House Republicans narrowly advance Trump’s $70bn immigration enforcement bill; final vote still to come – live

In an interview with CBS News posted online Tuesday, JD Vance, the US vice-president, said that the a deal with Iran over its nuclear program could “absolutely” be struck before the midterm elections in November.

“I think we’re going to know a lot before the midterm elections”, Vance said. “I think he deal could happen in the next week, but the deal could also happen months from now.”

The House is currently debating the Republican bill to provide $70bn to the Department of Homeland Security to fund immigration enforcement for the remainder of Donald Trump’s term.

Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chaired the 2022 select committee investigation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, just noted that this bill does not include a provision that failed in the Senate that would have prevented the Department of Justice from paying Trump supporters convicted of attacking police officers in that riot up to $1.776bn.

The upcoming vote is expected to be close in the narrowly divided House, where Republicans hold a slim majority, and have one member, Tom Kean Jr, who has been missing for months due to a health crisis. The vote just to open debate passed by just 213-211 along party lines.

Hospitality and food service workers in several US cities hosting World Cup matches are warning of looming labor disputes and possible strikes as the largest single sport tournament in the world gets ready to kick off on 11 June.

In Los Angeles, California, cashiers, dishwashers, cooks, bartenders, concessions workers and food attendants at the SoFi stadium reached a tentative agreement on Tuesday afternoon, but the union noted it has a contractual right to walk off the job if it determines that federal immigration enforcement is threatening worker safety during the World Cup. The US’s opening match, against Paraguay, is scheduled to take place at SoFi Stadium on 12 June.

About 2,000 workers at SoFi Stadium represented by Unite Here Local 11 had voted 96% in favor of a strike authorization before the agreement was reached on Tuesday. Workers are seeking a new union contract with wage increases and protections from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“We’re just trying to make things fair,” said Eva Miles, a bartender at SoFi stadium since it opened in 2021. “Without us, they don’t have a stadium. Are they going to cook? Are they going to pour those drinks? Are they going to serve these people?”

Miles said she and her co-workers cannot afford to live near the stadium on the wages they’re currently paid. She commutes two hours to work every day and said some co-workers have even longer journeys.

“Let’s see them live on our wage, let’s see them raise a family,” added Miles. Workers are pushing for pay above $30 an hour. “I’ve been there since the beginning. I love meeting new people. I want my guests to be happy, and I want them to enjoy it and have a great experience. I know they spend a lot of money, and I know they’re spending a lot of money on this Fifa World Cup, so I don’t understand why we can’t get what we want and everybody be happy.”

More on this here:

For successive men’s World Cup tournaments, from Brazil to Russia to Qatar, Fifa has managed to bulldoze its way through costly immigration and entry requirements. Not so in 2026, where Fifa has found its tournament squarely caught up in the second Trump administration’s aggressive border restrictions.

My colleague Martin Belam has this explainer on some of the people that have been affected, including Omar Artan, one of 52 referees appointed by Fifa for the tournament, who has been refused entry to the US after arriving in Miami. Artan had been set to become the first person from Somalia to officiate at a World Cup.

For the vote, due to take place in the 4.30pm ET vote series, House speaker Mike Johnson will need near perfect GOP attendance and unity to finally push through the legislation, which would then go to Donald Trump for his signature to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the next three years.

The legislation has been sidetracked multiple times. The GOP initially sought to include $1bn for enhanced security on the White House grounds, including for Trump’s new ballroom. And the Trump administration recently tried to create a $1.8bn fund to compensate allies of the president who claim they have been unjustly investigated and prosecuted.

Those politically toxic proposals were scrapped and now the bill is focused entirely on immigration enforcement. It will allocate $38bn to ICE, $26bn to the Border Patrol and another $5bn for unforeseen costs related to Trump’s immigration crackdown and mass deportation agenda.

That is in addition to the nearly $140bn that the Republican-controlled Congress gave ICE and CBP last year as part of Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts bill.

Democrats have objected to giving the agencies more money without significant changes in the way they operate after the fatal federal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis. Among those demands, Democrats have insisted that agents remove masks and be required to display their ID badges during enforcement operations and that they get a judicial warrant before entering private property.

But, after a monthslong standoff that resulted in the longest shutdown in the nation’s history after Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security over ICE operations in Democrat-led cities, negotiations with the White House ultimately failed.

