Trump suggests Epstein ‘stole’ Virginia Giuffre among young female staff he hired away from Mar-a-Lago – as it happened

This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. We will be back at it on Wednesday. In the meantime, here are the latest developments:

• Donald Trump ended a visit to his golf resorts in Scotland, where he once again repeated his bizarre boast that he “predicted” the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum during a visit to the courses that summer which, in fact, began the day after the vote

• Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he broke with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he socialized with for more than a decade, after he “stole” young, female spa attendants away from Mar-a-Lago, including Virginia Giuffre, who became one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers.

• A Republican-led congressional committee rejected the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s demand that she be granted immunity before agreeing to testify about Epstein to Congress.

• Trump expressed sympathy for ‘kids that are starving’ in Gaza, but repeated the debunked Israeli talking point that Hamas is to stealing aid, and endorsed the chaotic system of aid distribution run by Israel with US support that has cost 1,000 Palestinians their lives.

• The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Emil Bove, a former defense attorney for Trump to a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, despite claims by whistleblowers that he advocated for ignoring court orders.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Emil Bove, a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump, to a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, despite claims by whistleblowers that he advocated for ignoring court orders.

The vote broke nearly along party lines, with 50 Republican senators voting for his confirmation to a seat on the third circuit court of appeals overseeing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the US Virgin Islands.

All Democrats opposed his nomination along with Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty missed the vote.

Bove’s nomination for the lifetime position has faced strident opposition from Democrats, after Erez Reuveni, a former justice department official who was fired from his post, alleged that during his time at the justice department, Bove told lawyers that they “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order” blocking efforts to remove immigrants to El Salvador. In testimony before the committee last month, Bove denied the accusation, and Reuveni later provided text messages that supported his claim.

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has privately discussed the idea of resigning so he can run for governor next year in Tennessee, NBC News reports, citing “two people who have spoken directly with him about it.”

The people who have spoken with Hegseth said he has specifically mentioned a possible campaign for governor in Tennessee, where he lives. The state has an open race for governor next year, though there are eligibility requirements for candidates that Hegseth might not meet.

Ultimately, both sources said, it was unclear after their conversations with Hegseth whether he would take the leap. But they both said he has contemplated it.

The network also reported a denial from Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman who said in a statement: “Fake news NBC is so desperate for attention, they are shopping around a made up story… again. Only two options exist: either the ‘sources’ are imaginary or these reporters are getting punked. Secretary Hegseth’s focus remains solely on serving under President Trump and advancing the America First mission at the Department of Defense.”

Donald Trump has arrived back in Washington after a long weekend at his golf resorts in Scotland and the White House has started to post selected clips from his remarks to reporters on Air Force One this afternoon.

In one clip posted on social media by an official White House account, Trump was asked about the images from Gaza of starving children.

“I think everybody — unless they’re pretty coldhearted or, worse than that, nuts — there’s nothing you can say other than ‘it’s terrible’ when you see… kids that are starving. And you see the mothers, they love them so much and there’s just nothing they seem to be able to do”, Trump said. “They got to get them food, and we’re going to get them food.”

Earlier in the informal news conference, however, Trump had suggested that the blame lies not with Israel, the occupying power that has cut off humanitarian aid deliveries to the besieged Palestinian territory for months, but Hamas.

“I think Israel wants to do it, actually”, Trump said to a reporter who asked if Israel could be relied on to provide aid to the starving population. “I can tell you that they want to do it. They don’t want Hamas stealing the money or stealing the food, and that’s what they’ve been doing.”

International aid groups have said for months that there is no evidence that Hamas is stealing aid intended for the civilian population of Gaza, and on Saturday, the New York Times reported that Israel’s military “never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations”.

Trump also told reporters that he was confident that Israel “can do a good job” of overseeing the distribution of food in the Gaza Strip. “They want to preside over the food centers to make sure the distribution is proper”, an apparent endorsement of the chaotic and deadly system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a collaboration between Israel’s military and US private contractors, which has led to the killing of more than 1,000 Palestinians since May.

