The Latest: Federal judge bars Trump’s proof of citizenship requirement to vote
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7:35 AM on Wednesday, June 24
By The Associated Press
A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The judge agreed that the states and Congress have constitutional authority over elections, deeming Trump’s requirements a violation of the separation of powers.
Trump’s push for stricter voter identification rules in federal elections has been ruffling Senate Republicans. Trump worsened tensions earlier Wednesday by abruptly canceling plans to sign a bipartisan affordable housing measure, insisting that the Senate first move his voting legislation even though it doesn’t have enough support to pass.
At a preplanned luncheon, Trump is meeting with GOP senators who have grown increasingly frustrated by his diversions from the party’s agenda and his unclear Iran war strategy. Republican senators had hoped to use the housing bill Trump abandoned to show voters they care about affordability ahead of the November midterm elections.
Trump also has a face-to-face Wednesday with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, two weeks ahead of the annual summit of the military alliance, as the Pentagon reviews the U.S. military footprint in Europe.
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“At which point, as I recall, he did not particularly care for my comments,” Cassidy said. “Raised his voice. I lost my temper. That’s not appropriate. It’s the Irish in me. But I again matched his tone and his volume.”
After someone in the room encouraged Cassidy to sit down, the senator said he agreed and sought to de-escalate the situation.
“I guess my point is, though, that the American people need to know more than we are being told,” Cassidy added.
The back-and-forth is a remarkable exchange between a Republican senator and the president of his own party. It comes after Trump backed a challenger who defeated Cassidy in his primary last month, a loss that the senator said the president brought up during the meeting.
Sen. Bill Cassidy said his standoff with Trump began when the president asked why anyone would support the war powers resolution that passed the Senate on Tuesday.
“I said, ‘Is that a rhetorical question or would you really like to know?’” the Louisiana Republican told reporters on Capitol Hill after Trump’s private lunch with the Senate GOP ended.
Cassidy said the president wanted an explanation.
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on,’” Cassidy said. “This is supposed to last four weeks. It’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”
Cassidy said he told the president he would continue voting for the war powers resolution until he received a briefing from the administration.
Olympian Jessie Diggins visited Capitol Hill with her four medals in hand Wednesday to advocate for clean air, clean water and a healthy planet.
America’s most decorated cross-country skier is part of “Protect Our Winters,” an athlete-driven environmental group that sent a coalition to Washington to meet with lawmakers Tuesday and Wednesday. The group is most concerned with how the Environmental Protection Agency has weakened key climate, water and pollution regulations since Trump returned to office.
“I don’t want to stick my head in the sand and ignore the world burning,” Diggins said in an interview. “I feel like I have a responsibility to use my voice to advocate for change.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said the agency will save trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes, to make the cost of living more affordable and reignite domestic manufacturing.
The president is on Capitol Hill meeting with Senate Republicans hours after pulling back on plans to sign a bipartisan housing bill.
A federal judge has permanently barred Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections.
His order included provisions that would have required people to show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and would have prevented mail ballots from being counted if they were received after Election Day.
The ruling on Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper effectively makes permanent a preliminary order she issued a year ago.
Casper agreed with arguments from Democratic attorneys general who filed the lawsuit that the Constitution gives states and Congress, not the president, the power to regulate elections.
Ahead of Trump’s arrival on Capitol Hill, Republican senators were processing his decision to cancel the signing of the housing bill.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi called the move “unexpected” and said he read the president’s message “with interest.” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Trump’s reversal “makes no sense” and would hurt Republicans in the November midterm elections.
“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president’s doing right now,” Tillis said. “And it’s the Democrat Party.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said Trump was “using everything as leverage to get the SAVE America Act passed.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the president’s closest allies in Congress, refused to talk to reporters about Wednesday’s developments.
The president’s announcement came at an awkward time for House Republican leadership, coming just as they were speaking at a press conference about the importance of the bill in addressing affordability — a key issue for voters this year.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise had just described it as “really important bill to lower housing costs.”
“Let’s show the American people what legislating looks like,” added Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill. “Let’s show the American people how you bring together and do something on a bicameral basis, and we did that.”
A reporter then asked about Trump’s cancellation as they took questions. Speaker Mike Johnson said he had spoken with Trump earlier Wednesday and was confident he would sign the bill.
“The president, when we go through the details of the bill, he’s going to understand that it’s a good product,” Johnson said.
