Washington Examiner

Trump public health nominees advance in Senate despite Democratic opposition over vaccines

1 hour agoCenter Right

The Senate health committee greenlit two of President Donald Trump’s top public health nominees after scrambling last week to garner enough support for them because of doubts about their willingness to promote vaccines. Dr. Erica Schwartz, Trump’s nominee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with Sean Kaufman, the nominee for a pandemic […]

Read Full Story at Source

Compare Perspectives

Found 8 stories

Trump folds on Blanche as GOP senators hand him devastating defeat

Raw Story

46 minutes ago

Trump folds on Blanche as GOP senators hand him devastating defeat

President Donald Trump conceded Thursday he may pull his own attorney general nominee rather than give two outgoing Republican senators what they are demanding.Trump made the admission on Truth Social after the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination Wednesday night. The vote was canceled when it became clear two Republicans would block it.Those two senators — Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — are leaving Congress at the end of the year. "Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time.""I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office," Trump wrote.Trump also attacked both senators directly, calling them men "whose political careers have been ended by my action" — a reference to his decision not to endorse them. He added that "both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland," invoking former Attorney General Merrick Garland, a name Republicans cite as a symbol of Democratic overreach.On Capitol Hill Thursday morning, Cornyn told reporters the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Asked whether Blanche could be confirmed before the August recess, he said the odds were against it."It's looking doubtful," Cornyn told reporters, according to NBC News congressional reporter Laura Weiss.Cornyn said talks with Blanche had been "very constructive" and that he believed a deal was close Tuesday night. But by Thursday morning, something had shifted."Other people intervening," he said. He told NBC News congressional correspondent Julie Tsirkin he did not know whether the president himself was standing in the way.At the heart of the standoff is a settlement Trump's Department of Justice reached with the Internal Revenue Service. The deal granted Trump and his family immunity from tax audits and created a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who said they had been targeted by the government for political reasons.The fund was later abandoned, but Cornyn wants that abandonment in writing — and wants the audit immunity narrowed so it does not cover future tax filings, according to MS NOW."All I want them to do is to confirm what he said in his sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee, with regard not only to the weaponization fund, but also who is protected from future audits and what agencies of the federal government are bound by the release," Cornyn told reporters, according to CBS News.The Department of Justice, Cornyn said, had not delivered. "They've simply refused to cooperate," he said, according to The Hill.As of Thursday morning, Cornyn said he was waiting on a DOJ response to his latest offer and had no meetings or calls scheduled with the White House or the Department of Justice.

Far Left

Read →

'Tough position': Todd Blanche gets stark warning as he ponders Trump betrayal

Raw Story

53 minutes ago

'Tough position': Todd Blanche gets stark warning as he ponders Trump betrayal

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will have to betray President Donald Trump if he has any hope of getting a positive Senate confirmation vote before the chamber adjourns, a new political analysis contends. Senate Republicans' mounting resistance to Trump's demands has only shortened the odds of Blanche's confirmation making it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, MS NOW host Ali Vitali argued Thursday. Blanche must also face non-committee Republicans who have expressed doubts about the president’s former personal attorney. This mounting pushback has caught Blanche in a trap, Vitali said. "In order to get this job, he was going to have to make agreements that put him crosswise with the person who wanted him to have this job in the first place," she said. "Donald Trump. Now we are watching the paradox."“It's going to be interesting to see the way that Blanche actually gets himself out of this, " Vitali said. "I do believe that to get himself out of committee is to be the thing that puts himself in a tough position with Trump, and we know how long people last when that's the case.” - YouTube youtu.be

Far Left

Read →

Trump’s pick for US attorney general Todd Blanche in jeopardy as vote postponed

US news | The Guardian

1 hour ago

Trump’s pick for US attorney general Todd Blanche in jeopardy as vote postponed

Republican John Cornyn says he will not back nomination without written confirmation $1.8bn slush fund is deadTodd Blanche’s hopes of becoming US attorney general seemed to be in jeopardy on Wednesday after the Department of Justice did not provide written assurances to a key Republican senator that a $1.8bn slush fund was dead.The US Senate judiciary committee postponed a vote scheduled for Thursday on whether to advance Blanche’s nomination. Continue reading...