Republicans then turned to a complicated procedural manouevre to get around the filibuster and pass the immigration funding package with no Democratic votes.

So essentially, the funding for ICE and CBP will now come with virtually no strings attached.

Per The Hill, the rule appeared briefly to be in trouble, with Republican representatives Chip Roy of Texas, policy chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, and Tim Burchett of Tennessee initially voting “no”.

They and a number of other hardliners, including members of the Freedom Caucus who were reportedly withholding their votes as they sought commitments on codifying more of Trump’s border policies, huddled with speaker Mike Johnson and majority leader Steve Scalise.

In the end, Roy and Burchett flipped their votes and other hardliners voted “yes”.

House Republicans have narrowly passed a hard-fought rule to advance Trump’s $70bn immigration enforcement reconciliation bill to fund ICE and CBP through to the end of Trump’s term.

The rule, passed 213-211 along party lines, tees up a debate and final vote on the GOP measure later today.

in Blue Hill, Maine

A funny thing happened on the way to Graham Platner’s primary election night watch party.

I stopped by the Blue Hill Co-op cafe in Blue Hill, Maine, and spotted the progressive activists Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who were recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal newspaper about how and why they recruited Platner to run for the US Senate.

Moraff told the Journal that a firm was hired to vet Platner and, though it uncovered some of his disturbing social media posts, it did not spot his sexually explicit text messages or a tattoo recognised as a Nazi symbol.

“We paid a nice firm a whole chunk of money and got some stuff back,” Moraff was quoted as saying. “Some of what you’ve seen on the news we got back. Other stuff we didn’t … I said none of this will or should stop him from becoming a US senator.”

Today Moraff and Fan were sitting at a table, seeming relaxed and in a good mood. But then I approached them to ask for an interview. The sight of a journalist seemed about as welcome as a skunk at a garden party and, while polite, they could not snap their laptops shut and get out of the cafe fast enough.

As we reported earlier, vice-president JD Vance has referred Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz, his rival in the 2024 election, and state attorney general Keith Ellison to the DOJ after a congressional report renewed allegations of inaction and retaliation over fraud schemes in the state.

Per my colleague Rachel Leingang in Minneapolis, Walz’s office has responded, pointing to his March congressional testimony, in which he called the US government’s attacks on Minnesota “political retribution” and detailed the action his administration had taken on fraud.

“This committee has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a joke,” Teddy Tschann, a spokesperson for Walz, said in a statement. “They continue to rehash Covid-era fraud to distract from endless wars, gas prices, ICE, and the president’s insider trading.

“Governor Walz is glad to see fraudsters are going to prison. If the committee is concerned about corruption, they should investigate why President Trump continues to let fraudsters out of prison.”

Here’s Rachel’s full report:

Per my earlier post, House speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the path to reauthorizing section 702 of Fisa amid bipartisan alarm over his decision to appoint Bill Pulte as acting DNI.

Senate majority leader John Thune has told reporters that he doesn’t believe the administration is considering replacing Pulte in the acting role – but is instead weighing a permanent nominee to lead the intelligence community.

“I think they’re weighing seriously making a long-term pick,” Thune said, adding that it’s his “hope” the decision would come sooner rather than later.

Lawmakers in both parties are pressing the White House to drop Pulte, citing his lack of congressionally mandated national security expertise.

in Bangor, Maine

Voting continues on a hot and sunny day in Maine. Aiden Grant, a 31-year-old student who moved here from Texas seven years ago, backed Graham Platner in the Democratic Senate primary election.

“He actually cares about the Maine people and cares about the rights of minorities,” Grant explained. “I’m disabled and I’m queer so those are quite important for me.”

Platner’s missteps – which include a tattoo recognised as a Nazi symbol and allegations from women of unsettling behaviour – do not deter Grant.

“Yes, he’s got some bad publicity, probably made some poor choices in his life but he owns that. He accepts that he made mistakes and he doesn’t try to hide it, which I value because everyone makes mistakes but, if you’re gonna fuck up, you’d better own it.”

Zach Falcon, 53, a college professor, has voted for Republican Susan Collins in the past but is backing Platner in this election.