The bipartisan housing bill was as close as it comes to a “Kumbaya” moment in Washington, but the Democratic senator who helped craft the measure said she couldn’t understand why Trump thought canceling the signing ceremony was a smart idea.
“This just doesn’t make any sense,” Warren said on CNBC, saying the only conclusion she could draw is that Trump has “a complete indifference to the cost squeeze on American families, and to genuine efforts to do something about it.”
The Massachusetts lawmaker said Trump is his own worst enemy when it comes to lowering interest rates to help make housing more affordable.
She said his tariffs, his energy policies and his Iran war have kept inflation running hotter than it should, keeping borrowing costs high.
Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas said Trump refused to sign the bill “all because of political games.”
“Families are struggling to afford a home,” she posted on X. “Stop the nonsense and sign the BIPARTISAN bill.”
An analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center says the bill incorporates provisions from more than 60 measures introduced in the House, Senate, or both chambers — 36 of which had bipartisan sponsors.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults feel “proud” about the country’s 250th anniversary, according to a new AP-NORC survey. Roughly 3 in 10 say “excited” describes their emotions.
But as the celebrations begin, many Americans also feel indifferent or conflicted. New Gallup polling shows about 8 in 10 Americans now feel the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed with how the U.S. has turned out, a substantial increase from 25 years ago.
Laura Davis, a 44-year-old in Chicago who identifies as a progressive liberal, has struggled with what she describes as the “American declarations of grandiosity” this year, including Trump’s White House ballroom construction and the repainting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
That money could be better spent on Americans in need as well as international aid, she said, and she worries the country’s reputation is being damaged by the Trump administration’s actions.
Testing the Iran war’s uneasy ceasefire, the announcement from Tehran follows an Israeli airstrike Wednesday that killed two people, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency. It was Israel’s first airstrike on Lebanon since the latest ceasefire took effect on Saturday.
Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday that the U.S. had not demanded that Israel withdraw from Lebanon and maintained that Israel will remain there as long as Hezbollah poses a threat to its troops and residents. Hezbollah has refused to halt attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing.
“We are not withdrawing, and as of this moment — and this is a diplomatic achievement — there is no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,” said minister Israel Katz.
Lebanese and Israeli officials are meeting again this week in Washington. Lebanon hopes the direct negotiations will result in a plan for Israeli withdrawal.
The Trump administration has reached a multistate settlement with chemical giant Chemours Co. over yearslong, illegal discharges of synthetic “forever chemicals” used to make products resistant to water, grease and stains.
The settlement is the first by the federal government to resolve enforcement claims against a manufacturer of harmful chemicals known as PFAS.
Under the agreement, Chemours will pay a civil penalty of $22.5 million for alleged violations and spend $90 million over 15 years to mitigate PFAS discharges in three states: West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey. The company also agreed to install PFAS pollution controls and supply clean drinking water to affected communities. Combined, the penalties and relief programs are estimated to cost $450 million.
The Associated Press learned details of the settlement, which allows Chemours to continue manufacturing PFAS for commercial and military applications, ahead of an announcement expected later Wednesday.
The president posted on social media that he would no longer be signing, as planned for Wednesday, a bipartisan measure to increase home construction.
“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby canceled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump said.
Trump has been pushing the Senate to remove the filibuster in order to pass the SAVE America Act, which would introduce new voter identification requirements.
Democratic lawmakers say the measure as written would be a form of voter suppression.
It turns out that Trump doesn’t care much about the bipartisan bill to spur more home construction that he plans to sign on Thursday.
Posting on social media, he dismissed the measure that his rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., helped to craft.
He said the housing measure, which aims to reduce federal regulations, expand local control and ban corporate investors from buying up single-family homes, was “of minor importance compared to lower interest rates.” Thirty-year mortgage rates are averaging around 6.5%, having spiked from 6% earlier this year with the start of the Iran war.
The president used his post to say that his SAVE America Act on voter identification was more important, even though polling shows the electorate is primarily concerned about affordability. Trump has been pushing the Senate to eliminate the filibuster in order to pass the voting measure.
A West Point graduate and a career special operations commander, Donahue commanded Delta Force units in Iraq and Afghanistan before leading the 82nd Airborne from July 2020 to March 2022. His departure from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war was documented in an iconic photo.