Center Left

Read →

Bank of England holds interest rates despite Iran war inflation threat - as it happened

US news | The Guardian

1 hour ago

Bank of England holds interest rates despite Iran war inflation threat - as it happened

Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as three members of monetary policy committee vote to raise ratesThat German GDP reading has indeed contributed to the wider eurozone hitting expectations – and then some.The eurozone economy grew by 0.4% in the second quarter of 2026, according to the preliminary reading from Eurostat – defying the gloom caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Continue reading...

Center Left

Read →

Rebellion against 'oblivious' Trump tanks Dow in worst day of the year

Alternet.org

1 hour ago

Rebellion against 'oblivious' Trump tanks Dow in worst day of the year

Many critics anticipated that when President Donald Trump appointed Kevin Warsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he was getting a hack who would follow Trump’s order to cut rates regardless of the explosive consequences.On Wednesday, that’s not what happened — and Trump is likely stewing.“[Warsh’s] hard line on inflation must have … surprised Warsh’s patron, President Trump,” argued American Prospect co-founder Robert Kuttner.The Federal Reserve refused to lower interest rates from its current target range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent for short-term rates. Worse for Trump, the vote of the whole fed was 9-to-3, with three regional bank presidents voting to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point. Kuttner said this was the first time since 2016 that three officials dissented in the same direction.“The split vote signals that the Fed, despite President Trump’s wishes for a rate cut, is likely to vote for a rate hike between now and the November midterms. That’s because several factors, some of them of Trump’s own making, are increasing inflation, including the Iran war and retail price increases resulting from Trump’s tariffs,” said Kuttner.The decision to keep rates steady “tanked the Dow,” according to CNN anchor Kasie Hunt, delivering “the worst trading day for more than year.”But if Trump is stomping around the White House right now he only has himself to blame, said Kuttner.“Our impulsive and oblivious president is not good at connecting dots. One set of Trump policies raises inflation, while Trump pressures the Fed to ignore the problem and cut interest rates,” said Kuttner. “In his report to Congress on July 15, Kevin Warsh … surprised many observers by ignoring the Fed’s ‘dual mandate’ to pursue both price stability and high employment. In fact, Warsh had said, “The members of our [Federal Open Market] Committee have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation. And we share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”Plus, Kuttner said Warsh made no mention at all of employment, implying Trump should have seen this coming.“Bonds are under pressure because of the massive increases in the federal debt under Trump, compounded by a lot of borrowing for the AI bubble and data center build-out. In many respects, these signals are a more important factor in Fed thinking than the month-to-month inflation rate,” Kuttner said. Worse for Trump, there are two more meetings of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee between now and November, when Trump’s voters are likely to show Trump how unhappy they are with his economy. And the challenge facing the Fed is that the widely expected rate hike won’t even be able to act fast enough to fix what’s broken about Trump’s economy.“And since the inflation is not the result of overheated demand but of the impact of the Iran war and Trump’s tariffs, higher rates will not moderate these prices,” said Kuttner. “But leaving rates alone would signal an indulgence of inflation that Warsh and his colleagues want to avoid.”