Trump also told reporters that he has not yet given up on his scheme to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population, the majority of whom were previously displaced from what is now Israel. “It’s a concept that some people fell in love with and some people don’t. We really have to see how it all works out before we do that”, Trump said. “You could do something spectacular, but that’s a different concept. You could also probably do it if you let some, some are leaving automatically, some would like to leave, I think many would like to leave if they were given an alternative”.

“But certainly that was a concept that was really embraced by a lot of people”, the president claimed, “but also some people didn’t like it.”

A Republican-led congressional committee rejected the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s demand that she be granted immunity before agreeing to testify about the crimes of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Congress.

Maxwell, who was convicted in federal court in New York in 2021 of helping Epstein sexually abuse multiple minor girls over the course of a decade, is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida.

Amid the uproar over the Trump administration’s decision not to release documents from the federal investigation into Epstein, who socialized with Donald Trump for more than a decade, Maxwell was subpoenaed to testify privately to the House oversight committee.

The committee wants to depose Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, on 11 August 11 at the federal prison where she is being held in Tallahassee.

But Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, wrote to the committee’s chair, Republican congressman James Comer, that “Ms Maxwell cannot risk further criminal exposure in a politically charged environment without formal immunity”.

Comer’s spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement: “The oversight committee will respond to Ms Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony.”

Markus, who has suggested that Maxwell might ask Trump for a pardon, is also asking the supreme court to overturn Maxwell’s conviction, on the grounds that a non-prosecution agreement a federal prosecutor in Florida offered Epstein in 2008 should have barred the later prosecution of Maxwell in New York in 2020.

Her lawyer also told Comer that his client would only agree to testify if the deposition was conducted somewhere other than the prison and if she is provided with the committee’s questions in advance.

Congresswoman Summer Lee, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has been outspoken in her criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza, condemned the mistreatment of the American labor activist Chris Smalls by Israeli soldiers after they raided the Handala, an aid ship that attempted to reach Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

“Chris Smalls—a Black American labor leader—was trying to feed Palestinians being starved in Gaza. The IDF detained and beat him for it”, the progressive lawmaker commented on Instagram. “This assault must not go unnoticed and he must be freed immediately. Israel must be held to account. Let aid through. End the genocide.”

As our colleague Adria Walker reports, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a grassroots international collective that has worked to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2010, said Smalls “was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals” who “choked him and kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back”.

Read Adria’s report here:

Experts on Tuesday urged California governor Gavin Newsom to drop his “tit-for-tat redistricting” threat in response to a Republican plan to pick up congressional seats in Texas.

“You can’t fight gerrymandering with more gerrymandering,” Patricia Sinay, a commissioner for the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, said on a call organized by the watchdog group Common Cause. “It is a short sighted plan.”

California Democrats say they are prepared to redraw the state’s 52 congressional districts in a longshot and controversial effort to pick up Democratic seats.

Newsom, seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2028, has threatened to redraw the state’s 52 congressional districts – a longshot bid to offset Republican gains in Texas with Democratic gains in California.

Texas is considering mid-year redistricting at the urging of Donald Trump, who is angling to stave off losses in the Congressional midterm elections next year. Voter backlash at the polls could cost Republicans their House majority, and seriously blunt his agenda.

While some partisans are cheering the efforts – especially Democrats hungry to see their elected officials take a tough stand in political fights with Republicans – experts warn that it’s not the “port in the storm” they are seeking.

“Rolling back independent redistricting is bad policy. It’s also a waste of time,” said Emily Eby French, Texas policy director of Common Cause. “Come on down to Texas governor Newsom. We’ll show you how to fight the bad stuff without sacrificing the good stuff.”

Dan Vicuña, a senior policy director for voting and fair representation at Common Cause, said the group was ready to challenge any attempt by California – or any state – to override its independent redistricting commission.

