Donald Trump has said that he wants Bill Pulte, his new acting director of national intelligence, to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during the president’s second term.
Trump noted that the size of the office as been “way too high for way too long,” and that “if he cut, I wouldn’t mind”.
“Bill Pulte is very good, he’s very talented,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. The president said in an earlier interview with the Wall Street Journal that he has asked Pulte to start the process of firing employees.
ICE to stop reporting deaths of newly released detainees
A memo issued by the acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, David Venturella, has ordered the federal agency to cease reporting the deaths of newly released detainees, in a change that could obscure the full human cost of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration mass detention policies.
Senate passes Trump’s $70bn immigration bill in vote-a-rama
The US Senate passed legislation to fund Donald Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown early on Friday morning, ending a partial government shutdown that has lingered since February. The 52-47 vote on funding for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security passed with no Democratic support at 5am, after a marathon session of votes to knock down proposed amendments.
California governor’s race: DoJ sends in federal observer over slow count
The US justice department on Friday sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, as Donald Trump continues to make baseless claims that California Democrats were “rigging” the results to win primary elections in the nation’s biggest blue state.
State officials have rejected the allegations, but the delay in results immediately fuelled misinformation about the integrity of California’s elections, with the president, who has long fanned election-conspiracy theories, repeatedly accusing the state of “cheating”.
On Friday afternoon, Xavier Becerra advanced to the November general election, but election officials were continuing to count ballots to determine whether he will face fellow Democrat Tom Steyer or Republican Steve Hilton.
Starmer suggests US ‘trying to interfere in our democracy’ over Nowak claims
Keir Starmer has suggested the US is trying to interfere in British democracy after JD Vance, the US vice-president, blamed the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration.
DoJ argues that no court can block Trump’s ballroom project
No court has the authority to halt construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom and a secure underground facility, a Department of Justice lawyer has argued, suggesting only US Congress had the power to stop the project.
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened Thursday 4 June.
