President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered his assurances that U.S. troops would not be sent to Ukraine to defend against Russia, after seeming to leave open the possibility the day before. Trump also said in a morning TV interview that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean Peninsula are “impossible.”
Details of the security guarantees and Trump’s efforts to arrange peace talks continue to evolve after the U.S. president, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
European leaders said they want U.S. support for “robust security guarantees,” including the “deployment of a reassurance force” as Trump pursues his campaign promise to end the grinding war.
Here’s the latest:
Trump calls Israel’s Netanyahu — and himself — war heroes
During an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin, Trump talked about working with Benjamin Netanyahu to free Hamas-held hostages, saying Israel’s prime minister is “a good man, he’s in there fighting.”
He added that, though some detractors want Netanyahu jailed as a war criminal, “He’s a war hero.”
“He’s a war hero, cause we worked together. He’s a war hero. I guess I am too,” Trump said during the interview, which aired Tuesday night. “Nobody cares. I am too. I sent those planes.”
That was a reference to Trump having ordered June airstrikes against three critical enrichment facilities in Iran.
The president also complained throughout the interview that he’d not gotten enough credit for ordering those strikes, nor taking other, more recent actions to ease conflict around the world.
Sen. Graham says after call with Trump that the president is prepared to ‘crush’ Russia’s economy
Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday that if peace talks between Ukraine and Russia aren’t “moving in the right direction” by the time Congress returns next month, then “Plan B needs to kick in.”
For months, the Republican senator has been pressing President Trump to support a bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries helping fund Russia’s war. On Tuesday morning, following a phone call with Trump, Graham signaled the president may now be willing to back the effort.
“Trump believes that if Putin doesn’t do his part, that he’s going to have to crush his economy. Because you got to mean what you say,” Graham told reporters in South Carolina earlier on Tuesday.
DHS Secretary says entire southern border wall to be painted black
Kristi Noem says that the idea behind painting the southern border wall black is to make the metal hotter to deter people from entering the U.S. illegally.
Noem spoke during a visit Tuesday to a portion of the wall in New Mexico. She also picked up a roller brush to help out with the painting.
She said the black paint idea was specifically at the request of President Trump “who understands that in the hot temperatures down here, when something is painted black, it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb,” she said. “So we are going to be painting the entire southern border wall black.”
National Guard from other states start arriving in Washington, DC
National Guard members from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana began arriving in Washington on Tuesday to help with President Donald Trump’s federal crackdown on crime and homelessness, according to the Joint Task Force District of Columbia, the military unit overseeing the Guard.
Those troops will perform similar duties to local Guard members already on the streets, including protecting landmarks and crowd control, and will be staying at military base housing and hotels, JTF-DC said.
Nebraska governor announces plan for immigration detention center amid Trump crackdown
Gov. Jim Pillen says he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had agreed to use an existing minimum security prison work camp in a rural area of the state’s southwest corner to house people awaiting deportation and being held for other immigration proceedings.
“This is about keeping Nebraskans — and Americans across our country — safe,” Pillen said in a statement.
The Trump administration is adding new detention facilities across the country to hold the growing number of immigrants it has arrested and accused of being in the country illegally. Older and newer U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers were holding more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.
Pillen also announced he would order the Nebraska National Guard to provide administrative and logistical support to Nebraska-based immigration agents. About 20 Guard soldiers will be involved.
▶ Read more about the planned Nebraska detention facility
Trump won’t be going on August vacation
Trump won’t be heading out on his traditional summer vacation in northern New Jersey, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, confirmed Tuesday.
“This is normally the time when the president goes on vacation, but not this president,” Leavitt said, adding that there were “discussions about him working from Bedminster for a couple of weeks but he decided against it.”
Bedminster is the location of his club in northern New Jersey, where Trump often goes for weekends. He also spent some stretches of time in August there for vacation during his first term.
The comments from Leavitt came when the White House took a portion of the day’s press pool out to the renovated Rose Garden as the president tested out the area’s new speakers.
The decision not to go on vacation comes as Trump works to negotiate a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but Leavitt did not specify if the president’s vacation decision was linked to the Ukraine talks.