“Although this is a very troubling and dangerous moment, one thing that’s useful is that it clarifies what this issue is about,” Vicuña said. “When we see politicians of both major parties willing to manipulate the process, manipulate voting districts, gerrymander at will, it’s a helpful reminder that this is, in fact, not a Democrat versus Republican issue. This is the politicians versus the people issue.”

Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he broke with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he socialized with for more than a decade, after he hired young, female spa attendants away from Mar-a-Lago, including Virginia Giuffre, who became one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers.

Trump was asked to elaborate on his claim, on Monday in Scotland, that he kicked Epstein out of his club “because he did something that was inappropriate”, specifically “he stole people that worked for me”. On the flight back to Washington from Scotland on Tuesday, one reporter asked Trump if “the workers that were taken from you, were some of them young women?” Trump replied: “The answer is yes; they were. People that worked in the spa”.

Another reporter then asked if Trump one of the people he was referring to was Giuffre, who said in a legal complaint that she was hired away from the Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16. Giuffre, who died this year, alleged in her complaint that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together, and then “lent out to other powerful men”, including Prince Andrew.

Trump replied: “I think so, I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her”.

Senior White House aides have repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that Trump broke with Epstein around 2004, and expelled him from the Mar-a-Lago club for inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature. The president’s account of the break being motivated by pique at having his employees poached by his friend cast the break in a different light.

His claim that one of those employees was the 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre also complicates the timeline. Giuffre was hired away from Mar-a-Lago in 2000, but two years later, Trump spoke highly of Epstein to a reporter, and made a point of his friend’s taste for young women. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy”, Trump told New York magazine in late 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter, also pointed out in her 2020 book on Mar-a-Lago that Epstein remained on the membership rolls of Mar-a-Lago until October 2007, more than a year after he was first arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution from a minor.

• As Israel’s war in Gaza nears its two-year mark, and as horrifying images of starving people and utter devastation flood social media, cracks seem to be emerging in the American right’s typically iron-clad support for Israel. Marjorie Taylor Greene became the first Republican member of Congress to call Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide, while Steve Bannon, Trump’s influential former adviser, told Politico: “It seems that for the under-30-year-old Maga base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu’s attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older Maga diehards. Now President Trump’s public repudiation of one of the central tenants of Bibi’s Gaza strategy – ‘starving’ Palestinians – will only hasten a collapse of support.”

• Indeed support for Israel’s military action in Gaza has declined substantially among US adults, with only about a third approving, according to a new Gallup poll, which also found that about half of US adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the most negative rating he has received.

• On Palestine, Trump said he and UK prime minister Keir Starmer did not discuss Britain’s plan to formally recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel holds to a ceasefire and commits to a two-state solution. “We never did discuss it,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One.

• Ghislaine Maxwell has offered to testify before Congress but has asked lawmakers to give her immunity, along with other major conditions, according to a list of demands sent to the House oversight committee by her attorneys, seen by CNN. If the demands cannot be met, her attorneys said: “Maxwell will have no choice but to invoke her fifth amendment rights” (the right to remain silent). An oversight committee spokesperson rejected the idea of giving Maxwell immunity, telling CNN: “The oversight committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony.”

• Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor earlier to call on the FBI to undertake a counterintelligence threat assessment of Donald Trump’s Epstein connections. He highlighted the need to examine whether foreign countries might have tried to access the Epstein files and possibly exploit the information as leverage over the president.

• New York governor Kathy Hochul called for Congress to pass a national assault weapons ban following yesterday’s shooting in Manhattan which killed four people (and the shooter, who killed himself). “New York has some of the strongest gun laws in the nation … But our laws only go so far when an AR-15 can be obtained in a state with weak gun laws and brought into New York to commit mass murder,” Hochul said.