“As flawed as he may be, I am voting with the momentum that he has the best chance of winning in the fall,” Falcon explained. “We weigh everything about a candidate and their flaws and strengths and his flaws certainly give me pause but we’re voting in the complete context of all of the facts of our present circumstances.”

However, outside the Democratic tent, Platner’s baggage is viewed as a fundamental disqualifier. Adam Jones, a 44-year-old farmer and self-described conservative, firmly rejected the frontrunner.

“Separate from the Democratic, Republican, party lines thing, I don’t think the man has the character befitting somebody to take public office,” said Jones, suggesting that Platner’s secretive online posts “alone should disqualify him automatically”.

And Jones, who has elaborate tattoos on his arms, is not buying Platner’s redemption song. “I myself am a past heroin addict 21 years ago. I ended up accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour and got cleaned up. I understand change.

“I understand who I was 21 years ago and so I would be the first to say, you know what, if he’s done these things maybe five years ago, maybe 10 years ago and he’s shown a consecutive habit of showing he has changed his life around, then great, he is a new man.

“But he’s just trying to get into office. There has not been enough time to prove that he has actually changed.”

Donald Trump has posted on Truth Social that he had been informed “that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the strait of Hormuz.”

While the pilots were uninjured, “the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

For live coverage of the Middle East, follow along here.

in Bangor, Maine

There is a trickle of voters at the Cross Insurance Center building, located near a giant, colourful statue of lumberjack Paul Bunyan. Here, I found a split among female voters over Graham Platner in the Democratic primary for the US Senate.

“I like him,” said Jesenia Soler, 39, who describes herself as a transformational self-love practitioner. “He’s very for the people. That he wants to make it more for people instead of corporations is the biggest thing for me.”

Asked about Platner’s various controversies, Soler said: “For me it’s like everyone has shit that they’ve done. It’s human. No one’s perfect. The Nazi tattoo: I know he was a Marine and you don’t know everything you tattoo on yourself at the time and then you find out and like, ‘Oh, shit!’ and then there’s regret.

“The issues with the women: well, that’s between him and the women. It’s not my job to judge someone on what they’ve done as long as they’ve changed and moved forward and not kept on the same pattern. That’s the important thing.”

The pragmatic calculus is shared by Kylie Thorwardson, a 23-year-old clinical intern, who acknowledged: “I am concerned. I very much believe women and also realising that this is very convenient timing for things to come out and holding him accountable if anything does come to play. He doesn’t have my vote for life for sure.”

But Thorwardson is impressed by Platner’s outsider status and progressive agenda. “Mainers struggle day to day,” she continued. “There is such a high financial disparity and that is concerning. I do think we need higher taxes. If you’re driving around here, you know the roads aren’t great. We need new blood.”

But Jackie Farrell, an 81-year-old retiree who formerly worked for Catholic charities, voted for Janet Mills, whose campaign is inactive but who remains on the ballot. Asked what troubles her about Platner, she replied with a laugh: “That he’s a Nazi – hello? And the girlfriends. I’m a woman so I understand that part of it.”

For Farrell, whose political memory stretches back to lining up on the street to wave at President Dwight Eisenhower when she was in second grade, the current landscape is a cause for sorrow. “It makes me cry,” she admitted, tearing up. “But you know, there’s always something bad about everyone.”

While the deadline to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) is fast approaching, it does not mean that the surveillance program itself will go dark.

In March, the Fisa court issued a yearlong certification authorizing section 702 collection through approximately March 2027, even if the law lapses.

More here:

House speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with Donald Trump this morning as mounting Democratic outrage over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence endangers the renewal of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), which is due to expire next week.

“I’m going to go have a private conversation with him and his team on a number of topics,” Johnson told The Hill as he left the US Capitol.

House majority leader Steve Scalise separately told reporters at the GOP leaders’ conference that Johnson is at the White House to discuss the path to reauthorizing the powerful surveillance program.

“It’s too critical for our national security that that program not go dark on Friday night,” Scalise said, adding that criticisms of Pulte should play out during the confirmation process, otherwise: “You’re really going to jeopardize the security of America over a personality issue.”

Trump’s appointment of Pulte, a close ally with no intelligence experience, to the role of DNI set off alarm bells in Washington last week, including from Republicans. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, told reporters that “we don’t need a weaponized” national intelligence director and Pulte would have “a lengthy road ahead of him” if he were nominated to take the post on a permanent basis.

Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime executive assistant, is testifying today before the House oversight and reform committee as lawmakers on the panel continue their investigation into the late convicted sex offender.

Groff worked for Epstein for almost 20 years, beginning in 2001 and ending in July 2019 when he was arrested.

Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House committee, told Good Morning America this week that Groff is “really central to Epstein’s organization, we want to know what she saw”.

“We have a lot of questions,” Garcia added.

Notes from a 2021 FBI interview with Groff, which was included in the millions of documents related to Epstein released by the Department of Justice earlier this year, state that she told agents that she began working for Epstein after she was contacted by a headhunter, who found her résumé and told her that there “was a job to organize one man’s life”.

The man turned out to be Epstein, and Groff told agents that she had not previously heard of him. She said that she interviewed with several people for the position, including Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. According to the FBI document, Groff said that she signed a non-disclosure agreement.

The document states that Groff told agents her responsibilities included scheduling meetings, making phone calls, coordinating with Epstein’s driver and chef and other people, and managing much of his daily schedule and appointments.

According to the FBI notes, Groff told investigators that “from the beginning, massage was a part of Epstein’s day; they were normal appointments” .

“Groff’s job was to make appointments” the FBI notes say. “To Groff, making massage appointments was just another appointment she had to make for Epstein,” adding that Epstein would call Groff “in the morning and say something like, ‘Call and see if she can do a massage at 4.’”

Representative Yassamin Ansari, another Democrat on the committee, told CNN this week ahead of her testimony that Groff “managed every aspect of Jeffrey’s life for around 18 years” and noted that Groff was mentioned in the Epstein files “more than pretty much anybody else”.

“And she was the one setting up appointments with all of these girls to provide massages to Jeffrey Epstein,” Ansari said. “I wanna know everything that she has to share.”

In recent years, Groff has faced public scrutiny after it emerged that she was among four women identified as possible “co-conspirators” and granted immunity from prosecution under Epstein’s controversial 2007 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. Groff, through lawyers, has always maintained that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and that she never engaged in any misconduct. No criminal charges have ever been brought against her.

When asked last month about Groff’s knowledge of details surrounding Epstein’s 2008 conviction, her attorney Michael Bachner told the Guardian that “after Epstein’s arrest in 2008, he continuously lied to Lesley and other members of the staff, insisting that he had been blackmailed and set up.”

Bachner added that Epstein “angrily said that the allegations against him were simply false, and he had no idea that the ‘prostitute’ he had contact with was a minor”, adding that “in Lesley’s mind, that was the reason that he was treated so leniently by law enforcement before and after he was sentenced.”

Here’s Anna’s full report:

Speaking of JD Vance, the vice-president is pressing federal prosecutors to investigate Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz and state attorney general Keith Ellison over allegations that they failed to stop widespread social services fraud, amplifying concerns that the White House will use a new DOJ division to target political rivals.

Vance, who has been tapped to lead the Trump administration’s anti-fraud efforts, cited a letter to the justice department a report from the Republican-led House oversight committee that alleges Walz and Ellison were aware of, failed to prevent, and enabled pervasive misuse of government programs for years.

In his referral, Vance wrote that officials in Minnesota or anywhere else in the country “must be held accountable” if they facilitated fraud, prevented officials from stopping it or retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to report it.

“Minnesota state officials are not above the law,” Vance wrote in a post on X.

Democratic Minnesota officials have characterized a separate DOJ investigation involving state leaders as politically motivated.

A spokesperson for Walz didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Associated Press seeking comment.

Ellison called the allegations unfounded and said there’s no evidence his office ignored wrongdoing or failed to act as required by law. He dismissed Vance’s referral as “a political stunt from an administration that uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests”.

It is deeply troubling to see official powers and public resources diverted away from serving the people and instead aimed at pursuing political adversaries. That is not what government is for, and it diminishes public trust in our institutions.

Vance’s referral to the justice department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division marks an escalation in the Trump administration’s stated “war on fraud” in government programs that officials have said would not be political or partisan.

The new division has drawn intense scrutiny over the potential for political influence given its close relationship with the White House, which announced its formation in January and initially said its leader would answer directly to the president instead of the typical DOJ command.

With the Associated Press.