Senate holds vote marathon on amendments to Trump’s ‘one big beautiful bill’ – US politics live | US news

The day so far

  • Vote-a-rama is under way in the Senate on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that would enact his domestic tax and spending agenda – and add an estimated $3.3tn to the national debt over the next decade. The final vote on passage could come as late as the early hours of tomorrow morning. Trump has been meeting with Senate majority leader John Thune and House speaker Mike Johnson in an effort to pressure Republicans to back the bill and meet Trump’s imposed 4 July deadline. But it’ll be tight for the GOP. They can only afford to lose three votes for the legislation to pass and two senators have already expressed they’re firm no’s – Rand Paul and Thom Tillis, who today said he won’t be seeking re-election – while several key moderate holdouts have kept their cards close to their chests today.

  • Trump is due to sign an executive order terminating US sanctions on Syria, following through on his decision in May to unwind the measures to help Syria rebuild after 14 devastating years of civil war. Some sanctions on former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and other individuals will remain in place including those on Assad’s associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, people linked to chemical weapons activities, the Islamic State and ISIS affiliates and proxies for Iran.

  • Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said late last night that trade talks with the US had resumed after Canada rescinded its plan to tax US technology firms. Today, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett confirmed that the United States would restart trade negotiations with Canada immediately. Trump had abruptly called off trade talks on Friday amid a dispute over the levy and threatened new tariffs on Canadian goods over the tax, which would’ve come into effect today.

  • The Trump administration sued the city of Los Angeles over policies limiting city cooperation with federal immigration authorities, continuing a confrontation over Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts in the largely Democratic city. The lawsuit, filed by the justice department, alleges that policies barring city resources from aiding in immigration enforcement operations or collecting information about individuals’ citizenship status violate federal law.

  • The Trump administration informed Harvard University that its investigation found that the university violated federal civil rights law over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, putting its federal funding further at risk.

  • Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 7 July, Axios is reporting, citing an Israeli official. Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer will also meet with officials at the White House this week for talks on Iran and a new push for a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel’s ongoing and relentless bombardment on Gaza killed at least another 38 civilians today.

  • Trump wrote to Fed chair Jerome Powell again urging him to lower interest rates. Attacking Powell and members of the Fed board of governors, who he accused of failing to do their jobs, the president said today that he believes interest rates should be lowered to about 1%. Powell and the Fed have stated many times that they take independent economic decisions.

  • Trump will travel tomorrow to the opening of the new – and highly controversial – immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”.

  • EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has said he will fly to Washington tomorrow for trade talks. “We are absolutely focusing on … a positive outcome,” he told reporters.

  • Trump has suggested there won’t be a trade deal with Japan, saying that Japan would be the recipient of a letter related to trade, following pledges by his administration to send letters to countries outlining tariffs they would need to pay to the UA.

  • The Trump administration appealed a federal judge’s decision to strike down an executive order targeting law firm Perkins Coie over its past legal work for Hillary Clinton and others.

  • The US has revoked visas for members of Britain’s Bob Vylan punk-rap duo after they led anti-IDF chants during their set at the Glastonbury music festival over the weekend that the state department and the BBC, which broadcast the event, said were antisemitic. The state department did not immediately give more details as to the names of those who had visas revoked and what kind of visas they were. Bob Vylan is scheduled to play some concerts in the US in November.

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Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database

Johana Bhuiyan

Johana Bhuiyan

The US Department of Homeland Security has for the first time built a national citizenship database that combines information from immigration agencies and the social security administration.

The database was created in collaboration with the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) in an effort to bridge the gaps between disparate information sources to make it easier to determine whether someone is a citizen, according to NPR, which first reported the details of the database.

The database is the result of an expansion of the systematic alien verification for entitlements (Save) program, made up of smaller databases within the homeland security department, and an integration with information from the Social Security Administration. The centralized repository is searchable and can be accessed by state and local election officials to look up the names of anyone trying to vote to determine if they are citizens, according to NPR. Until now, election officials had to ask potential voters for documents verifying their citizenship or rely on a hard-to-navigate patchwork of databases.

In response to a request for comment, the DHS said: “Integration with the Social Security Administration (SSA) significantly improves the service offered by Save.”

Previously, agencies involved in voting were required to use numbers issued by the DHS to look up voter registrations, which they may not have had access to but may have been more likely to possess social security numbers, according to the statement. The citizenship database may also soon integrate state department of motor vehicles (DMV) data, NPR reported.

The DHS statement also describes the motivations for the creation of the database: “Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate benefit and voter fraud among the alien population.” Voter fraud is rare in the US, experts say; consequences include fines or jail time.

The citizenship database is one of the first results of Doge’s efforts to gain access to and merge information on Americans from agencies across the federal government, including the Internal Revenue Service, in the first few months of the Trump administration.

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