In remarks earlier at the Faith and Freedom Coalition event, Donald Trump rambled for some time about the democratic socialist candidates who swept primary elections in New York earlier this week, calling them (wrongly) “ruthless communists” and branded the leftist wave “the most serious threat to our country in its existence”.

I looked at some of the people that got elected the other night in New York. These are in many ways stupid people, in some ways, and intellectually probably pretty smart, but they’re people that want to destroy our country.

They hate our country, they hate our people, they hate the Democrat party. The Democrat party is in big trouble, because this isn’t stopping with New York.

The president added:

It’s ironic we’re celebrating a very important birthday … 250 years, and instead of speaking about Christ and freedom and victories of all different kinds, we’re speaking about yet another threat to the foundations of America.

Among the wild (false) claims he made, Trump said “the communists” would target churches and Christians, turn all the buildings into “ghettos and slums”, that everyone would leave New York, and that this would spread across the country “like an uncontrollable cancer” and leave the United States a “third-world country”.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for a national “billionaires tax” as he fights a ballot measure targeting the ultra-wealthy in his home state.

Newsom, who is expected to run for president in 2028, published his proposal the day after California officials certified a ballot proposal to levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth more than $1bn. The proposal, called the California Billionaire Tax Act, was brought by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) and would fund the state’s healthcare, education and food assistance programs.

The proposal has received more than 1.55m signatures, but has spurred intense pushback from the state’s richest residents as well as several other prominent labor unions.

Newsom strongly opposes the measure, arguing it will hurt the state’s economy.

In his Substack post today, Newsom expanded on his opposition and framed it as an ineffective solution. “I understand the anxiety driving the wealth tax proposal in California. But I’m voting no because this measure dedicates almost all of the revenue it raises to a single category of state spending,” Newsom wrote.

Newsom argued that a state-level billionaire tax would be easily dodged by wealthy people who are able to move their assets to other states. Already, several billionaires, including Google co-founder Larry Page, have either threatened to leave California or made efforts to cut ties with the state.

“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”

In today’s announcement, Newsom offered a counterproposal, a new national tax policy, rather than a state-by-state system. He proposed a minimum tax on anyone with a net worth above $100m. He also wants to make it illegal for the wealthy to borrow against their stock portfolios to fund their luxury lifestyles tax-free.

More on this story here:

Israel, Lebanon and the United States have signed a trilateral framework agreement aimed at paving the way for a peace deal to end the ongoing hostilities.

“We are happy to announce a framework agreement between the sovereign government of Lebanon and of course the government of Israel, with a mediation and support of the United States of America,” US secretary of state Marco Rubio said at the signing ceremony.

The agreement “begins to put in place a framework for lasting peace and security”, Rubio added.

I’ll bring you more on this as I get it.

Victoria Bekiempis and Anna Betts

Billionaire financier Leon Black’s testimony before a House committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein ended abruptly this morning after members from both parties said Black refused to answer questions about non-disclosure agreements.

James Comer, the Republican who chairs the committee, told reporters that the committee had already issued two subpoenas to Black on Friday – one demanding he produce any non-disclosure agreements, and another to appear again before the committee next month.

Speaking to reporters outside the room, Comer said that “the NDAs are between him and other women” and that the committee wants to know “was Jeffrey Epstein involved in the NDAs? Was he involved in writing? Was he involved in awarding funds to the women for the NDAs? … What was the reason for the NDAs? We want to know everything about the NDAs.

“During today’s voluntary transcribed interview, Mr Black stated he wouldn’t answer questions about NDAs,” Comer said. “Answers about the terms and substance of these NDAs are critical to our investigation. For this reason, today I issued subpoenas to Mr Black for NDAs and to appear for a deposition in the near future.”

Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters that he supports Comer’s subpoenas. “The NDAs are central to us understanding what actually happened,” Garcia said.

Black’s lawyers said in a statement the committee’s move was a political stunt. “Mr Black came here voluntarily to assist the committee. This was nothing more than a planned political stunt. Mr Epstein had no involvement with any NDAs, whether they exist or not,” said Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black.

The interview this morning was conducted behind closed doors, though the committee is expected to release a transcript at a later date, as it has done with previous interviews.

