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Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination stalls over Trump IRS lawsuit
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Todd Blanche’s nomination to become attorney-general stalled last night as lawmakers scrapped a planned committee vote.
Key Republicans, senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, had demanded further assurances about the settlement of president Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Cornyn and Tillis have demanded additional assurances in writing that the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is dead and have pressed for clarification on the scope of the tax immunity deal.
Cornyn has said he wants the administration to modify that piece of the settlement to make clear that it covers only existing audits and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings.
Cornyn, who recently lost the Republican primary in Texas, accused the justice department earlier on Wednesday of “stonewalling” and said “the ball is in Blanche’s court.”
“We’re been trying to help them get to a conclusion here and they won’t let us. It’s befuddling to me,” Cornyn told reporters.
“Chairman [Chuck] Grassley works to set president Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators [John] Cornyn and [Thom] Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” a committee spokesperson said in a Wednesday statement.
“Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report Attorney General-nominee Todd Blanche, who is highly qualified for the job.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Barack Obama, the former president who installed basketball hoop on the White House tennis court, endorsed the US Senate campaign of Iowa Democrat Josh Turek, a state lawmaker who played wheelchair basketball in four Paralympic Games, winning two gold medals, in a new ad filmed as the two shot hoops.
The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution declaring its opposition to any presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Maga congresswoman, announced on Wednesday that she was married on Tuesday in Las Vegas to another recent exile from Trump’s good graces, Brian Glenn, the self-described “Maga mouthpiece” who quit his job as White House correspondent for the far-right network Real America’s Voice after his fiancee was cast out by the president for supporting the release of the Epstein files and criticizing his bombing of Iran in 2025.
Lawyers for former FBI director James Comey have alleged that US Secret Service agents illegally surveilled him, Trump requested regular updates into the investigation, and law enforcement turned to ChatGPT and a known mafia killer as they scrambled to find justification for criminally charging Comey for posting a picture of seashells that spelled out “8647”.
Key events
Senate panel advances nomination of Trump’s pick for CDC director
The Senate health committee has voted to advance the nomination of Donald Trump’s pick for CDC director, career civil servant Erica Schwartz, bringing her closer to confirmation by the whole Senate.
Schwartz’s resume includes medical and law degrees, a stint as deputy surgeon general, and a leadership position at the US Coast Guard. Her nomination now goes to the Senate for a floor vote. If confirmed, Schwartz will lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s top public health agency, which is still reeling from months of leadership turmoil.
The advancement comes after Schwartz secured a key vote from Bill Cassidy, who said this morning he was confident that she would defend science. He had previously expressed concern over whether she would challenge her potential future boss, RFK Jr, like her predecessor did, if he proposed taking actions at odds with scientific evidence and good public health practice.
At her hearing earlier this month, Schwartz pledged to “never betray the science”, but also repeatedly declined to dissent from some of the actions Kennedy has taken.
Nonetheless, she also secured a vote from Tim Kaine – the only Democrat who voted in support – who said earlier this week he would vote for her as the US tackles measles and other public health crises. Kaine has also previously apologized to former CDC director Susan Monarez for opposing her nomination, after she was ousted by the White House after refusing to go along with Kennedy’s sweeping changes to US vaccine policy, including the childhood vaccine schedule.
Also this morning, the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee voted to advance the nomination of Sean Kaufman, Trump’s pick for assistant secretary for preparedness and response.
US economy grows sluggish 1.5% in second quarter as inflation tops Fed target
Gaya Gupta
The US economy expanded at a sluggish 1.5% pace from April through June as rising imports weighed on growth. But consumer spending rose. And the Federal Reserve’s favored measure of inflation grew more slowly last month despite remaining above the central bank’s 2% target.
The commerce department reported today that growth in US gross domestic product (GDP) – the nation’s output of goods and services – decelerated from 2.1% in the first three months of 2026 and came in below economists’ expectations.
The commerce department also said that its personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the measure of inflation favored by the Fed, rose 3.7% last month from June 2025, down from a 4.1% year-over-year increase in May. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core consumer prices were up 3.3% from a year earlier, little changed from a 3.4% increase in May.
The latest data paints a clearer picture of the effects the war in the Middle East has had on the economy after increasing energy prices and pushing inflation higher. The first GDP reading of this year captured the effects of just a month of war, but indicated that consumer spending was starting to slow as prices started to creep up.
Oil prices have come down from their wartime high, and took a sharp downturn when the US and Iran announced a peace deal. But when that deal collapsed and the two countries began trading strikes again, oil prices climbed and still remain much higher than prewar levels.