White House video shows off Trump’s Rose Garden renovations
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted footage showing off new speakers installed as part of Trump’s makeover of the White House’s Rose Garden.
One of Trump’s favorite songs, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” blares in the video, over a shot showing patio-style tables shielded by yellow umbrellas. The shot later focuses in on an American flag overhead.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt subsequently brought reporters to the Rose Garden and said Trump was controlling the playlist as crews tested the speakers for “what will be the best event in the history of the White House.”
She said the next party there will be “hopefully soon.”
Other songs being played included “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum. The music was loud enough to be heard in other parts of the White House.
Trump administration revokes security clearances of 37 current and former government officials
The Trump administration has ordered the revocation of the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials, including some who worked on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it by name.
A memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was seen by The Associated Press, accuses the targeted individuals of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan gain.
It’s the latest action of retribution by the Trump administration against national security officials he perceives as having been against him. It comes as his government has launched a sweeping effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of intelligence community findings that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.
President Trump amplified his attacks on the Smithsonian museums
On Tuesday, he posted on Truth Social that they were ’OUT OF CONTROL” for emphasizing the negative parts of American history, including “how bad slavery was.”
Trump, who has been at odd with various cultural institutions since returning to office in January, added that he had “instructed” his attorneys to begin the “exact same process” he has used against colleges and universities.” The White House has withheld funding from Harvard, Columbia University and other schools and made various demands, from more control over student admissions to banning trans athletes from women’s sports.
The Trump administration in March issued an executive order calling for the Smithsonian to overhaul its collection and present a more celebratory view of the country. The order has been denounced by historians and others as an attempt to censor the past.
Justice Department probing whether DC police falsified crime data
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether police officials in Washington, D.C., have falsified crime data, according to a person familiar with the probe who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss an open investigation.
The investigation comes amid an escalating — and political — showdown between the Trump administration and the city over control of the police department. It wasn’t immediately clear what federal laws could have been violated by the possible manipulation of crime data.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on the matter.
The New York Times was first to report on the investigation. Earlier this year, a Metropolitan Police Department commander suspected of manipulating crime data was placed on paid administrative leave, NBC Washington reported.
The IRS fired probationary workers without following protocol, says IRS Inspector General
The IRS fired more than 7,000 probationary employees earlier this year without following internal procedures and failed to consider the workers’ individual performance, despite firing them for bad performance reviews, a new report states.
The report was released by the IRS’ Inspector General, Tuesday. It does not contain recommendations and is informational only.
Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration states that several senior IRS officials raised concerns to the IRS’ inspector general that probationary employees did not have documented performance issues and were falsely terminated for bad performance.
The report states that many workers never had a performance review since they had only been recently hired. And of the 3,599 probationary employees who received a performance rating,3,251 (or 90 percent) had a fully successful rating on their evaluation and 305 (8 percent) had an outstanding rating.
Trump’s afterlife aspirations may be helping to drive his calculations on Ukraine
Leavitt says she doesn’t think Trump was joking when he suggested during a Fox News Channel interview that he was helping to seek peace between Russia and Ukraine, at least in part, because he wanted to go to heaven.
“I think the president was serious,” the press secretary said.
She then added, to a smattering of laughter from reporters in the White House briefing room, “I think the president wants to get to heaven, as I hope we all do in this room as well.”
White House: Commerce working on Intel deal
The White House said Tuesday that the administration is working on a deal that would have the U.S. take a 10% stake in the computer chip maker Intel.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Commerce Department, led by Secretary Howard Lutnick, is working on it and “ironing out the details.”
“The president wants to put America’s needs first, both from a national security and economic perspective,” Leavitt said Tuesday. “It’s a creative idea that has never been done before to ensure that we’re both reshoring these critical supply chains, while also gaining something of it for the American taxpayer.”
White House says Putin promised Trump he’d have a direct meeting with Zelenskyy
The Kremlin has not yet said whether Putin has signed off on Trump’s push to arrange direct talks between the Russian leader and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But asked Tuesday’s whether Putin has promised Trump that he’ll meet directly with the Ukrainian leader, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded affirmatively.
“He has,” Leavitt said of Putin.
