Trump staged ‘hostile takeover’ of US 250th anniversary to serve ‘political ideology’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump hijacked the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations to serve “political ideology and pet projects”, a congressional report released today has revealed.
The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF).
It alleges that the president staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology.
In 2016 Congress established the US semiquincentennial commission, operating as the nonprofit America250 Foundation, to plan the nation’s 2026 celebrations on a nonpartisan basis. However, under Trump, the White House launched a sustained pressure campaign to subsume the commission.
When America250 leadership resisted its demands to shift focus toward partisan, campaign-style spectacles, the Trump administration created Freedom 250 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the congressionally chartered NPF.
The interim report finds that, by taking control of the NPF board and installing key campaign operatives such as Meredith O’Rourke and Chris LaCivita, the White House secured an opaque vehicle that enjoyed the NPF’s nonpartisan credibility and tax-exempt status while operating outside standard government transparency laws.
Jared Huffman, a California congressman who is the top Democrat on the natural resources committee, said:
I can’t, in my time here in Congress, remember anything even remotely like this: watching this trusted, venerable charity organisation, the National Parks Foundation, literally be hijacked for a craven political agenda that tries to steal the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and turn it into something that’s all about Trump, advancing this very divisive agenda and even enriching Trump and those around him.
Read the full report here:
In other developments:
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The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers will focus on keeping pregnant non-citizens from giving birth in the US to acquire birthright citizenship. He did not mention that Donald Trump’s father was born in New York to a non-citizen mother who arrived six months pregnant.
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Trump batted down questions about the $1.2bn he earned from crypto businesses, according to his latest annual financial disclosures.
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Trump refused to renew the North American trade pact he once championed as his signature deal, opting instead to keep it alive on a short leash of annual reviews.
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The mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, plans to deliver what his office calls a “major address” on Friday to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, “surrounded by recently naturalized citizens.”
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A federal judge blocked a proposed restriction on mail-in voting across the US, challenging a crackdown on elections ordered by Donald Trump.
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During a visit to a new museum dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt, Trump asked an AI rendition of the 26th president about the Panama canal. Trump then lied to supporters about the exchange.
Key events
Last spring, Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history” by wiping away any suggestion that the United States was “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” from national parks and federal lands.
The order required National Park Service staff to review every sign, brochure, film or book at a national park that “inappropriately disparages” Americans or is “unrelated to the beauty, abundance and grandeur of the American landscape”. Park rangers flagged thousands of materials to the government. Some of these were then removed or altered.
As part of the Guardian’s Deleted Data project, my colleagues Amy Qin and Flávio Pessoa have reviewed every submission and classified them by topic. The most common themes were Native American history, slavery, the climate crisis and the civil rights movement and Black history.
They write: “Critics say what’s happening in the national parks is more insidious than pandering to Donald Trump’s base or winning “culture wars” – it’s about the erasure of anyone who is not white, wealthy, Christian or male, and it’ll likely have a chilling effect on how history is told at the national parks for years to come.”
“It’s both stupid and uninformed and very pernicious,” said Anne Mitchell Whisnant, a history professor at Duke University who helped write visitor handbooks and conduct history research for several national parks in the US south-east prior to the Trump administration. “The Trump administration has a very particular idea of whose stories are important and whose stories made the America that they hope to restore.”
You can read the full report on Trump’s assault on US history here:
Trump posts AI video blasting celebrities for ‘Trump derangement syndrome’
The president has frequently used his social media, since he returned to the White House, to share AI-generated images and video. On Thursday, he posted his latest example – a deepfake clip that portrays him as a doctor talking about the symptoms of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” or TDS – a fictional condition that he has made up to undermine his critics. The video also includes several AI depictions of celebrities who have spoken out against the president and his administration all discussing how their lives have been affected by TDS.
“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, constantly angry,” said a deepfake version of Robert De Niro. “I made everyone miserable around me.”
In the video the AI-version of Trump, decked out in a white coat and stethoscope, said the “treatment” for TDS is to “turn off fake news, say your prayers, and if you ever feel anxious just have a Diet Coke like me, and you’re going to see a remarkable difference in your life.”
In response to the video, Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said that the president is “right” and that “Trump Derangement Syndrome is a crippling disease that has unfortunately rotted the brains of many people.” Officials did not confirm whether the White House had reached out to any of the performers depicted, which include Whoopi Goldberg, Edward Norton and Julia Roberts, about using their likeness.