The pressure is growing within the Fed to raise interest rates in order to combat heightened inflation, which Kevin Warsh, the central bank’s chair, has acknowledged has remained too high for years. Though the Fed yessterday chose to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged for the fifth straight meeting, three regional Fed presidents dissented, saying they wanted to raise rates to combat elevated inflation. It was the first time in a decade so many Fed officials had dissented in the same direction over a policy vote.
US unleashes ‘heavy wave’ of strikes on Iran overnight as peace efforts under threat
William Christou
The US military struck dozens of targets in Iran overnight in retaliation for Tehran’s attack on US forces in Jordan yesterday, sparking a further Iranian response and threatening prospects for negotiations to achieve a permanent peace.
The strikes – the first in more than five days – were launched hours after Donald Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard” following Tehran’s targeting of a base in Jordan that hosts American troops. The latest attacks come after a days-long pause in violence between the two sides.
US Central Command said it hit dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran, including military command centres, as well as missile and drone facilities, in a two-hour wave of strikes.
Iranian state media said three people – reportedly a couple and child – were injured in attacks on the island of Qeshm in the strait of Hormuz and that explosions were also reported in Khuzestan province to the north-west.
Jordan reported incoming missiles for the second day in a row, while Kuwait accused Iran of carrying out a strike that hit a building, killing one person. Both strikes are believed to have been part of an Iranian retaliation against the US attacks.
Mediators insisted talks were continuing despite the renewed exchange of strikes, with the Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi saying the key mediator was doing its “utmost to bring all parties back” to the negotiating table.
The renewed strikes came after the US partnered with Saudi Arabia to strike Iran-backed militias in neighbouring Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. The attacks reignited the armed conflict between Iran and the US and poured water on hopes that diplomacy would be given space to breathe.
Elsewhere, drone strikes led to fires on two natural gas vessels at the Egyptian gas import hub at the port of Damietta, according to the British maritime security firm Ambrey. The Egyptian government confirmed that a drone attack ignited the blaze, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes on a US-owned floating storage facility and a Greek-owned tanker. No injuries were reported and the port remained operational.
It was the first time Egypt had been attacked since the Iran war started in late February and signalled a potential widening of the conflict.
Analysts said the flare-ups on multiple fronts after several days of relative calm pushed the region into “uncharted territory”. They also underscored the difficulty of winding down a five-month conflict that has jolted the world economy and which remains unpopular among Americans.
The fighting was also likely to add to concerns that the US is further drawing down its already diminished stockpiles of sophisticated munitions needed to defend its bases and allies.
National polls reveal attitudes of US voters
Several new national polls came out this morning or offered more in-depth details on results, with surveys of voter attitudes on the midterms, Trump, democratic socialism and election integrity.
Here’s a roundup of what’s new:
A new CNN poll showed Democrats leading Republicans by 8 points in a generic ballot and a large advantage in voter enthusiasm for Democrats heading into the midterms. And a majority of those polls also agreed that Congress would be better off if most current members were unseated this year, which CNN noted was “higher by double digits than the share who felt that way ahead of the Democratic wave election in the midst of the Iraq War in 2006”.
Washington Post/Ipsos poll from earlier this month, written up today by the outlet, showed that three in four Democrats would consider supporting a democratic socialist for president, though that number dips to less than half when looking at all Americans.
A Gallup poll shows that Americans across the political spectrum are concerned about pressure on election officials to change results, which comes amid rising political pressure from the Trump administration on election denialism
The attempt to dilute Black voters’ power by Republicans after the US supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act is driving Black voters to the polls in larger numbers, a new analysis found.
VoteHub, a data-focused election group, found that Black voters shifted left in partisan turnout in all but one of the 78 Black belt counties it tracked when compared to 2024 turnout. Alabama and South Carolina saw the strongest shifts.
Read more on the survey from Adria Walker:
A new poll out this morning shows Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate for in the Democratic primary for US senate in Michigan, with a sizable lead over US representative Haley Stevens, the moderate in the race.
A poll from Emerson College, a nonpartisan outfit with no ties to either campaign, found 54% intended to vote for El-Sayed compared to 39% for Stevens. Of the 6% still undecided, more were leaning toward El-Sayed.
“There is a clear age divide in the Democratic Primary: voters under 50 break for El-Sayed by 42 percentage points, 67% to 25%, and that gap tightens among voters in their 50s to a 12-point lead, and voters over 60 flip to Stevens by a 14-point margin, 53% to 39%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
El-Sayed has a large edge with independents by a 27-point margin in this open-primary state, and Democrats are siding with him by a 9-point margin.
The survey of 700 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted on 26-27 July and has a credibility interval of about 3.7%.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, commented on X about the Republicans scrapping the planned committee vote for Todd Blanche’s confirmation for attorney general.