“Of all the witnesses that have come thus far, this one has the potential to be the most groundbreaking deposition in my opinion,” Comer told reporters this morning before the hearing began.

Black, the former Apollo Global Management CEO, has faced questions over his past ties to Epstein for years, with scrutiny intensifying after the justice department released millions of records related to Epstein late last year and earlier this year. In 2021, Black stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Apollo Global Management.

According to a report commissioned by Apollo several years ago, Epstein provided financial services to Black between 2012 and 2017. After Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state prostitution charges in 2008, including procuring a minor, Black became Epstein’s largest client, paying him a total of roughly $170m in fees, according to an investigation by the Senate finance committee. Black has described his work for Epstein as tax and estate-planning services.

Here’s the full report:

Donald ⁠Trump has once again revived his tariff threats, warning that any country ‌that imposes ‌a digital services tax on American companies will be hit with a ⁠100% tariff on all ⁠goods.

He said ‌in a social media ​post that the new ⁠tariff would supersede ​any trade ​deals ​with the ​US.

“Numerous European Countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies,” Trump wrote. “Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America.

“This TARIFF will supersede Trade Deals made with the Country, whether implemented, signed, or not,” he added. “Additionally, the 100% TARIFF will be immediately imposed, if they proceed.”

Last month, the US trade court ruled against Trump’s latest attempt at a 10% global tariff, finding across-the-board tariffs were not justified under a 1970s trade law. But courts striking down his tariffs have done little to discourage his threats, as earlier this month he threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labor failures.

As we’ve been reporting, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool will have to be drained again. Donald Trump has blamed vandalism for the failure to keep the water “American flag blue”. But what if this small body of water is proof that the president can’t outrun the truth?

In the latest edition of our Politics Weekly America podcast, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Arwa Mahdawi about why this project, which has cost the taxpayer millions of dollars, is proving to be such an embarrassing failure for a man obsessed with image.

John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser in his first administration before becoming an outspoken critic, has pleaded guilty in a federal court hearing in Maryland to one count of retaining classified national security information in a case that could send him to prison for up to five years.

The charge is specifically related to diary entries about his work during Trump’s first term that he compiled for his memoir, which was deeply critical of Trump. Bolton was accused of transmitting some of these materials to two relatives, whom multiple outlets have reported were his wife and daughter.

He initially pleaded not guilty to an 18-count indictment in October last year, but under a plea deal with the US justice department, Bolton agreed to plead guilty to the single count of retaining the classified information in diary-like entries and also to pay a fine of over $2m.

Had he gone to trial and lost, Bolton could have faced decades of incarceration. A trial also could have dragged significant classified information into the public realm in order for Bolton to defend himself, which was cited as another reason he took the deal.

Bolton is expected to argue for no prison time but the DoJ may seek to incarcerate him, setting up a showdown at his sentencing, which is due to take place at a later date.

In case you missed it yesterday, House speaker Mike Johnson said he was sending the bipartisan housing bill to Donald Trump’s desk, a day after the president abruptly cancelled its signing as he tried to pressure the Senate to pass the unrelated Save America Act.

Johnson told reporters after his lengthy crunch-time meeting with the president that they are “on exactly the same page”, though he didn’t mention the housing bill specifically.

And it’s important to note that Trump has not yet committed to signing the legislation, despite the fact that the bill has overwhelming bipartisan support and his own party is keen to use it to show voters they’re working to lower living costs ahead of November’s midterms.

By formally sending the bill to the president’s desk, Johnson has opened the 10-day window (excluding Sundays) during which Trump must decide whether he will sign or veto the legislation. If he doesn’t do either, it automatically becomes law without his signature.

For his part, after the meeting Trump publicy urged House GOP hardliners to stop “grandstanding” and to unify after they brought most activity in the lower chamber to a halt earlier this week over the Save Act.

“House Republicans should unify, and stop voting down ‘Rules’ or, threatening to do so. Giving power to the Radical Left Dumocrats in the House to control what goes up for a Vote will make our outcomes worse, not better. No more grandstanding, please! They are the Dumocrats, and we can’t let them WIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

While the president threw him a lifeline, Johnson’s headache is by no means over. Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who’s leading the hardline rebellion, wrote on X after Trump and Johnson’s meeting that she had submitted an amendment to the House rules committee to attach the Save Act to the annual defense bill.

