme
President Donald Trump has apparently told Canada that to be part of his Golden Dome system, it will cost them $61bn – unless they become the 51st American state.
The president claimed they are “considering the offer”, which does not quite ring true given Canada’s repeated rebuffs of the US’s very public desire to annex it.
Trump posted:
I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
The so-called “Golden Dome” missile defense system will protect the United States from possible foreign strikes using ground and space-based weapons.
However, what exactly the Golden Dome will look like remains unclear. Trump has not yet decided which of three options proposed by the defense department he wants to pursue. Pentagon officials recently drafted three proposals – small, medium and large – for Trump to consider.
US stops scheduling visa interviews for foreign students
The US state department on Tuesday ordered the suspension of student visa processing, as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks unprecedented control of the nation’s universities by slashing funding and curbing international enrolment.
It is the latest escalation in the White House’s crackdown on foreign students, which has seen it revoke visas and deport some of those involved in protests against the war in Gaza, AFP reported.
A cable signed by secretary of state Marco Rubio and seen by AFP orders embassies and consulates not to allow “any additional student or exchange visa … appointment capacity until further guidance is issued.”
The government plans to ramp up vetting of the social media profiles of international applicants to US universities, the cable said. The New York Times reported that the suspension of interviews with visa applicants was temporary.
Rubio earlier rescinded hundreds of visas and the Trump administration has moved to bar Harvard University from admitting non-Americans. Japan and Hong Kong have both urged local universities to accept foreign students from US universities in light of the crackdown.
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Wednesday said Beijing urged Washington to “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of international students, including those from China.”
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students attend US universities, long viewed by many in China as beacons of academic freedom and rigour.
Elon Musk criticizes Trump’s tax bill
Good morning and welcome to the US politics blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that Elon Musk has been critical Donald Trump’s flagship tax reform, arguing that it undermines efforts by the government’s own efficiency team (Doge).
His comments risk deepening the divide between the billionaire entrepreneur and the president he financially supported during the last election cycle.
In a CBS Sunday Morning interview preview released on Tuesday evening, the Tesla CEO expressed frustration over what he called a “massive spending bill” that adds to the federal deficit and, in his view, negates the achievements of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he once headed up.
The legislation – hailed by Trump as his “big beautiful bill” – narrowly passed the House of Representatives last week by a single vote, marking a key legislative win in his second term. The bill is now awaiting a Senate vote.
President Trump, who had to pressure several hesitant Republican lawmakers to secure support, hailed the bill as “arguably the most significant piece of legislation that will ever be signed in the history of our country.”
To read our full story, see here:
In other news:
-
The Trump administration ordered US embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants. The state department has also halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for foreign students hoping to study in the US. Here’s an explainer on the latest move against foreign students.
-
President Donald Trump is set to pardon reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley of fraud and tax evasion convictions. Margo Martin, special assistant to Trump, posted a video on X, of the president calling Savannah Chrisley to announce his pardon of her parents. In 2019, the Chrisleys were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, all of which they have denied.
-
A judge in Washington struck down an executive order targeting law firm WilmerHale, marking the third ruling to overwhelmingly reject President Donald Trump‘s efforts to punish firms he perceives as enemies of his administration. WilmerHale is the former home of Robert Mueller, the Republican-appointed special counsel who led a probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Trump campaign ties to Moscow. Trump has derided the investigation as a political “witch hunt.”
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Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville announced he is running for Alabama governor in 2026. In 2016, he was still working as the University of Cincinnati’s head football coach, and he previously coached at Auburn University in Alabama. In 2020, he won a seat representing Alabama in the United States Senate, his first stint into elected office. Tuberville is looking to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Kay Ivey.
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt an order allowing migrants to challenge their deportations to South Sudan, an appeal that came hours after the judge suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric.” Judge Brian Murphy in Boston found the White House violated a court order with a deportation flight to the chaotic African nation carrying people from other countries who had been convicted of crimes in the US. He said those migrants must get a real chance to be heard if they fear being sent there could put them in danger, he said.
-
Top Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev, responding to Donald Trump’s warning that Vladimir Putin is “playing with fire”, said that the only truly bad thing to worry about was World War Three. “Regarding Trump’s words about Putin “playing with fire” and “really bad things” happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!” Medvedev wrote on X.