• Police are investigating whether the gunman was targeting the National Football League. In a note, the suspect, who appeared to have driven from Las Vegas to New York City over three days, appeared to blame the NFL for a brain injury. He claimed he suffered from CTE – the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football – and said his brain should be studied after he died. A preliminary investigation found that he took the wrong elevator, ending up on the wrong floor when he opened fire in the 345 Park Avenue building, which houses the NFL headquarters.

• Trump said he would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia “ten days from today” if Moscow did not make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine. The US president, who first announced yesterday that he was cutting his initial 50-day deadline for action from Moscow, said he had not heard a response from Russia.

• Trump said the Wall Street Journal and its billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch want to settle the president’s defamation lawsuit against the newspaper. On 18 July, Trump promptly sued the WSJ and its owners, including Murdoch, over a story alleging that Trump’s name was on a “lewd” birthday message for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to shared secrets. “They want to settle it,” Trump said, adding, “when I get treated unfairly, I do things about it.” Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged letter “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm his reputation. In a court filing yesterday, Trump asked a US court to order a swift deposition for Murdoch.

• The Department of Justice asked several large California counties to provide detailed personal information of non-citizens who got on to the state voter rolls, the Guardian has learned, in an unusual request that comes as the Trump administration has asked about a dozen states to provide wide swaths of information about voters and election practices.

Support for Israel’s military action in Gaza has declined substantially among US adults, with only about a third approving, according to a new Gallup poll — a drop from the beginning of the war with Hamas, when about half of Americans approved of Israel’s operation.

The new polling also found that about half of US adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the most negative rating he has received since he was first included in Gallup polling in 1997. The poll was conducted from 7-21 July, while reports of starvation in Gaza led to international criticism of Israel’s decision to restrict food aid but before Donald Trump expressed concern over the worsening humanitarian situation.

The findings underscore the Israeli government’s dramatic loss of support within America. But not everyone is shifting — instead, the war has become more politically polarizing. The rising disapproval is driven by Democrats and independents, who are much less likely to approve of Israel’s actions than they were in November 2023, weeks after Hamas’ 7 October attacks.

Republicans, on the other hand, remain largely supportive of both Israel’s military actions and Netanyahu (though cracks are indeed emerging in the American right’s typically iron-clad support for the state of Israel).

The new poll finds that about 6 in 10 US adults disapprove of the military action Israel has taken in Gaza, up from 45% in November 2023.

Support for the war has been dwindling in Gallup’s polling for some time. In March 2024, about half of US adults disapproved of Israel’s military action in Gaza, which fell slightly as the year wore on.

In a new low, only 8% of Democrats and one-quarter of independents say they now approve of Israel’s military campaign.

Young adults are also much more likely to disapprove of Israel’s actions. Only about 1 in 10 adults under age 35 say they approve of Israel’s military choices in Gaza, compared with about half of those who are 55 or older.

Views of Netanyahu have also grown less favorable over the past few years, with more viewing him negatively than positively in measurements taken since the war in Gaza began.

About half of US adults, 52%, now have an unfavorable view of Netanyahu in the new poll, which overlapped with his recent visit to the US. Just 29% view him positively.

Republicans have a much more positive view of Netanyahu than Democrats and independents do. About two-thirds of Republicans view him favorably, which is in line with last year. About 1 in 10 Democrats and 2 in 10 independents feel the same way.

“This is the first time we’ve seen a majority of Americans, with an unfavorable view of him,” said Gallup senior editor Megan Brenan. “All of these questions in this poll show us basically the same story, and it’s not a good one for the Israeli government right now.”

As Senate Democrats plan to continue to keep up the pressure on the Trump administration over Jeffrey Epstein this week, minority leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor earlier to call on the FBI to undertake a counterintelligence threat assessment of Donald Trump’s Epstein connections.

Calling for a risk assessment to examine whether foreign countries might have tried to access the Epstein files and possibly exploit the information as leverage over Trump, Schumer said:

Americans are right to be angry over the lack of transparency. But this isn’t just about getting to the truth. This is also every bit about our national security.