But per Axios, Luna told reporters yesterday that she was not promising to support next week’s rule if leadership blocks that effort.

The decades-long prison sentences for a group of Texas activists convicted of terrorism and other charges in connection to a Fourth of July protest last year has caused widespread alarm, given their unusually punitive length and for the apparent harsh criminalization of protest activity under Donald Trump’s justice department.

Eight people who participated in a protest at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, were sentenced on Tuesday to between 50 and 100 years in prison. A ninth person, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada, the husband of one of the demonstrators, did not participate in the protest, but was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he was convicted of moving boxes containing leftwing zines and other materials after a prison phone call from his wife.

“These sentences are a travesty and totally unjustified, but that’s the point. Americans hate the fascist Trump regime, so the only way they can try to cling to power is brute force,” the representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, posted on X. “More bullshit ‘terrorism’ charges like these are coming.”

Sanchez-Estrada’s sentence in particular has been condemned by first amendment advocates, who say that it sends a chilling message about the kind of ideological material people are allowed to possess.

Seth Stern, the chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement:

[The zines Sanchez-Estrada was punished for moving are] no different from the pro-Revolution pamphlets this country’s founders had in mind when they drafted the first amendment’s press clause.

Sanchez’s case is the latest example of the Trump administration grasping at any legal straws it can to criminalize disfavored ideologies and writings, from conflating dissent with terrorism to deporting immigrants who report on protests or criticize wars the US bankrolls.

Americans should not make the mistake of believing Sanchez’s sentence only threatens immigrants, leftists or so-called antifa members – they’re just the low-hanging fruit, not the endgame.

Here’s Sam’s report:

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

John Bolton, former national security adviser to Donald Trump, is expected to plead guilty on Friday to charges that he unlawfully retained sensitive national security information.

The agreement with federal prosecutors includes a $2.25m fine, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Bolton is expected to plead guilty to one count of retaining classified information, which is specifically related to diary entries about his work during Trump’s first term. The former adviser, who is now a prominent critic of Trump, was accused of transmitting some of these materials to two relatives.

The trial is scheduled to take place in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Friday – and a possible sentence could range from no jail time to five years.

In October, Bolton plead not guilty to charges of mishandling classified information when he worked in the Trump White House.

“This was a very difficult decision for him,” the source close to Bolton said to NBC, in relation to his expected guilty plea. “Most importantly, he is doing what leaders do and taking responsibility.

“He understands that if he went to trial what that would mean, which essentially would be the disclosure of many, many more classified documents that he would need to reveal to defend himself. And given the Ukraine and the Middle East, he didn’t want to do that.”

Elsewhere, the supreme court conservative majority passed two new rulings on Thursday that allowed the Trump administration to strip certain immigration protection and fundamentally reshape the asylum system in the United States.

This means that the court has allowed the administration to move forward with policies that could remove more than 1 million people from the US, and could also possibly prevent others from entering.

Dozens of groups, advocates and members of Congress called the court’s decisions “disastrous” and “cruel”, while the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and anti-immigrant groups celebrated the rulings.

In case after case, the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has green-lighted Donald Trump’s policies targeting both legal and illegal immigration with few exceptions, while its three liberal justices have objected to most of his actions.

This will mostly impact Haitian and Syrian ⁠immigrants, with hundreds of thousands expected to be stripped of their Temporary Protected Status.

“The Trump administration has turned the immigration system into a deportation machine,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School in New York.

“In most cases, the supreme court has been a rubber stamp for Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” Mukherjee added.

Here’s what else is happening:

• The supreme court also expanded the constitution’s second amendment right “to keep and bear arms”. This includes a ruling that will remove a Hawaii law ⁠that required gun owners to get an ​owner’s permission before bringing a handgun on to private property open to the public – such as shops and restaurants.

• In Texas, it is expected that a new law will be put into place which would require almost 5 million school pupils to compulsorily study the Bible. This comes as part of a wider effort to put more Christian teachings into schools.

• Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon hold a meeting about whether to ease restrictions on access to some research peptides, a group of drugs with a zealous after and thin evidence to support them