My colleagues in Europe have been covering the latest strike in Kyiv, and note that a senior Ukrainian defence official, Rustem Umerov, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have held talks in the past two days, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Speaking at one of the sites targeted in a devastating Russian attack, as rescuers sifted through rubble, Zelenskyy said he still hoped Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff would visit Ukraine even though US-backed peace efforts to end the war have stalled for months. The Ukrainian president added that he hoped to have a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of a Nato summit in the Turkish capital Ankara next week.
Robert Tait
After a momentous term that ended with Tuesday’s rejection of Trump’s attempt to scrap birthright citizenship as a core tenet of American life, the supreme court has acquiesced in multiple power grabs from the White House’s most consequential occupant in generations to leave a dramatically transformed political landscape.
The birthright ruling, upholding the right to citizenship of anyone born in the US, appeared on the surface to constitute a major setback to Trump on one of his key signature issues.
The apparent rebuff recalled the court’s rejection in February of the president’s use of the emergency economic powers act to impose tariffs on a vast panoply of imports. The verdict provoked a fierce personal attack from Trump on the justices that ruled against him – yet still left him free to pursue tariffs by other mechanisms.
Closer inspection reveals a court that has shifted its perception of what is legally possible, while accommodating Trump’s extravagant and expansive view of his own presidential powers.
Nothing illustrates the sea change in legal perceptions as the lackluster manner of the court’s support for birthright citizenship, legal scholars say.
Read the full report here:
AOC endorses progressive Democrat in closely watched Michigan Senate race
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has thrown her support behind Abdul El-Sayed, the doctor and progressive Democrat seeking the party’s nomination in Michigan’s closely watched Senate race.
In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed El-Sayed, a former public health director, saying that “despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential.”
She told the Times: “I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”
The race to replace outgoing senator Gary Peters has become one of the cycle’s most competitive Democratic primaries, shaping up as a test between insurgent and establishment-backed candidates – and a proxy for the party’s broader ideological rift.
El-Sayed, who already has the backing of independent senator Bernie Sanders, is hoping to capitalize on the momentum of other progressives who have notched congressional primary wins in recent months. He now leads his challengers in the latest polls, a field that includes congresswoman Haley Stevens – backed by senior Democratic leadership, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer – and state senator Mallory McMorrow, who has drawn support from prominent Democrats such as senator Elizabeth Warren.
As my colleague Tom Perkins reported last year, El-Sayed’s populist economic platform includes banning tax incentives for companies like Amazon, imposing new taxes on billionaires, eliminating medical debt and strengthening anti-monopoly laws to curb corporate price gouging.
Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement marks her first in a Senate primary this midterm cycle. El-Sayed welcomed the support, writing on X: “AOC has spent her career taking on the powerful on behalf of everyday people, and she has shown all of us what courageous, smart, values-driven leadership looks like. I’m deeply honored to earn her endorsement. Onward to victory.”
Michigan is a critical hold for Democrats as they look to flip several Senate seats and regain control of the upper chamber. The Democratic nominee in the Great Lake State is likely to face former Republican representative Mike Rogers in the general election. Rogers previously ran for Senate in 2024 and lost to Elissa Slotkin by less than 0.5% of the vote, despite Donald Trump carrying the state.
Lauren Almeida
OpenAI is reportedly in early stage talks to give a 5% stake in the ChatGPT developer to the US government as artificial intelligence companies attempt to smooth relations with Donald Trump’s administration.
The OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, has argued that giving the US public a financial stake in the company is the best way to share the benefits of AI, according to the Financial Times, which cited two unnamed people familiar with the discussions.
The proposal would also involve other US AI companies giving a similar stake to the government, the FT reported, although it is not clear yet whether companies such as Anthropic, Google and Meta would agree to the plan.
Such a deal would help improve the industry’s relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public.
The proposal comes amid growing pressure from Washington on US AI companies. Last month Anthropic suspended its newest model after the government ordered it to curtail access for foreign nationals, on national security grounds. This week it said it had restored customer access to the model after resolving the government’s safety concerns.
Altman and other OpenAI bosses have suggested that each of the biggest AI developers in the US should give 5% to their equity to an investment vehicle such as the Alaska Permanent Fund, a sovereign fund that invests US oil wealth into stocks and pays dividends to the state, the FT reported.