Left

Read →

Trump Silent as Iran War Delivers Brutal News on Economy

The New Republic

1 hour ago

Trump Silent as Iran War Delivers Brutal News on Economy

U.S. economic growth dropped to 1.5 percent in the second quarter, down from a 2.1 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. Economists were expecting a GDP growth rate of 1.8 percent, but thanks to President Trump’s Iran war, disastrous tariffs (including new tariffs levied on more than 50 countries last week), and cuts to government spending, we are, once again, not doing as well as Trump claims.“Americans are feeling gloomy: consumer confidence remains in the doldrums as households worry about rising costs,” The Economist reports. “Although annual inflation slowed to 3.5 percent in June from 4.2 percent in May, thanks largely to a temporary fall in petrol prices, renewed fighting has since pushed oil prices higher again.”Regular gasoline came in at an average of $4.22 a gallon in the second quarter, a dramatic increase from less than $3 a gallon before the U.S. and Israel began the war on Iran in February. Now that the shaky U.S.-Iran ceasefire is dead, Americans are bracing, once again, for painful prices at the gas pump. These latest figures reaffirm that the main concern right now for Americans is cost—of just about everything. Even Fox News recognizes that voters are unhappy with Trump’s economy and want “major change.” And by “major change,” we do not mean more tariffs. Plus, the Federal Reserve opted to hold interest rates steady for a fifth consecutive meeting on Wednesday. New Fed chairman Kevin Warsh acknowledged that there’s no quick fix to ease the cost of living, telling reporters there is no “magic wand” to bring prices down. In other words, Americans are getting the worst of both worlds: an economy that’s slowing down while prices keep climbing.But of course, in Trump’s own words, he “doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation” when making decisions about the war in Iran.

Left

Read →

Trump panics over E. Jean Carroll's 'irretrievable' plans for $5M payout

Raw Story

1 hour ago

Trump panics over E. Jean Carroll's 'irretrievable' plans for $5M payout

President Donald Trump took urgent court action this week against writer E. Jean Carroll, arguing that her use of a $5 million sexual abuse defamation payout would make the funds "irretrievable."A 2023 jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in 1996 and defaming her when she went public with the allegations, according to the AP.The jury awarded her $5 million. With interest, the total reached $5.8 million, according to court records. Carroll's attorneys said that she has invested the funds in a retirement account.According to court records, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump's appeal on June 29. Carroll collected the full amount by July 14."Defendant has lost before a jury, the district court, a unanimous Second Circuit panel, the full Second Circuit, en banc, and the Supreme Court of the United States," Carroll's lawyers wrote in a court filing.Carroll's lawyers noted it was Trump's seventh appeal across two related cases. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Trump "has been stalling this case for years."Trump asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its denial — a procedure that succeeds roughly 0.08% of the time, according to Carroll's filing. He also asked a federal appeals court to order Carroll to hand the money back.Her lawyers had previously told the court the money would go into a plain interest-bearing account — but Carroll put it somewhere else."Now that the funds have been released, they are investments for her retirement," Trump's lawyers wrote in a July 27 filing.Trump's lawyers called that a "bait-and-switch" — she had used the promise of a secure account to block an emergency court order, they argued, then moved the money into stock market investments once it was out of court control."That reversal is devastating to Plaintiff's opposition," Trump's lawyers wrote.The funds are now "subject to Plaintiff's whims," his lawyers argued, pointing to her "publicly announced plans to distribute money recovered from President Trump to third parties.""President Trump faces irreparable harm," his lawyers wrote, demanding Carroll return the money to the Court Registry Investment System — a secure court-controlled account where it had sat since 2023."This extraordinary request is procedurally improper, substantively meritless, and yet another example of Defendant's pattern of 'slow-roll[ing] his defenses, asserting or inventing a new one each time his prior effort to delay the case fails,'" Carroll's lawyers fired back.Trump's rehearing petition has since been distributed for Supreme Court conference. Carroll asked the appeals court to hold the return-the-money motion until the Supreme Court acts. Trump's lawyers said the court should rule now.

Far Left

Read →

Senate HELP Committee advances Trump’s CDC, ASPR, Labor secretary nominees

The Hill News

2 hours ago

Senate HELP Committee advances Trump’s CDC, ASPR, Labor secretary nominees

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on Thursday voted to advance President Trump’s nominees to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The committee voted 12-10 to move forward with Erica Schwartz’s nomination to serve as the next director of…

Center

Read →

Trump public health nominees advance in Senate despite Democratic opposition over vaccines

Summary

Related Coverage

Daily Analysis

More Headlines From July 30, 2026

Trump public health nominees advance in Senate despite Democratic opposition over vaccines

Compare Perspectives