Hegseth and Trump had made the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan — an operation set in motion by a treaty Trump negotiated during his first term — a regular political punching bag. But Donahue’s leadership during the evacuation drew bipartisan praise. Within the Army, he was widely seen as a top officer who could have led the service or been chosen to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Hegseth ordered the new examination of the withdrawal despite there having already been multiple reviews of the operation by the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command, the State Department and Congress, which have involved hundreds of interviews and studies of videos, photographs and other footage and data. It’s unclear what specific new information the new review is seeking.
Gen. Christopher Donahue — famously the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan in 2021 — is unexpectedly stepping down after just 18 months in the job.
An Army official who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about sensitive discussions told The Associated Press that Donahue’s departure comes as the Army is discussing downgrading U.S. Army Europe and Africa from four-star to a three-star command amid criticism from Hegseth about European allies.
Donahue, commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command, will relinquish his command on July 2, according to an Army statement provided to The Associated Press. He’s among nearly two dozen top military leaders to either retire or depart early under the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his mantra of “less generals, more GIs.”
By Konstantin Toropin
“This is going to happen,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Wednesday.
The IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear enrichment sites are key component in the interim U.S.-Iran deal to reach an end to the war, but an Iranian diplomat insisted any such visit would only come after a final deal.
The U.S. and Iran have repeatedly disagreed in public about what the document they signed actually means. Their dueling narratives also involve the status of Israel’s war with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and how Tehran will spend billions of dollars once unfrozen.
Grossi’s remarks were the firmest yet from the United Nations agency viewed as key in determining the status of Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
The Trump administration has announced the limited reopening, more than three months after it was shuttered at the height of the war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a ceremonial flag-raising at the embassy compound in Kuwait City on Wednesday during the second leg of a three-nation tour of Gulf allies.
“Effective at midnight on June 24, 2026, the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait resumed operations following a suspension caused by Iranian attacks,” the State Department said. “The Embassy will immediately resume emergency services for American citizens, with other services phased in gradually.”
The embassy suspended operations on March 5, amid intensifying Iranian drone and missile retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. Ot was the only one to entirely close down, although all others in the region reduced staffing by either allowing or ordering non-emergency personnel to leave their posts.
U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts of San Francisco ordered an end to the arrests, saying in part that the reversal of longstanding policy failed to address the “chilling effect” on attendance at court hearings and resulted from “a complete lack of decision-making.”
“For 80 years, Congress has commanded federal agencies to think before they act,” wrote Pitts, referring to the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act, which demands that an agency at least provide sound reasons for following its chosen course.”
Another federal judge in May also barred arrests at immigration courts, but that order applied only in New York. This decision invalidates the policy nationwide.
James Percival, the U.S. Homeland Security Department’s general counsel, criticized Tuesday's ruling as an exercise in judicial overreach.
After two of Trump ’s picks for governor lost Republican primaries this month, he ensured it wouldn’t happen again. The president endorsed both GOP candidates in a South Carolina runoff, and one of them inevitably won.
Meanwhile New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved his endorsement power after boosting three progressives over establishment-backed candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. All three won, all but ensuring that two self-described democratic socialists will represent their deep blue districts in Congress. The mayor said it was a question of electing “better Democrats” who would “put working people back at the heart of politics.”
The losers in New York’s House primaries included New York Assemblyman Alex Bores, a former Palantir employee who pushed sweeping state-level AI regulation; Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy; and former Republican lawyer George Conway.
The President sees America’s 250th anniversary as a chance to get the country excited again — about Donald Trump.
He’s hosting a rally Wednesday on the National Mall, promising a stealth bomber flyover, military bands, singer Lee Greenwood of “God Bless the USA” fame and a speech by who else but Trump.
The president is trying to convince American voters that he’s put the unpopular Iran war in the rearview mirror, with oil prices easing as the Strait of Hormuz reopens amid negotiations with Tehran. The rally kicks off weeks of celebrations about America and its 1776 founding.
After musicians including Young MC and the Commodores canceled, Trump said he’s stepping into the void as “the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime.”
He said Wednesday’s event would be “the biggest rally we’ve ever had.”
Trump said on social media that gasoline prices are not matching the decline in oil prices, so he has told the Justice Department “to immediately start looking into this.”
Crude oil prices have eased with the interim deal with Iran, which has enabled more oil tankers to start passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Prices at the pump are averaging $3.93 a gallon, according to AAA. Gasoline costs have fallen over the past month, just not as much as Trump would like.
“In other words, customers are being ‘gouged,’” Trump posted. “I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!
