Category Archives: Republicans

Republicans complain to Canada over wildfire smoke despite supporting planet-heating bill

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Lawmakers send letter railing against ‘suffocating’ smoke days after voting for Trump plan likely to boost pollution

A group of Republican lawmakers has complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.

In a letter sent to Canada’s ambassador to the US, six Republican members of Congress wrote that wildfire smoke from Canada had been an issue for several years and recently their voters “have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer”.

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David Gergen, ex-adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents, dies aged 83

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Serving Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, Gergen was a speechwriter and communications director

David Gergen, a veteran of Washington politics and an adviser to four presidents, Republican and Democrat, in a career spanning decades in government, academia and media, has died. He was 83.

Gergen was perhaps best known for a line he summoned for then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan for a TV debate with Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

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US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings

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Justices lift lower court order that froze ‘reductions in force’ federal layoffs while litigation in case proceeded

The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.

Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.

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‘A dark day for our country’: Democrats furious over Trump bill’s passage

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned bill’s expansion of immigration enforcement and cuts to social benefits

Democrats have erupted in a storm of outrage over the passage of Donald Trump’s budget bill, delivering scathing critiques that offered signs of the attack lines the party could wield against Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.

Party leaders released a wave of statements after the sweeping tax and spending bill’s passage on Thursday, revealing a fury that could peel paint off a brick outhouse.

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Trump’s big bill achieved what conservatives have been trying to do for decades

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The Republican fantasy of lower taxes and hard-to-access social safety net programs will now be a reality

For decades, Republicans have argued that the US would be better off if taxes were low, and programs to help low-income Americans were harder to access. With Donald Trump’s marquee tax and spending bill now set to become law, the country will find out what it’s like to live under that sort of system.

The massive legislation that Trump plans to sign Friday will make his campaign promises a reality by extending tax cuts enacted during his first term, and creating new deductions aimed at the working-class voters who backed his re-election.

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Twisted arms and late-night deals: how Trump’s sweeping policy bill was passed

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With narrow majorities and intra-party splits, Republicans faced a battle to give Trump his bill to sign – but they did it

Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump’s landmark legislation.

On Thursday, the president’s commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

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Pentagon reviews arms exports to allies as munition stockpiles reportedly drop

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Spokesperson Sean Parnell confirms defence department reviewing shipments may not affect only Ukraine

The Pentagon has said that it is reviewing weapons deliveries to allies around the world as reports grow of concerns over dwindling stockpiles of crucial munitions including anti-air missiles.

The announcement came after the White House confirmed that it was limiting deliveries of weapons to Ukraine to “put America’s interests first following a Department of Defense review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries around the globe”.

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Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill’ and cranks up pressure on Republicans

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President calls for passage of signature tax bill but it’s not yet clear whether Senate Republicans have sufficient votes

Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.

The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.

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Usha Vance: husband’s pick as Trump running mate came ‘like a bolt of lightning’

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Second lady says on Meghan McCain podcast she is ‘not plotting next steps’ and is just ‘along for the ride’

Usha Vance learned her husband, JD, had been selected to be Donald Trump’s running mate “maybe five minutes” before the news was made public – and just about an hour before he was formally nominated.

“It really was like a bolt of lightning,” Vance said during an interview on Meghan McCain’s podcast, Citizen McCain. Nearly a year later, seated in the Naval Observatory, Vance reflected on how radically her life has changed – “people call you ma’am. No one’s ever called me ma’am before this.”

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Republican representative’s ectopic pregnancy clashes with Florida abortion law

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Kat Cammack blames left’s fearmongering after medical staff hesitated to give her drugs needed to end pregnancy

A Florida Republican congresswoman is blaming fearmongering on the left for the reluctance of hospital staff to give her the drugs she needed to end an ectopic pregnancy that threatened her life.

Kat Cammack went to the emergency room in May 2024 where it was estimated she was five weeks into an ectopic pregnancy, there was no heartbeat and her life was at risk. Doctors determined she needed a shot of methotrexate to help expel her pregnancy but since Florida’s six week abortion ban had just taken effect medical staff were worried about losing their licenses or going to jail if they did.