In Washington today, defense secretary Pete Hegseth is due to arrive at Meridian Hill Park. He’ll appear with National Guard members, to highlight the work of the Trump administration’s DC beautification taskforce. It will take place at the park’s thirteen basin cascading fountain, which recently reopened after seven years of sitting inoperative.
My colleague, Gaya Gupta, notes that the latest jobs numbers make it all the more likely that the US Federal Reserve will continue to focus on inflation at its next meeting in late July.
Last month, the Fed’s new chair, Kevin Warsh, emphasized “price stability” in his first press conference since taking office and said the central bank will continue to pursue its longstanding goal of a 2% inflation rate. But this week, he told a conference of central bankers that “inflation risks have come down”.
Since February, the war in the Middle East has rapidly pushed up inflation, reaching a three-year high of 4.2% in May. Despite the fragile peace deal reached between the US and Iran, prices at the pump remain elevated and it’s unclear whether the June inflation figures, which are scheduled to be released later this month, will reflect the latest negotiations.
US adds 57,000 jobs in June, lower than expected
US employers added 57,000 jobs in June, dropping since last month’s figures, and considerably lower than economists predicted. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment continued to trend up in professional and business services, social assistance, and health care. Leisure and hospitality lost jobs. The June unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%, compared to 4.3% the month prior. A reminder that US employers added 172,000 jobs in May.
The labor market appears to be holding steady in the face of rising inflation and economic uncertainty brought on by continued conflict in the Middle East.
However, BLS also noted that the revised numbers from April and May’ mean that employment across both months is 74,000 lower than previously reported.
Donald Trump will be in Washington today, but he has no public events. He’ll spend most of the day in private policy meetings, and tape a television interview at 4pm ET.
At 5pm ET, CNBC will air an interview with the president. We’ll let you know if anything changes with Trump’s schedule.
Francine Prose
One reason to celebrate America’s national big birthday – our 250th on the Fourth of July – is to honor the unusual longevity of our democratic experiment. Democracies rarely last, but ours has. Even if we know its flawed history – the land grab and slaughter of the indigenous population; slavery; enduring racial, gender and economic inequalities – it’s hard to fault the admirable, high-minded idealism of the Bill of Rights and the US constitution.
I’m all for celebrating democracy. The bicentennial was fun. I lived outside a small rural town where there was a parade, a fife and drum corps, tricornered hats, flags and fireworks. Then president Gerald Ford had sponsored civil rights legislation. Roe v Wade was three years old. There were brilliant and honorable judges serving on the US supreme court. The Vietnam war had ended. Obviously there were problems: our growing military presence in Central America, the bankrupting and colonization of American inner cities, growing disparities. Even so, there was a hope in the air, a sense that things might be looking up.
But I’m a little unsure of how the birthday party will go on 4 July 2026, when Donald Trump and his minions celebrate the 250th anniversary of a democracy they have rapidly and intentionally made less democratic. Week by week, law after law, ruling after ruling, we’ve watched many of our constitutional freedoms – the cornerstones on which is democracy is built – compromised, eroded or obliterated.
Freedom of the press has given way to censorship and the installation of biased political operatives in place of investigative journalists. Our freedom of speech has been diminished with every political protester who has been silenced, assaulted, arrested and in some cases deported.
George Chidi
A federal judge blocked a proposed restriction on mail-in voting across the US, challenging a crackdown on elections ordered by Donald Trump.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US district court for the District of Columbia ruled that a US Postal Service (USPS) plan to deny ballots to voters in states that do not turn over their voter rolls to the federal government should not proceed.
It was the second time in recent weeks that the US president’s plan to restrict mail-in-voting has suffered a setback in court.
The decision by Sullivan bars the postal service from enforcing an executive order issued by Trump in March that called for sweeping changes to the administration of elections nationwide.
In accordance with the order, the postal service issued a proposed rule on 2 June that would require states to give the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access to lists of voters and to adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would make deliveries. If states did not comply, USPS would refuse to deliver the ballots.
Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by the Democratic former president Bill Clinton, sided with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) civil rights group, which argued that the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement which forced USPS officials to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail.
In that case, the NAACP sued the postal service in 2020 after delayed mail service threatened election access for voters during the Covid-19 pandemic.
David Smith
The sound of YMCA by the Village People booming through the badlands of North Dakota could only mean one thing: Donald Trump’s 250th anniversary travelling circus had reached a remote corner of America more familiar with bison, wild horses and bighorn sheep.