The IRS “slush fund” – and whether it is actually not happening – is a reportedly a central issue for two Republicans who would be needed to confirm Blanche.
“Republicans just took down the Blanche vote for tomorrow,” Whitehouse wrote on X. “Shows how truthful Blanche was about the slush fund deal being dead, that he couldn’t even convince Republicans. He’s a slippery weasel, and that was a slippery deal.”
Adam Gabbatt
Gas prices are up almost a dollar a gallon since the day Donald Trump took office; mortgage rates just hit their highest level in nearly a year, and over the weekend a prominent economist said the Iran war is costing the average US household more than $1,200.
Americans are struggling through a deepening affordability crisis caused largely by Trump’s ill-fated war against Iran. They are in need of a boost, something to lift the spirits. Perhaps the president could give a speech, letting the people know that we are all in this together.
Or, he could give a speech announcing that the White House has just ordered 250 brand new Cadillac Escalades, giant SUVs which have a suggested retail price of more than $90,000 each and cost significantly more to customize for secure uses.
“We ordered 250 Escalades. That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades, you know,” Trump said during a rambling, hour-long address at a General Motors facility in Michigan.
“We look sharp in those Escalades. Our guys are very spoiled. They’re very spoiled. They like the Escalade. So do I.”
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva confirmed his government had denied visas to two US officials who planned to travel to the country, accusing them of seeking to interfere in October’s general election.
“This week we had to deny visas to two young folks they were sending to Brazil to meddle in Brazil’s elections,” Lula said at an event late on Wednesday.
Reuters reported last week, citing two Brazilian officials, that visa requests for the two officials in US president Donald Trump’s administration had been rejected because they planned to cast doubt on the integrity of Brazil’s electoral system.
A US State Department spokesperson at the time rejected any suggestion of a “ploy” to undermine Brazil’s elections, calling the claims “baseless” and describing the visit as routine and consistent with the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s statutory mandate.
Most Americans say Iran war isn’t worthwhile and Trump’s approval rating slips, new poll finds
Most Americans say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting and president Donald Trump’s approval rating on Iran has fallen slightly since last month, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
The results are a stark repudiation of Trump’s approach to the conflict, which has dragged on far longer than he originally predicted.
About two-thirds of US adults say the war with Iran has not been worthwhile, according to the new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents, as well as about 37% of Republicans.
The poll was conducted 23-27 July, as the US and Iran paused attacks following a nearly two-week escalation in the war.
During the escalation, the US targeted Iranian military and commercial sites while Iran attacked US military facilities in the Middle East, resulting in additional deaths of American service members.
Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination stalls over Trump IRS lawsuit
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Todd Blanche’s nomination to become attorney-general stalled last night as lawmakers scrapped a planned committee vote.
Key Republicans, senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, had demanded further assurances about the settlement of president Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Cornyn and Tillis have demanded additional assurances in writing that the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ is dead and have pressed for clarification on the scope of the tax immunity deal.
Cornyn has said he wants the administration to modify that piece of the settlement to make clear that it covers only existing audits and does not protect the president from examination of future tax filings.
Cornyn, who recently lost the Republican primary in Texas, accused the justice department earlier on Wednesday of “stonewalling” and said “the ball is in Blanche’s court.”
“We’re been trying to help them get to a conclusion here and they won’t let us. It’s befuddling to me,” Cornyn told reporters.
“Chairman [Chuck] Grassley works to set president Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators [John] Cornyn and [Thom] Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” a committee spokesperson said in a Wednesday statement.
“Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report Attorney General-nominee Todd Blanche, who is highly qualified for the job.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Barack Obama, the former president who installed basketball hoop on the White House tennis court, endorsed the US Senate campaign of Iowa Democrat Josh Turek, a state lawmaker who played wheelchair basketball in four Paralympic Games, winning two gold medals, in a new ad filmed as the two shot hoops.
The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution declaring its opposition to any presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Maga congresswoman, announced on Wednesday that she was married on Tuesday in Las Vegas to another recent exile from Trump’s good graces, Brian Glenn, the self-described “Maga mouthpiece” who quit his job as White House correspondent for the far-right network Real America’s Voice after his fiancee was cast out by the president for supporting the release of the Epstein files and criticizing his bombing of Iran in 2025.
Lawyers for former FBI director James Comey have alleged that US Secret Service agents illegally surveilled him, Trump requested regular updates into the investigation, and law enforcement turned to ChatGPT and a known mafia killer as they scrambled to find justification for criminally charging Comey for posting a picture of seashells that spelled out “8647”.