Trump early on Monday during talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders said that he was pressing for three-way talks among Zelenskyy, Putin and himself. But after speaking to Putin later in the day, Trump said that he was arranging first for a face-to-face between Zelenskyy and Putin and that three-way talks would follow if necessary.
“It was an idea that evolved in the course of the president’s conversations with both President Putin, President Zelensky and the European leaders yesterday,” Leavitt explained.
Top UN official welcomes US peace efforts on Russia-Ukraine, says talks should remain ‘inclusive’
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said Tuesday that his boss “very much welcomes” President Donald Trump’s focus “on achieving a peaceful settlement in Ukraine” through the summits held in the last week. But he indicated that its crucial Ukraine remains at the table for any future negotiation.
“For him, it’s very important that all involved continue to stay actively engaged and we want to an inclusive dialogue to sustain the important momentum that was created to bring an immediate ceasefire and sustainable peace,” Dujarric said.
He added that the U.N. stands ready to provide any peacekeeping efforts as part of the security guarantees that are being discussed.
Pediatricians: ‘We need to make the right choices for children’
The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years. This age group is at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and it’s important that recommendations continue to emphasize the need for them to get vaccinated, said Dr. James Campbell, vice chair of the AAP infectious diseases committee.
Shots also are advised for older children if parents want their kids vaccinated, and are recommended for older children whose chronic lung diseases or other conditions put them at higher risk for severe disease, the AAP said.
“It is going to be somewhat confusing. But our opinion is we need to make the right choices for children to protect them,” Campbell said.
In a statement, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said “the AAP is undermining national immunization policymaking with baseless political attacks.”
▶ Read more about the differing recommendations on vaccines
US pediatricians’ new COVID-19 shot recommendations differ from CDC advice
For the first time in 30 years, the American Academy of Pediatrics is substantially diverging from U.S. government vaccine recommendations.
The group’s new COVID-19 recommendations — released Tuesday — come amid a tumultuous year for public health, as vaccine skeptics have come into power in the new Trump administration and government guidance has become increasingly confusing.
The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years. Shots also are advised for older children if parents want their kids vaccinated, the AAP said.
That differs from guidance established under U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which doesn’t recommend the shots for healthy children of any age but says kids may get the shots in consultation with physicians.
Trump is trying to avoid a congressional check on his power
Both Trump and the Democrats are looking ahead to 2026 knowing that the next midterm elections often go against the president’s party, as they did during Trump’s first term in 2018. Republicans currently have a seven-seat majority in the 435-member House.
State legislatures draw the lines after each U.S. census in most states — including Texas — and only a few dozen House districts are competitive.
In Texas, Republicans hold 25 of 38 seats, and they’re trying to increase that to 30. In California, Democrats have 43 of the 52 seats, and they’re trying to boost that to 48, to wipe out the advantage the GOP would gain from redrawing lines in Texas.
Texas Democrat spends night in Legislature protesting police shadowing in redistricting battle
Republicans are hoping to prevent more quorum delays as they redraw the U.S. House maps to give Trump five more seats, so they’ve required Democratic legislators to agree to around-the-clock surveillance before they leave the floor.
Rep. Nicole Collier, of Fort Worth, said she spent the night in the chamber rather than sign away her dignity and allow Republicans to “control my movements and monitor me.”
“I know these maps will harm my constituents,” her statement said. “I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination.”
The Department of Public Safety didn’t immediately respond Tuesday to a message seeking comment.
The Democrats’ return to Texas puts the Republican-run Legislature in position to satisfy Trump’s demands. If they do, California Democrats are preparing to retaliate by asking voters to approve their own new congressional boundaries.
▶ Read more about redistricting battles
It’s gratitude diplomacy: Showering Trump with thanks
World leaders understand that flattery is the way to winning over the unpredictable Trump, having taken their cue from Zelenskyy ’s disastrous White House scolding six months ago.
With peace talks on the table, Zelenskyy thanked Trump and others nine times in the first minute of their initial public meeting at the White House on Monday. Appearing later with top leaders from Europe, Zelenskyy expressed his thanks at least seven more times, twice for a map Trump had presented him.
He was not alone. Trump himself used the T-word about a dozen times in the later meeting. Starmer thanked the president four times. And NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called Trump “amazing.”
▶ Read more about how world leaders approach Trump