Whatever may be in the Epstein files is clearly troubling enough that Donald Trump doesn’t want to touch this issue with a ten-foot pole.

So it’s natural to ask: what happens if America’s adversaries use cyber-attacks or other means to access investigative materials into Jeffrey Epstein that are embarrassing – or worse – for President Trump and the people around him?

What happens if Epstein materials end up in the hands of the Chinese government, or Russia, or North Korea?

Unless the Epstein files are released, and made fully transparent to the public, could our adversaries use that information to blackmail someone like the president? Or other senior leaders in government? What kind of risk could that pose to our national security?

He went on:

National security is not – and should never be – a partisan issue. We need to do everything we can to make sure we’re protecting the US and American families every single day. This report is imperative to do just that.

And there is one more thing Donald Trump could do to quell people’s anger, confusion, frustration and fears over the national security ramifications: stop running away from this issue. Tell the truth. And if there is clearly no national security risk, release the Epstein files, President Trump.

The Department of Justice has asked several large California counties to provide detailed personal information of non-citizens who got on to the state voter rolls, the Guardian has learned, in an unusual request that comes as the Trump administration has asked about a dozen states to provide wide swaths of information about voters and election practices.

The justice department’s voting section sent identical letters to local election officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego on 9 July. The request asks the officials to provide the total number of non-citizens who had their voter registrations cancelled since 2020 as well as a copy of their voter registration records, voting history, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of a social security number. The department sent a similar request to Orange county last month and then sued the county after officials redacted some information.

“It’s deeply troubling,” said David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “It reflects a pretty shocking misunderstanding of federal law regarding list maintenance.”

The request for information on non-citizens comes as the Trump administration has arrested and moved to deport thousands of immigrants. Submitting a voter registration form while ineligible to vote is a crime so non-citizens that do so could be prosecuted and potentially deported. This kind of voter fraud, however, is extremely rare.

All three counties said they were reviewing the justice department’s request. The justice department did not return a request for comment.

Donald Trump said that the Wall Street Journal and its billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch want to settle the president’s defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.

On 18 July, Trump promptly sued the WSJ and its owners, including Murdoch, over a story alleging that Trump’s name was on a “lewd” birthday message for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to shared secrets.

“I’ve been treated badly by the Wall Street Journal. I would have assumed that Rupert Murdoch controls it, but, you know, maybe does, maybe doesn’t,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“They are talking to us about doing something but we’ll see what happens. Maybe they would like us to drop that, so we’ll see … yeah, they’re having, they want to settle it,” he said, adding, “when I get treated unfairly, I do things about it.”

Trump’s lawsuit called the alleged letter “fake” and said the Journal published its article to harm his reputation.

In a court filing yesterday, Trump asked a US court to order a swift deposition for Murdoch.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Donald Trump also told reporters on Air Force One that he thinks he will have a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping before the end of the year, but did not elaborate.

Donald Trump said he would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia “ten days from today” if Moscow did not make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine.

Trump, who first announced yesterday that he was cutting his initial 50-day deadline for action from Moscow, said he had not heard a response from Russia.

He told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was not worried about the potential impact of Russian sanctions on the oil market or prices, saying the US would boost domestic oil production to offset any impact.

Earlier today, my colleague Jakub Krupa reported that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Russia “has taken note” of president Trump’s comments.

He then said that a “special military operation” – their term for their illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine – continues, but Russia “remains committed to the peace process to resolve the conflict around Ukraine and secure our interests” – despite deadly attacks overnight.

Peskov also confirmed that there was a “slowdown” in Russian efforts to revive diplomatic relations with the US. Trump yesterday voiced his frustration with Vladimir Putin, saying:

I thought we’d be able to negotiate something. Maybe that’ll still happen, but it’s very late down the process. I’m disappointed … I’m not so interested in talking any more.