The US president visited Medora on Wednesday to dedicate a $450m library and museum honouring Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, in the region where he roamed as a cowboy and big-game hunter in the 1880s.
In what critics saw as his latest effort to cloak himself in the mantle of great men of history, Trump delivered a speech that drew comparisons with Roosevelt, whose face is carved into Mount Rushmore in neighbouring South Dakota, but notably said little about his predecessor’s environmental legacy.
Even by the haphazard standards of the America250 events so far, Wednesday’s extravaganza was bizarre. Trump’s trip marked the debut of a refurbished Boeing 747 gifted by Qatar that will serve as Air Force One, featuring a red, white, dark blue and gold paint scheme selected by the president.
Against a dramatic landscape of eroded hills, deep ravines and layered rock, Trump then emulated Roosevelt’s whistle-stop tours by taking a short journey on a train painted red, white and blue with bunting and the words “Freedom”, “Liberty” and “1776-2026”.
Trump refuses to renew US-Canada-Mexico trade pact he once championed
Joseph Gedeon
Donald Trump has refused to renew the North American trade pact he once championed as his signature deal, opting instead to keep it alive on a short leash of annual reviews rather than committing to another 16 years.
Wednesday was the deadline built into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for the three countries to jointly decide its fate, which is set to expire in 2036.
After virtual talks between officials from all three governments, the US trade representative’s office confirmed that Washington had walked away from renewing the deal on its existing terms, pointing to persistent US trade deficits with both neighbors.
The refusal does not kill the pact outright, however. USMCA stays in force while negotiations continue, but it will now face a review every year rather than once every six, as originally designed.
A senior administration official, briefing reporters on a call announcing the decision, said Trump had “chose not to rubber stamp a USMCA renewal without addressing existing issues”.
The official added: “So in other words, the United States did not agree to renew the USMCA in its current form. So, as a result, the USMCA is not renewed.”
In a statement, Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, said the US would “continue to engage with Mexico and Canada to address the Agreement’s shortcomings”.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mexico’s economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said his government wants to address the issues raised by the US on foreign dependence.
“There is no difference that I can identify between Mexico, the United States and Canada that is so big that we cannot resolve it,” he said, according to Reuters.
Trump staged ‘hostile takeover’ of US 250th anniversary to serve ‘political ideology’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump hijacked the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations to serve “political ideology and pet projects”, a congressional report released today has revealed.
The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF).
It alleges that the president staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology.
In 2016 Congress established the US semiquincentennial commission, operating as the nonprofit America250 Foundation, to plan the nation’s 2026 celebrations on a nonpartisan basis. However, under Trump, the White House launched a sustained pressure campaign to subsume the commission.
When America250 leadership resisted its demands to shift focus toward partisan, campaign-style spectacles, the Trump administration created Freedom 250 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the congressionally chartered NPF.
The interim report finds that, by taking control of the NPF board and installing key campaign operatives such as Meredith O’Rourke and Chris LaCivita, the White House secured an opaque vehicle that enjoyed the NPF’s nonpartisan credibility and tax-exempt status while operating outside standard government transparency laws.
Jared Huffman, a California congressman who is the top Democrat on the natural resources committee, said:
I can’t, in my time here in Congress, remember anything even remotely like this: watching this trusted, venerable charity organisation, the National Parks Foundation, literally be hijacked for a craven political agenda that tries to steal the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and turn it into something that’s all about Trump, advancing this very divisive agenda and even enriching Trump and those around him.
Read the full report here:
In other developments:
-
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers will focus on keeping pregnant non-citizens from giving birth in the US to acquire birthright citizenship. He did not mention that Donald Trump’s father was born in New York to a non-citizen mother who arrived six months pregnant.
-
Trump batted down questions about the $1.2bn he earned from crypto businesses, according to his latest annual financial disclosures.
-
Trump refused to renew the North American trade pact he once championed as his signature deal, opting instead to keep it alive on a short leash of annual reviews.
-
The mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, plans to deliver what his office calls a “major address” on Friday to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, “surrounded by recently naturalized citizens.”
-
A federal judge blocked a proposed restriction on mail-in voting across the US, challenging a crackdown on elections ordered by Donald Trump.
-
During a visit to a new museum dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt, Trump asked an AI rendition of the 26th president about the Panama canal. Trump then lied to supporters about the exchange.