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Florida Republicans racially gerrymandered two state senate districts, court hears

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GOP officials had previously manipulated districts as well to wrest voting power from Black electorate

Republicans in Florida racially gerrymandered two key state senate districts to disenfranchise Black voters and skew results in the Tampa Bay area, a panel of judges has heard.

In one district, they took a small chunk of St Petersburg heavy with minority voters and added it to an area of Tampa in a different county, and across a 10-mile waterway, leaving the remainder of its electorate “artificially white”, the court was told.

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Cheering support and instant condemnation: US lawmakers respond to attack on Iran

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Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders denounced the decision to launch attack, while most Republicans praised the action

American politicians reacted to the news of the US bombing of nuclear targets in Iran with a mix of cheering support and instant condemnation, reflecting deep divisions in the country that cross party lines as Washington grapples with yet another military intervention overseas.

Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that the US had completed strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort this month to destroy the country’s nuclear program.

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New Texas law requires Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms

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Governor Greg Abott signs bill into law but challenge expected from critics who consider it unconstitutional

Texas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new law that will make the state the nation’s largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.

The bill, which was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, is expected to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

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Women more worried about economy under Trump than men, poll finds

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Exclusive: poll shows 62% of women and 47% of men across political spectrum say economy and inflation getting worse

Women across the political spectrum are more concerned about the state of the US economy and inflation under Donald Trump than men are, according to a new exclusive poll for the Guardian.

More Democrats than Republicans are now concerned about the economy following the president’s return to power. But pessimism was higher for women even among Republicans and independents, according to a new Harris poll.

More women said they are very worried about food prices (52% of women compared to 39% of men)

More women said they’re spending more time trying to find deals or go to more affordable stores (36% versus 26%)

More women said their financial security is getting worse because of their difficulty in affording essential goods and services (55% versus 46%)

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‘Not our war’: bipartisan US lawmakers back resolution to block involvement in Iran

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Republican Thomas Massie joins with Democrats in effort to require Congress approval before Trump attacks Iran

As Donald Trump publicly threatens to join Israel in attacking Iran, an unlikely coalition of lawmakers has moved to prevent the president from involving US forces in the conflict without Congress’s approval.

On Tuesday, Republican congressman Thomas Massie, whose libertarian-tinged politics have often put him at odds with Trump, joined with several progressive Democrats to introduce in the House of Representatives a war powers resolution that would require a vote by Congress before Trump could attack Iran. Democrat Tim Kaine has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

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Trump ally Ric Grenell says he’d ‘look at’ California bid if Kamala Harris runs

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Kennedy Center interim director says he would have consider running for California governor if Harris opts in

Donald Trump loyalist Ric Grenell says he would “have to” strongly consider running for California governor in 2026 if former vice-president Kamala Harris signs up to campaign for the position.

Grenell – a foreign policy adviser to the president and the interim director of Washington DC’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – made the remark during an interview airing Sunday on the Politico podcast The Conversation with Dasha Burns.

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Trump warns Musk of ‘very serious consequences’ if he backs Democrats

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US president says he’s ‘too busy doing other things’ to try to reconcile with erstwhile ally and campaign backer

Donald Trump warned Elon Musk on Saturday that he faces “very serious consequences” if he funds Democratic candidates following the pair’s epic public bust-up this week.

The warning, delivered in an interview with NBC News scheduled to broadcast on Sunday, follows days of feuding and threats after Musk called Republicans’ budget legislation an “abomination”.

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Eyes on Senate Republicans as Trump and Musk feud over tax and spend bill

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Lawmakers still weighing whether to pass ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ at root of rift between US president and tech boss

As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill”.

It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.

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Top Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending bill if national debt is not reduced

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Prominent US senators warn Trump to ‘get serious’ about addressing budget deficit or they will block ‘beautiful bill’

Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.

Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”

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Rubio clashes with Democrats over decision to admit white South Africans

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Tim Kaine condemns secretary of state for admitting Afrikaners while cancelling refugee schemes for others

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has defended the Trump administration’s controversial decision to admit 59 Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees after Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia, claimed they were getting preferential treatment because they were white.

Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, challenged Rubio to justify prioritising the Afrikaners while cancelling long-standing refugee programmes for other groups that have been more documented as victims of conflict or persecution.

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